When Kids Walked to School
I think my love for walking started in grade school. Every morning, my brother, the neighborhood boys, and I walked to Helen Keller Elementary together. And no, I did not go to a school for the blind. My older cousins made that joke at every family gathering. Had I been born a few miles over, I would’ve gone to Robert Frost or John Muir Elementary and would’ve avoided years of cousins walking around with their eyes closed and arms stretched out like Ray Charles, pretending they were blind. But alas, I didn’t. My cousins eventually graduated to knocking on my head with their knuckles like it was the front door, asking, “Hello…is anyone home?” — because, you know, Helen Keller was also deaf. None of this is politically correct these days, but in the '80s, no one cared.
We had a one mile walk to school that was relatively flat. We walked by a creek that we’d all jump over, hoping someone would fall in and have to go to school in wet trousers. Then we’d pass the crossing guard and head up 140th Street, where a well-worn path had been kept navigable by generations of little boys playing Huck Finn on their way to school.
You had to hike up an embankment with a steep slope on your left side, holding on to the branches of sappy trees to keep from falling as you scooted along. All the while, you were perched above passing cars and cootie-riddled girls. About halfway through, there was a worn-out rope tied to a tree that you’d use to swing over a gap in the embankment. I’m sure it was only a few feet, but when you’re ten years old, it felt like you were Indiana Jones. Every day was an adventure—rain or shine, sleet or snow. Kids in the Pacific Northwest were immune to bad weather.
We took another route to school once bicycles entered the equation. First of all, our 30-minute walk was cut in half, so there was more time to goof around. My brother and I would steal a package of firecrackers from Dad’s desk before we left to meet the neighborhood boys. And instead of taking the usual route, we’d swing by the grocery store and buy a few candy bars with our lunch money. Once our sugar fix was secured, we’d bike to the end of an old strip mall anchored by a movie store.
If you had the balance of a Roman charioteer, you could position your bicycle against the wall, put one foot on the seat and the other on the handlebars, and peek into a window that looked down upon the dirty movie section. We started our day looking at naked ladies, and our pockets were full of Butterfingers and M-80s. Life doesn’t get better than that (even for a middle-aged guy).
Eventually, we’d get to school—sometimes late, but never early. We’d park our bikes on the rack. No one had a lock because we lived in a community where everyone knew everyone else. Kirkland, Washington, in the '80s was as close to Mayberry as you could get. The neighborhood was full of boys, all the same age, who played together every day. We built forts in the woods, celebrated birthdays at bowling alleys, went fishing on Lake Washington, and competed in every sport, including boxing, where we learned what it felt like to get punched in the face.
We went Christmas caroling in the winter, trick-or-treating in the fall, and got dressed up patriotically for the annual 4th of July parade in the summer. Our mothers were friends who were all active in the PTA, and our fathers worked 8 to 5, with an unwritten agreement to discipline other boys when they got out of line. Dave Overland, my soccer coach who lived a few houses down, didn’t think twice about dragging me by the ear when I got too violent playing tackle football in his front yard—and he was right to do so.
We lived in a neighborhood where no one knocked and doorbells didn’t exist. Kids just walked into their friends' houses. We didn’t know any better. In fact, my parents, who are 77 and 78, were in Kirkland a few months ago and walked into the Overland’s house unannounced. Bob, Mary, Dave, and Linda talked for hours, even though we moved away from the neighborhood thirty years ago.
My third and fourth grade teacher, an ornery gal named Mrs. Mortland, lived a few blocks away. She was as tall as she was wide, like a spherical Oompa-Loompa, and she always had a disagreeable look on her face. The kids referred to her as “Mrs. Mortland the size of Portland.” I’m sure she was aware of it, but after 30 years of teaching, she was immune to the silly jingles her students sang behind her portly back.
I spent kindergarten through sixth grade at Helen Keller Elementary—seven formative years of my life. I look back on it at 45 years old with gratitude and joy. I couldn’t possibly have grown up in a better town or during a better period of our country’s history. It was a time when kids had freedom, technology didn’t exist, and everyone in my little world was proud of the Red, White, and Blue.
