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Why (as in yaverbaum)
which avoided being dropped into the trunk, were a small motorized metal arcade in which pictures of mean cowboys moved slowly across the front edge awaiting a kill to be administered by someone (yours truly) skilled with a (rubber-tipped) dart gun; Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, when I was younger; a special-edition Erector Set (when I was older), which I first learned about when I visited Peter and Johnny; a “space city”; and, you guessed it, a Lionel model train set. (When I got older still, I graduated to making model airplanes, but I usually made a mess of them.) I still have the Lionel engine. It not only ran around an oval, but it also had a passing track with working “switches,” an aircraft tower with a beacon that rotated because of the heat generated by a lit bulb, and, best, a log car that received logs from a Lionel Log Loader and could thereafter unload them on the carpet. (When I built my model railroad in Roxbury, I was given the current edition of the Log Loader as a gift.) My father fashioned a tunnel for the loop, using mate- rials that went into the making of plaster casts for broken bones. (He had also made a wonderful finger puppet for me, using the same mate- rial for the painted head.) I only wish that he (and my mom) could see my layout today.
But outdoor games occupied most of my time. When I was still not quite at an age where I would be permitted to walk to join friends in ball games on the side streets, a playground, or the schoolyard, I was permit- ted to play within the confines of our block. Our small backyard at 1771 Ocean was flanked by the backyard of the kid next door and backed onto the backyard of yet another contemporary whose house was on Avenue M. Although there were fences separating the properties, they were no barriers to a resourceful six- or seven-year-old. Thus, the three treed (yes, there were trees growing in Brooklyn) and fenced backyards were in effect one field, which formed on ideal area for running to catch fire- flies in a jar, digging holes, and playing hide and seek, Spud, and, best of all, Cowboys and Indians, which was usually played with cap pistols.
Other outdoor games included Simon Says; Giant Steps (also known as “Mother May I?”), the rules of which are lost to me, but the experiences of doing permissible giant steps, baby steps, and umbrella
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