But within minutes, out woudld come the bucket and mom would scrub the entire floor on her hands and knees. The kitchen floor was so spotless, one wouldn’t have any hesitation picking up some food item that had dropped and popping it in one’s mouth. I’m sure if it was the fashion to diagnose every behavior, as it is now, she would have been found to have OCD, or obsessive compulsive disorder. My own mother didn’t have much interest in minding the children. It was a time when fathers worked and almost all the mothers stayed home to cook and clean and mind the children. We lived at the top of a hill that was the steepest you’d ever seen, and going down, would have meant having to push one’s bike or body back up that hill with great effort. When we needed space to play, it was “around the block,” Morningside Lane, where bunches of kids came together to play kick ball or stick ball or just rode bikes up and down the same block. It was a place where property sizes were tiny – just enough for a house, a bit of perimeter and a small backyard.
For others it might be a humorous memory. For some the experience haunts and scars. It’s a right of passage, one few of us forget. Lewellen, played by Dakota Fanning, asking her friend for a look at what’s beneath his pants in exchange for a kiss, in “Houndog.”
