Tag Archives: free range kid

Clubius Contained Part 43 – Crime Society (August 1966)

The DC Comics Justice League

David REALLY liked the Justice League, which was Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and the Martian Manhunter. He was really into DC comics. I mean I still liked Batman and Flash, mostly because they had some really neat villains, specially Flash. Two of Flash’s villains, Mirror Master and Doctor Alchemy, were my favorites. I seemed to be more into the badguy characters these days than the goodguy ones, though I wasn’t sure whyM. Maybe just because David was so into the goodguy ones.

I was also starting to get into the MARVEL comic superheroes more, specially Spiderman, and Doctor Strange. Sure they were goodguys, but they weren’t so “goodie two shoes” as the DC superheroes were. They had their own problems, like I did. Spiderman was still really just like an older kid, more like me, who had a difficult life because his mom and dad had died in a plane crash and he had to live with his aunt and uncle. MY mom and dad hadn’t died, but they had gotten divorced, and it felt like we weren’t a regular family anymore. And Doctor Strange had been in a car accident that messed up his hands so he couldn’t be a surgeon anymore, so he got into all this cool magic and mystical stuff instead. I couldn’t be a regular kid from a regular family anymore, so maybe that was kind of the same.

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Clubius Contained Part 42 – Hexagons & Dice (August 1966)

I woke up to that less bright softer light coming in the small window in our little cottage bedroom and taps of rain on its glass panes and the roof above. David was sitting in his bed drawing on his sketch pad, noticing I was awake.

“It’s raining”, he said, “I don’t think we’re going to go to the beach. Are you going to run anyway?”

I swung out of bed and went to our window that looked out onto our big backyard through the blurring water on the window. The sky was gray and the grass and all the trees and bushes were all green and shiny with water.

I’d run every day since the first morning we’d been here, both to the beach and back. Yesterday was the first day I had done the whole mile run down Longnook Road, without having to walk even once. That felt REALLY good, in both my body AND my mind. Only big kids can run a WHOLE mile I figured!

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Clubius Contained Part 41 – Longnook (August 1966)

It was the next morning, and mom was sleeping in. For whatever reason, I didn’t sleep in as much as I usually did, maybe because I was so excited to be there. I got up when David did and we explored the outside around our cottage. It was kind of a cool hazy morning, but not cool enough to want to put jackets on or long pants. The birds were all chirping, different ones than I was used to in Ann Arbor, including seagulls, which were kind of like the crows I was used to, only they were white and gray instead of black. The sun was up there above the haze and you could smell the ocean in the breeze.

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Clubius Contained Part 40 – Front Seat (August 1966)

As I walked by her open bedroom door, the TV was on and I could see all the pieces of paper on mom’s bed. I couldn’t quite see her, but I knew she was in there, sitting cross-legged at the head of her bed, trying to pay the bills. It was a thing she had to do each month, but it usually made her worried or even sad. Usually there wasn’t enough money to pay them all, but hopefully all the most important ones.

“Hey coolie”, I heard her say, hearing me out in the hall I guess, “Come in and sit with me while I pay the bills, okay?”

I never really wanted to do that, but I also didn’t want her to get all sad again, and usually when I was in the room with her and she could talk to me about stuff, she felt better.

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Clubius Contained Part 39 – Generals & Admirals (July 1966)

Besides doing stuff with my regular friends like hanging out at their houses, playing in the park, and playing Little League baseball, I had a secret life playing wargames with a different set of secret friends. None of my regular friends knew about my secret life, because I was worried they’d think I was weird like Duncan, and into strange stuff that was complicated and that they didn’t understand. That is except Mike, because he was the only one of my regular friends who I let come over to my house, so he had seen all my wargames, either in their boxes or set up on the table in my room.

And I only let Mike come over to my house because he knew that my mom and dad were divorced, but said he wouldn’t tell ANYONE, and he was the kind of person you could really trust. And when he came over and saw all my wargames, he was interested in them and why I liked to play them, though he didn’t want to play them with me. But again I told him not to tell any of my other friends and again he promised and I trusted him. I guess I didn’t trust any of my other regular friends not to think I was strange and even tell on me to my other friends if THEY came over to my house and saw my wargames or figured out that my dad wasn’t there anymore and he and mom were divorced.

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Clubius Contained Part 38 – Tube Benders (July 1966)

A bunch of us were hanging out at Arthur’s house, including Andy, Stuart, Frankie, Mike and Cal. It was the middle of July, which was the middle of summer, the middle of my favorite time of the year. Sixth grade and mom and dad’s divorce seemed so long ago and next fall and seventh grade still a ways in the future. It felt good, and at least for the moment I felt safe around all my “comrades”, that was the word Mike liked to use.

Arthur had this big house on Packard and an older brother AND sister. His brother was going into ninth grade at Tappan and his sister into eleventh grade at Ann Arbor High. We were down in his big basement, that wasn’t like mine but had rooms with carpets and doors that he and other people called “finished”, listening to music and talking. He had of course already played his still favorite song right now, “Wild Things”, by the British Band the Troggs a bunch of times…

Wild thing, I think I love you
But I wanna know for sure

… until the rest of us got sick of listening to it. I mean it was a really cool song, but not over and over and over again!

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Clubius Contained Part 37 – Last Day (June 1966)

It was Friday morning, the last day of school, and the CK DJ on my clock radio woke me up…

Twenty twenty weather word, “Ahhh”. For many of you out there, boys and girls, it’s the last day of school, the day of liberation. Sunny and low sixties this morning going up to mid seventies with some clouds in the afternoon for your BIG DAY. Oh and keep the faith, brothers and sisters, better times are ahead…

Then he played Stuart’s still favorite song I’d heard so many times now by the Isley Brothers…

This old heart of mine been broke a thousand times
Each time you break away, I fear you’ve gone to stay
Lonely nights that come, memories that flow, bringing you back again
Hurting me more and more

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Clubius Contained Part 36 – Pencils (May 1966)

It was May and it was spring, and there was less than a month left of school. I could feel summer wanting to start, I could feel other kids wanted it too. I SO wanted it to start, I was SO sick of school.

I mean Mrs Herman was all right as teachers go. She talked to us like we were regular people, not like we were grownups OR little kids. Like we were older kids, which we were. But even though she was definitely in charge of what we were learning every day, she didn’t try to make us like it or be quiet in class all the time. It was like it was her job to teach and our job to learn, so we all just had to do our jobs. Some of what we learned was interesting and some wasn’t, but we just had to learn it all.

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Clubius Contained Part 35 – Thunderball (March 1966)

It was Saturday, and it was cold and gray and windy and wet outside. We were all still waiting for that first day of spring. You knew it when it came. All of a sudden the day would be a little warmer, the sun would shine, and there would be that energy in the air, that you could even feel in your body, like everything was suddenly coming back alive around you, and you could smell it in all the plants. Mom’s new friend Maryjane said that Mother Nature would flip a switch and it would suddenly be spring.

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Clubius Contained Part 34 – Cats & Satire (January 1966)

My legs were tired. We’d been moving all day along the side of these mountains. My pack felt heavy on my back, and my rifle, hung by its strap on my shoulder, banged against my body with each step. The regular army was after us and our commander said we couldn’t stop moving until we made it to the secret mountain sanctuary where we might be safe from the government soldiers, at least for a while.

One of the other guys whispered, “Commander, are you sure this is the right path?”

Then I heard strange people singing. I couldn’t tell where their voices were coming from. I woke up. They were coming from the clock radio…

Stay on the right track
To Nine Mile and Mack
And get the best deals around
‘Cause Roy O’Brien has the best deals in town

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