{"id":7597,"date":"2023-06-30T14:57:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T21:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/?p=7597"},"modified":"2023-07-01T09:13:38","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T16:13:38","slug":"clubius-contained-part-11-the-painted-rock-june-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/2023\/06\/30\/clubius-contained-part-11-the-painted-rock-june-1962\/","title":{"rendered":"Clubius Contained Part 11 – The Painted Rock (June 1962)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the thousands of paint jobs of the Ann Arbor “Rock” over the past 80 plus years!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was Saturday and mom drove me over to Molly\u2019s house, but this time she didn\u2019t \u201cdrop me off\u201d but stayed too, to talk to Molly\u2019s mom.\u00a0 Mom told other grownups that Molly\u2019s mom was her \u201cgood friend\u201d.\u00a0 I wondered if she was mom\u2019s best friend too, since mom talked to her more than any of the other grownup women she knew, though not as much as when she and Molly lived across the street.<\/p>\n

School was finally over and it was \u201csummer break\u201d, that\u2019s what my teacher called it.\u00a0 Mom called it \u201csummer vacation\u201d.\u00a0 Whatever it was, I was really happy that I didn\u2019t have to go to school, at least for a while, until September, which mom said was \u201ctwo and a half months from now\u201d.\u00a0 She said you could write \u201ctwo and a half\u201d in two different ways, as a fraction or as a \u201cdecimal\u201d.\u00a0 I knew the fraction way.\u00a0 She showed me the decimal way, where you put the \u201c2\u201d and then a period and then a \u201c5\u201d after the period.\u00a0 She said the \u201c5\u201d after the period was \u201cfive tenths\u201d, which she said was the same fraction as one half.<\/p>\n

I liked SOME things about second grade.\u00a0 I liked that my teacher said I was a \u201cvery good student\u201d, and that all my friends were good students too.\u00a0 That made us feel extra good together.\u00a0 If my school friends and I had to be in school with her so much, at least she thought we were really good, because I didn\u2019t like any grownups thinking I was bad, specially ones that were in charge of me.\u00a0 I really liked reading books and how to say all the words I read the correct way.\u00a0 My friends would say the \u201cright\u201d way, but I didn\u2019t like that because I was left-handed.\u00a0 Most of all I liked being with all my school friends.<\/p>\n

But I DIDN\u2019T like all the spelling and the \u201cpractice\u201d stuff, like penmanship and that strange \u201ccursive\u201d writing.\u00a0 I know a lot of grownups wrote cursive, mom and dad did too sometimes, but that didn\u2019t mean kids had to do it too.\u00a0 Grownups did a lot of strange and stupid stuff.\u00a0 Kids were going to do everything different and better.\u00a0 And the worst thing was that at school, grownups were in charge of us all the time, which kept making me worried that I might forget that my teacher was always watching, and I might do something wrong to make her think I was bad.<\/p>\n

Recess was my favorite part of school, because my friends and I could talk about whatever we wanted to, and we didn\u2019t have to be quiet.\u00a0 But I knew the teacher was still kind of watching us, even though the playground was a lot bigger than our classroom, so I was still at least kind of worried she might think I was bad.<\/p>\n

I liked figuring out new things about numbers, like adding and subtracting big numbers.\u00a0 But after I figured it out, the teacher made us do too much practicing, too many of those \u201cproblems\u201d.\u00a0 It seemed like every day we had to do problems.\u00a0 It was really boring, and we tried to make it more fun by making a game of it to see who could get them all done first.\u00a0 The teacher liked our game, but we only played it so we wouldn\u2019t get \u201cbored to death\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s what mom sometimes said about all the \u201cchores\u201d she had to do at home.<\/p>\n

Molly and I had always been best friends.\u00a0 But now that she didn\u2019t live across the street there were other friends, my school friends, that I saw more than Molly, because I saw them every day at school.\u00a0 Even during the summer now, I would still probably see Gabe or Herbie at the park, and maybe Jake sometimes if mom and his mom figured out how to have one of us go to the other\u2019s house.\u00a0 Maybe I could even figure out how to ride my bike to Jake\u2019s house.\u00a0 Herbie could ride his bike to mine, but he didn\u2019t live quite as far as Jake did.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about Amanda, because she was a girl, and she said she didn\u2019t \u201cplay with boys\u201d, even though she always seemed to be with us boys at recess.\u00a0 She said she might invite us to her birthday party, which was in the summer before school started again.<\/p>\n

But Molly and I were different.\u00a0 She and I always tried to know what the other one was thinking.\u00a0 We had tried to be the same, even though she was a girl and I was a boy.\u00a0 We even got naked together that one time. I’d never done that with any of my other friends, but it was really fun to do it with her.\u00a0 The \u201cprivate parts\u201d of her body were different from mine, but that didn\u2019t seem like it made her very different.\u00a0 Our moms and dads probably wouldn\u2019t have liked that we did that, but they didn\u2019t know and we never told them or anyone else.\u00a0 Well I did tell those two kids in the park that one day kind of by accident, but they didn\u2019t know me or know that it was Molly who I got naked with.\u00a0 I liked that it made them think I wasn\u2019t such a little kid, even though they said I was \u201ctoo young\u201d to do that.<\/p>\n

Even though mom and dad and other grownups said I would be a grownup too someday, I didn\u2019t think so.\u00a0 But I did want to be an older kid like Ricky, saying funny stuff and never worried about grownups.\u00a0 Or even a really older kid like Margie, knowing all about music and getting to be a babysitter for little kids and get money.\u00a0 I wondered if Margie had gotten naked with boys, though I never asked her because she might think I was bad.<\/p>\n

So Molly and her mom made lunch for us.\u00a0 Molly made baloney and cheese sandwiches with mustard on them for me and her.\u00a0 Molly\u2019s mom had \u201cfried clams\u201d, plus \u201ccocktail sauce\u201d and \u201chorseradish sauce\u201d to \u201cdip\u201d them in, that she got from that eating place that \u201cHoward Johnson\u201d guy had.\u00a0 She gave one clam to Molly and one to me to \u201ctaste\u201d, but they tasted REALLY BAD, so she said we could spit them out in the garbage bin if we didn\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s new \u201cstep dad\u201d, who lived in the house with them and \u201cgot married\u201d to her mom, wasn\u2019t there because Molly\u2019s mom said he was \u201cdoing research\u201d.\u00a0 Molly\u2019s mom called him \u201cLarry\u201d, which I think was a nickname and his real name was \u201cLawrence\u201d.\u00a0 I guess a \u201cstep dad\u201d was like a pretend dad when your real dad wasn\u2019t around.\u00a0 Molly still really liked her real dad, but she also liked her \u201cstep dad\u201d, though maybe not as much as her real dad.\u00a0 I liked him too, because he was always doing neat stuff, like making those \u201cmodels\u201d from those boxes you could buy at toy stores.\u00a0 He made ships and planes and even these crazy sort of people like from cartoons called \u201cweird ohs\u201d.\u00a0 He put all the pieces together with this glue stuff and then he painted it colors with these tiny brushes and bottles of paint, not like the bigger brushes and \u201ctubes\u201d of paint that mom used for her paintings, and not like the big jars of paint they let us use in \u201cart class\u201d in school.<\/p>\n

I was figuring out that mom REALLY LIKED fried clams.\u00a0 She said she \u201cloved\u201d them.\u00a0 I guess if you really liked something, you could say you \u201cloved\u201d it and people would figure out you just really really liked it.\u00a0 If you said you \u201cloved\u201d a PERSON, then that meant you wanted to get kissyface with them, but you could say you loved something else, like something you really liked eating, and that was okay.\u00a0 That made me wonder, since Molly and I really liked each other, and she was a girl and I was a boy, what it would be like to get kissyface with her.\u00a0 If Molly wanted to try it, I think I might want to too.\u00a0 I even wondered about that \u201cpistol in the holster\u201d Roy Rogers and Dale Evans joke, what it would be like to do that with her.\u00a0 Would I even do that if she wanted to?\u00a0 Maybe not, but it was fun to think about it and pretend it in my mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cJane\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, holding a fried clam in her hand with white stuff on it, \u201cDo you read the New Yorker?\u201d\u00a0 Then she put it in her mouth and started eating it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo Joan\u201d, mom said, \u201cWe get the Ann Arbor News, Time Magazine, the Sunday New York Times, and whatever I can pick up from the TV nightly news.\u201d\u00a0 She put one of those brown clam things in the red stuff and then ate it.<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom made a funny hissing noise like she didn\u2019t like that, and said, \u201cAch\u2026 the \u2018Boob Tube\u2019, just pandering to the lowest common denominator to sell soap.\u00a0 And Time has so-so journalism, with a heavy Republican bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom nodded and grinned and her eyes flashed.\u00a0 \u201cTHAT\u2019S why I read Time Joan, so I can see what the other side is thinking.\u00a0 Know your adversaries!\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom laughed and shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s where you’re the politician and I\u2019m not.\u00a0 Anyway\u2026 the New Yorker.\u00a0 They published Rachel Carson\u2019s piece about how we humans are negatively affecting our natural world.\u00a0 How we\u2019re poisoning the planet our kids are going to inherit with these agricultural chemicals like DDT.\u201d\u00a0 She held her hands out towards Molly and me.<\/p>\n

Molly wrinkled her nose and her eyes got fierce.\u00a0 \u201cMom\u201d, she said, \u201cWhat\u2019s DDT?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an insecticide dear\u201d, her mom said, \u201cThey spray it on crops to kill the insects that eat the plants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still looking fierce, Molly asked, \u201cWhat are \u2018crops\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCrops are what farmers grow in their fields\u201d, her mom said, \u201cFruits, vegetables, wheat and corn, and so on.\u00a0 Food we buy at the grocery store.\u00a0 We\u2019re all slowly being poisoned, not to mention all the birds that eat the insects that ate the crops.\u201d\u00a0 Then looking at mom she said, \u201cIt\u2019s rampant capitalism Jane, right out of Time magazine!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom pushed her lips together, shook her head and said, \u201cThat troubles me Joan, that I might be poisoning my kids when I buy food from the grocery store.\u201d\u00a0 She looked at Molly and me kind of worried and said, \u201cWell you two, what are we going to do about that?\u201d\u00a0 Both mom and Molly\u2019s mom ate more clams while they looked at us.<\/p>\n

Molly just looked down thinking, but I figured I wanted to say something.\u00a0 \u201cWe need to build spaceships and go to another planet that\u2019s better\u201d, I said.\u00a0 Molly\u2019s mom laughed.<\/p>\n

Mom looked at me, made a kind of fierce smile and shook her head.\u00a0 Then I could tell she thought of something different.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Eric FINALLY got it!\u201d mom said, making another big smile, \u201cI took Coop to the graduation ceremony.\u00a0 I can\u2019t believe he is finally done with that damn PhD!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh my lord Jane\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said.\u00a0 She breathed in air and breathed it out loud, \u201cThis is so exciting.\u00a0 Eric finally jumped through that last hoop!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom closed her eyes and said, \u201cIt\u2019s been three long difficult years.\u201d\u00a0 She put her hands on the top part of her face, \u201cIf I\u2019d known it would take this long\u2026\u201d She stopped talking and was thinking.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not sure what I would have done\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell dammit Jane\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cHe did it.\u00a0 It\u2019s his dream.\u00a0 Yours too.\u00a0 It was my dream once.\u201d\u00a0 Her eyes looked up at the sky and she shook her head.\u00a0 \u201cHe did it.\u00a0 YOU did it.\u00a0 He\u2019s already teaching classes at Eastern, right?\u00a0 Surely they\u2019ll offer him a full professorship and not just a class here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI should hope so\u201d, Mom said, shaking her head, \u201cNo more cleaning toilets and odd jobs at the frat house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, that reminds me\u201d, she said, \u201cWe saw Coop\u2019s painting at the children\u2019s art exhibit at Rackham.\u00a0 I was so impressed, the kid is a natural artist.\u00a0 Puts me to shame, two years of art school and all.\u201d\u00a0 She looked at me and did her biggest smile, like it was really good that I did that.\u00a0 I liked doing things that grownups thought were really good so they wouldn\u2019t worry about me and let me do what I wanted.<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom looked at me and said, \u201cSo congratulations young man on your painting in the exhibit.\u00a0 Molly and I went to see your rocket taking off and both thought it was really something.\u201d\u00a0 Molly nodded her head really fast and made her eyebrows go up to let me know she really thought so too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked all the smoke\u201d, she said, \u201cLike it was really happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yes, the budding artist\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cLike his mom.\u201d\u00a0 Mom did her biggest smile AGAIN and nodded.\u00a0 She really liked it when other grownups thought I was good.\u00a0 And she would always tell grownups about how good I was, in case they didn\u2019t know already.\u00a0 I knew I wasn\u2019t always good, but mom and dad should only know about the good parts.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople seem to be longing to go out into space\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cJohn Glenn orbiting the Earth, and now another astronaut\u2026 what\u2019s his name?.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cScott Carpenter\u201d, Molly said, \u201cRicky told me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom laughed through her nose and said, \u201cLook at them, Jane, they know more about it than we do!\u201d\u00a0 She looked at Molly and me.\u00a0 \u201cI just hope you two and your comrades spend some time getting things right here on Earth before you go rocketing off to live on some other planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly nodded.\u00a0 I nodded too.\u00a0 I wondered what it would be like to live on the Moon or Mars.\u00a0 Maybe just older kids with no grownups, that would be neat.\u00a0 I\u2019d have to pretend that with my friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd as to getting things right here on Earth\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cJane, I\u2019m just very excited about the Port Huron Statement, have you read anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI may have heard something, but I know very little\u201d, mom said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell it\u2019s a manifesto for a new progressive movement in this country, written by Tom Hayden, centered around his new student-led organization, the \u2018Students for Democratic Society\u2019.\u00a0 He drafted it when he was incarcerated in a Georgia jail helping organize there for civil rights.\u00a0 You know, the \u2018Freedom Riders\u2019.\u00a0 It was fleshed out at a gathering of other student activists at Walter Reuther\u2019s UAW retreat in Port Huron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTom Hayden\u201d, mom said, thinking, \u201cHe\u2019s the editor of the Michigan Daily.\u00a0 Eric knows him.\u00a0 Says he\u2019s one of the most brilliant young men he\u2019s ever met, but a bit starry eyed and full of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, said Molly\u2019s mom, that word that grownups like to use when they wanted you to think they knew all the right things and you didn\u2019t, \u201cI would at least second the first part of Eric\u2019s take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a comprehensive critique of the political and social system of the United States for failing to achieve international peace and economic justice\u201d, she said.\u00a0 \u201cSocial systems.\u00a0 Sociology.\u00a0 That\u2019s your academic bailiwick, right?\u201d\u00a0 Mom nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cBailiwick?\u201d Molly asked, giving her mom a strange look.\u00a0 I had never heard that word either.\u00a0 That \u201cacademic\u201d word I heard mom and dad and their friends say a lot.\u00a0 It was all about that stuff you did in college.<\/p>\n

\u201cBailiwick\u2026 let\u2019s see\u201d, said Molly\u2019s mom, tapping her finger on her chin and looking up at the sky.\u00a0 \u201cHow can I explain it?\u201d\u00a0 She kept tapping her chin, but then raised her finger in the air.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s an area of knowledge that you\u2019ve studied and know a lot about.\u00a0 Like Coop\u2019s dad knows English literature.\u00a0 Like you and Coop know your dinosaurs!\u201d\u00a0 She smiled like she said something really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut back to Hayden\u2019s manifesto\u201d, she said, pointing her finger at mom.<\/p>\n

I had never heard that \u201cmanifesto\u201d word before.\u00a0 It sounded like some kind of monster on that scary \u201cTwilight Zone\u201d show on TV.\u00a0 I looked at Molly and I could tell she didn\u2019t know it either, and I knew she was going to ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cManifesto?\u201d\u00a0 It sounded funny when Molly said it because her mouth was full of baloney and cheese sandwich.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t try to speak with food in your mouth dear\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said.\u00a0 Then she held her finger against her chin while she looked up.\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s see\u201d, she said thinking.<\/p>\n

It was mom who said the answer.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a list you write down and then tell it to everybody else of all the things you think need to happen to change the world and make it better\u201d, she said.\u00a0 Molly and I nodded as we both chewed a bite of our sandwiches.\u00a0 That made sense to me.\u00a0 I wanted to make one of those.\u00a0 I\u2019d get all my friends to put their stuff in too.<\/p>\n

\u201cOoo Jane\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cYou’re so good with words.\u00a0 When are we going to get you to run for office?\u00a0 Politics shouldn\u2019t be just a man\u2019s game.\u201d\u00a0 Mom laughed through her nose.\u00a0 I knew \u201cpolitics\u201d was that voting stuff, and I wondered if you could really vote for women too, or if mom and Molly\u2019s mom just wished you could.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet Eric get a real job with a real paycheck first so we can pay our bills.\u00a0 Then Joan, maybe I\u2019ll think about it.\u201d\u00a0 Mom did one of her biggest smiles, like she liked that Molly\u2019s mom asked her that.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood\u201d, said Molly\u2019s mom, \u201cI know you’re not the flaming leftist like me, but you’re the kind of person that can talk sense to people on both sides of the political spectrum and change minds.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen you do it more than once.\u00a0 You can go up against those ego involved academics and take them apart, logical common sense point by point, and even have them thanking you for doing so.\u00a0 Bill Lichtenstein is usually insufferable, but you knocked him down a peg at a couple of my parties and he sings your praises now.\u00a0 Not sure he ever respected a woman\u2019s opinion, even mine, til he ran into you.\u201d\u00a0 Mom laughed through her nose and nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut getting back to Hayden and company and the document that came out of that Port Huron meeting\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cIt just thrills me to see a younger generation of bright minds challenging how WE\u2019VE handled things.\u00a0 The nuclear threat, the arms race, civil rights, economic inequality, big business and the political parties.\u00a0 Advocating for more power for workers, stronger social welfare programs, a war against poverty instead of the Soviets.\u00a0 Nonviolent civil disobedience as a means to participatory democracy.\u00a0 It\u2019s everything your Jack Kennedy talks about but struggles to deliver on, because he\u2019s too enmeshed in the establishment.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know that \u201cgeneration\u201d word.\u00a0 I figured Molly didn\u2019t know it either and that it was my turn to ask to show I was on Molly\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s a generation?\u201d I asked, then kind of looked at Molly and I could tell that she liked that I did that and that I was on her team asking questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood question\u201d, mom said, and she looked at me and her eyes got soft and she made just a tiny little smile.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s all the people that were born and are growing up around the same time.\u00a0 Your generation includes say from your brother David and kids his age up to older high school kids like Margie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs to Hayden\u2019s manifesto\u201d, mom said, looking at Molly as she said that \u201cmanifesto\u201d word and raising her eyebrows, \u201cI don\u2019t know, Joan.\u201d \u00a0 She put her hands on her head with her elbows out to each side and looked up at the sky.\u00a0 I\u2019d never seen her do that before.\u00a0 She puffed out her cheeks and blew air out of her mouth.\u00a0 She moved her head slowly from side to side.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt SOUNDS good\u201d, she said, \u201cBut it all seems so pie in the sky rather than pragmatic.\u00a0 Real change is good legislation, having the votes, one step at a time.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see where Hayden and company go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes Jane, you\u2019re right\u201d, said Molly\u2019s mom, then putting a hand over her mouth as she finished chewing and swallowing a fried clam, \u201cBut profound change\u2026 transformational change\u2026 requires a vision of how things could be very different.\u201d\u00a0 Molly\u2019s mom looked at Molly and me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose we need to define \u2018profound\u2019 and \u2018transformational\u2019 for these two\u201d, she said.\u00a0 Molly and I looked at each other and nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll let you take those\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said to mom, putting her hand on mom\u2019s hand, \u201cMy definitions are usually too academic.\u201d\u00a0 Mom smiled and did just a little nod of her head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen something\u2019s \u2018profound\u2019\u201d, she said, looking at Molly and me, \u201cIt gets to the heart of things and is really really important.\u00a0 Like when President Kennedy said, \u2018Ask not what your country can do for you.\u00a0 Ask what you can do for your country\u2019.\u00a0 THAT I would say is profound.\u201d\u00a0 That at least KIND OF made sense, so I nodded.\u00a0 Molly saw me nod so she nodded too.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when something\u2019s \u2018transformational\u2019\u201d, mom said, \u201cIt changes everything.\u00a0 Like for your dad and I when you were born and we became parents. Like maybe for you Coop when your brother was born.\u00a0 You tell me, but I\u2019m thinking it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom had said stuff to me like that before about David, and how having a little brother made things different for me.\u00a0 But she\u2019d never asked me to talk about stuff like that with other people around.\u00a0 But one of those other people was my best friend Molly, and the other her mom.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t even remember not knowing either of them in my whole life.\u00a0 I WAS worried about saying what I was thinking because I didn\u2019t like to talk to grownups that way, but I also didn\u2019t want to say nothing and just be a stupid little kid.\u00a0 Molly and I, we were on the kids\u2019 team, and Mom and Molly\u2019s mom were on the grownup team.\u00a0 But just cuz they were, that didn\u2019t mean they did better thinking than us, even though they knew a lot more stuff.\u00a0 It was like our team was playing their team in a baseball game.\u00a0 They were winning, but our team was up and it was my turn to bat.\u00a0 If I got a hit, and then Molly got one too, then our team could still maybe win.\u00a0 But if I got out, then our team would probably lose, and we\u2019d be just stupid kids.<\/p>\n

If it was another kid that asked me, then I just would have said the real answer, which was that I was always worried because David would play with all the toys that used to be just mine.\u00a0 And sometimes I couldn\u2019t pretend the stuff I wanted to, because he was pretending something different first.\u00a0 Another kid would listen to me say that and they\u2019d figure that made sense.\u00a0 And if that other kid had a little brother or sister then he\u2019d KNOW what I said made sense.\u00a0 But then we would talk about something else.\u00a0 But if it was a grownup that asked me, and I said that real stuff, they might get worried that I might not be a good person because I was a bad big brother, or feel sad about me, which would make me even more worried.<\/p>\n

So I figured maybe I could say something more like a grownup would, where they didn\u2019t tell you ALL the real stuff, but just a few things like they had everything figured out, even if they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was strange\u201d, I said, taking a quick look at mom but then looking at Molly because she was on my team, \u201cMy room and all my toys used to be just mine but now they\u2019re all David\u2019s\u2026 too.\u201d\u00a0 Then I looked down at the table and said, \u201cI know you\u2019re supposed to share, but sometimes it\u2019s hard to.\u201d\u00a0 Woah I thought, that sounded pretty good, the grownups should really like that.\u00a0 They did.<\/p>\n

Mom laughed through her nose and said, \u201cOh Coop, of course it\u2019s hard.\u00a0 You are such a good big brother to David.\u00a0 The whole world struggles with sharing.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we have wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll second that\u201d, said Molly\u2019s mom shaking her head, \u201cThat\u2019s why we continue to have economic and racial inequality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly and I had finished eating our sandwiches.\u00a0 Mom and Molly\u2019s mom were picking the last of those yucky \u201cfried clams\u201d out of the paper bag.\u00a0 Molly looked at me like she had something she wanted me to see.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom\u201d, she said, still looking at me because I was on her team.\u00a0 Then she looked at her mom and said, \u201cCan Coop and I go over to the park?\u201d\u00a0 She didn\u2019t say my name \u201cCoob\u201d any more like she used to.\u00a0 It made me feel sad because that had always been her special name for me that nobody else said, except maybe David for a while too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, said her mom, \u201cWe are done with lunch.\u00a0 Jane, I assume you\u2019re good with that.\u201d\u00a0 Mom nodded.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoop walks to school each day on his own a lot farther than that, so sure\u201d, she said, smiling at me, \u201cIt\u2019s a really nice park, Coop, better than Allmendinger in my opinion.\u201d\u00a0 That kind of made me mad, because she didn\u2019t usually decide if I could go to the park, I decided.\u00a0 And also, I really liked Allmendinger Park.\u00a0 It was my favorite place, because the kids were in charge there.\u00a0 It even had those secret places in the lilac bushes where grownups never went.<\/p>\n

\u201cMOM\u201d, I said, \u201cI\u2019ve been to Burns Park a million times!\u201d\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t really been there a million times, but that\u2019s what grownups said all the time so I thought I would say it to them.\u00a0 Molly and I had gone over to the park just sometimes when I came over to her house.<\/p>\n

Mom laughed through her nose again and said, \u201cWell okay, I stand corrected.\u00a0 You two have fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStick together\u201d, Molly\u2019s mom said, \u201cCoop probably doesn\u2019t know the neighborhood well enough on his own yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly blew air out of her open mouth so you could hear it and said, \u201cMOM!\u00a0 We\u2019re not stupid.\u00a0 Why wouldn\u2019t we stick together?\u00a0 Coop\u2019s my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly\u2019s mom looked at mom and shook her head and made a pretend worried look on her face.\u00a0 \u201cIt appears to be a united front, Jane.\u201d\u00a0 Mom nodded and pushed her lips together and did one of those smiles where you don\u2019t open your mouth.\u00a0 I think that was called a \u201cgrin\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019mon\u201d, Molly said to me kind of quietly like she didn\u2019t want the grownups to hear as she jumped out of her chair and started running to the driveway and around to the front part of her house.\u00a0 I ran after her.\u00a0 I heard mom and Molly\u2019s mom laughing behind us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two will probably still do that when they\u2019re our age and we\u2019re old codgers\u201d, I heard Molly\u2019s mom say behind me.<\/p>\n

Molly stopped running and we walked down the sidewalk on her street.\u00a0 The maple trees above had branches full of leaves that made a giant green tunnel above us.\u00a0 I knew they were maple trees because they had the pointy leaves like the tree behind our house that mom said was a maple tree.\u00a0 Maple trees were all over the place, like on that \u201cFifth\u201d street I walked down to get to Bach school.<\/p>\n

Molly lived on \u201cBrooklyn Ave\u201d.\u00a0 I saw it on the \u201cstreet sign\u201d at the place where the other street crossed her street.\u00a0 The sign said the other street was \u201cLincoln Ave\u201d.\u00a0 I knew that \u201cLincoln\u201d word because he was the president during the Civil War, the guy with the really tall black hat and beard.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t sure what that \u201cAve\u201d part was, but our street sign had it too, \u201cPrescott Ave\u201d.\u00a0 That big \u201cMain Street\u201d by the stadium had signs that said \u201cMain St\u201d, so I figured the \u201cSt\u201d was short for \u201cstreet\u201d.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t know what \u201cAve\u201d was short for.\u00a0 People usually just said the first part of the name.<\/p>\n

We walked down that \u201cLincoln Ave\u201d street and it got to another street called \u201cGranger Ave\u201d.\u00a0 There was a little place there across Granger between the houses with grass and trees, which looked kind of like a tiny park.\u00a0 The street we were walking next to stopped there, but the sidewalk we were walking on kept going on the other side of the street.\u00a0 I remembered the first time I went there with Molly and her mom I thought that that tiny place was Burns Park, but it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 It was pretty neat because you had to walk on that sidewalk through that small open part in the fence with trees all along it to get into the real park.\u00a0 It was kind of like that way into that \u201csecret\u201d Wurster park hiding behind all the trees and the houses that Molly and I rode our bikes through when we were little before we went to regular school.<\/p>\n

I liked walking through that small open part because everything changed when you did.\u00a0 Where you were just before you went through was all houses and streets and trees above you with everything close together.\u00a0 But then just after you went through there were no more houses, streets or trees and everything was far away, except for the sidewalk which just kept going straight, all the way across the park to where there was finally another street, and on the other side of that street were more houses, streets and trees.\u00a0 I liked stairs the same way.\u00a0 Usually where you were at the bottom of the stairs was really different than where you were at the top part.\u00a0 And I liked to run up and down stairs because I liked to be in one place or the other, but not in between.\u00a0 Being in between made me worried, like I was nowhere.<\/p>\n

I stopped walking, looked around and smiled.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s so neat\u201d, I said.\u00a0 Molly looked at me and nodded like she felt the same way, since she liked running up and down stairs too, and both her houses had a lot more stairs than my house, which just had stairs to the basement.<\/p>\n

Molly and I looked all over at the huge park.\u00a0 To the left there was that really big brick building that had a downstairs and an upstairs, and another upstairs on top of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my school\u201d, Molly said, then pointing, \u201cMy room is over there.\u00a0 We can look in!\u201d\u00a0 She ran towards the school.\u00a0 That was Molly, so I ran after her.\u00a0 We got to the big windows that were really close to the ground at the bottom so we could see inside.\u00a0 It looked like my classroom though the desks were kind of different.\u00a0 Molly pointed in the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my desk by the window right here\u201d, she said, \u201cBut it\u2019s just first grade, not second grade like you.\u201d\u00a0 She turned and looked at me and said, \u201cI don\u2019t like it that we\u2019re in different grades.\u00a0 I liked it when we were the same.\u201d\u00a0 I nodded.\u00a0 I liked that too.\u00a0 School had made us different.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was second grade like?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was lots of number problems and spelling and cursive writing, which wasn\u2019t much fun\u201d, I said, \u201cBut lots of reading too, which was neat.\u00a0 But I liked first grade better.\u00a0 My first grade teacher was really neat.\u00a0 She came to my birthday party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked first grade too, and my teacher\u201d, Molly said, \u201cShe let us go outside a lot, and we did a lot of reading too.\u00a0 She read us the \u2018Borrowers\u2019 book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first grade teacher read that too\u201d, I said, wishing we had been in first grade together.\u00a0 I imagined Molly in my class.\u00a0 I wondered if she\u2019d want to be friends with Gabe, Jake, Herbie and Amanda.\u00a0 I wondered if she\u2019d be on the girls team with Mary, but I didn\u2019t think so.\u00a0 I wondered if she wouldn\u2019t be on any team, like Amanda.<\/p>\n

We walked around and we looked at all the other places in the park.\u00a0 There were lots of kids around playing.\u00a0 It had a lot of the same stuff Allmendinger park had.\u00a0 It had two baseball diamonds, a basketball court, and that house place where the grownup \u201ccoaches\u201d were, who would give you balls, bats, bases and other stuff to play baseball or basketball.\u00a0 It had swings and a slide and those giant tubes like at my school that you could climb inside.<\/p>\n

It had stuff that Allmendinger didn\u2019t have.\u00a0 FOUR tennis courts instead of just one, and this thing where you could hit tennis balls against a wall so they would bounce back towards you so you could hit them again.\u00a0 There were mostly grownups playing tennis.\u00a0 There was this little hill by the tennis courts that Molly said was called the \u201cbig hill\u201d, and was pretty neat, because you could go up to the top and see farther away.\u00a0 We both ran up the hill just like we ran up stairs in houses.<\/p>\n

Next to the tennis courts, instead of a regular merry-go-round, there was this different kind that you could sit on and pull on one bar with your hands and push on another bar down below with your feet to make the thing turn around.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t have to keep jumping off to run and push it to go around and then jump back on.\u00a0 Two older kids were doing the pushing and pulling while other younger kids stood in the middle park spinning around.\u00a0 A couple of the girls were screaming.<\/p>\n

In the giant open middle part closer to the school were two places where you could play football, because they had those \u201cgoal post\u201d things on either side for \u201ctouchdowns\u201d.\u00a0 There were kids there playing that other \u201csoccer\u201d game, where you just kicked the ball around but didn\u2019t hold it or throw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut this park doesn\u2019t have lilac bushes like Allmendinger park\u201d, Molly said, \u201cSo the only place you can hide and do secret stuff is in the tubes in the playground, but little kids could go in there and mess it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo where do you do secret stuff?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend Allison has bushes in her backyard where you can hide and do stuff\u201d, Molly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember that time a long time ago we hid in the spruce tree in my backyard?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 Molly looked out across the park and nodded.<\/p>\n

Still looking out at the park instead of me she smiled and said, \u201cOur moms were really mad at us, but it was neat hiding where we could see them but they couldn\u2019t see us.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t in charge of us\u2026 until they found us.\u201d\u00a0 I nodded, looking at the side of her face, watching her eyes look at different things far away.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what kind of secret stuff do you do in her backyard?\u201d I asked.\u00a0 She looked worried for a second and then her mouth made one of those grin smiles.<\/p>\n

I felt her shoulder touch mine.\u00a0 \u201cIt’s a secret, silly boy\u201d, she said, laughing through her nose like a grownup.\u00a0 She turned and looked at me for just a second but her cheeks got a little red and she looked worried and turned away again.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t remember her ever calling me a \u201csilly boy\u201d before when she was talking to me.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t even remember her ever calling me a \u201cboy\u201d before.\u00a0 I remembered that \u201cMy Three Sons\u201d show on TV where that girl that really liked that older boy Robbie called him a \u201csilly boy\u201d.\u00a0 Molly had always told other kids that I was her \u201cbest friend\u201d, not her \u201cboyfriend\u201d.<\/p>\n

I suddenly started thinking that I wanted to touch her shoulder back with mine, because I was thinking maybe she touched mine on purpose.\u00a0 So while we both looked out at the park and the kids yelling and playing, I kind of banged my shoulder against hers.\u00a0 She laughed a little bit through her nose again.<\/p>\n

Not looking at me she said, \u201cIf you keep doing that, kids will think you\u2019re my boyfriend.\u201d\u00a0 After she said that, she could tell that I was thinking.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not old enough to be boyfriend and girlfriend\u201d, she said, \u201cBut it would be fun to pretend sometime, but not right now.\u201d\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t believe she really said that, but it did make sense.\u00a0 It was always better to pretend, than do stuff for real, because when you pretended you never had to worry about what you did, because it was just pretending, so you could just do anything you wanted to.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be fun\u201d, I said.\u00a0 She nodded, then stood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019mon! There\u2019s one other thing I want to show you\u201d, she said, \u201cBut it\u2019s not in the park.\u201d\u00a0 Then she ran down the hill towards the middle part of the park.\u00a0 I ran after her, like I always did.<\/p>\n

We walked to the other side of the park where the street was, and there was another street that started at the park and went down farther.\u00a0 It had big maple trees on either side.\u00a0 We waited for a car to go by and then we went across.\u00a0 I looked at the pole with the street signs on the corner.\u00a0 One sign said \u201cWells St\u201d.\u00a0 I figured that was the street we just went across.\u00a0 The other was \u201cMartin Pl\u201d, which was the street we were going to walk down.\u00a0 The house there was really interesting.\u00a0 It had two front doors, like it was two houses pushed together.\u00a0 There was something that felt special about that place, but I couldn\u2019t figure out what.<\/p>\n

We walked past it and down that \u201cMartin\u201d street, I didn\u2019t know what the \u201cPl\u201d was short for.\u00a0 Since we were leaving the park, I wondered if I should ask Molly where we were going.\u00a0 But if I did, maybe she\u2019d think I was afraid of having an adventure, or I was worried that she didn\u2019t know where she was going.\u00a0 But I wasn’t either of those things, so I didn\u2019t ask.<\/p>\n

We walked by big houses under the maple trees all with upstairs and downstairs parts, like on Molly\u2019s street.\u00a0 We got to the end of the street, where there was another street that went across it.\u00a0 Molly said we had to go to the right and we walked down next to that new street until we got to where it crossed another street.\u00a0 Then we went to the left and walked down that street.\u00a0 There was a place across the street that just had grass and a bunch of trees.\u00a0 It was kind of like a small park but there were no kids there or things to play on.\u00a0 On our side we walked on the sidewalk by really big houses that were hiding behind the big trees.\u00a0 The houses seemed strange because they had giant letters on the front, letters that didn\u2019t look like regular letters.\u00a0 I wondered if strange people lived in those houses that had those strange letters.\u00a0 When we got to the last house there was another street, and I saw that giant rock thing across it in a little triangle between the streets.<\/p>\n

I knew this place, but I had always been in the car driving by it.<\/p>\n

\u201cRemember\u201d, Molly said, \u201cWhen your dad or my dad used to take us to go sledding at the Arb and we\u2019d go by this place.\u00a0 My dad would say, \u2018They painted the rock, AGAIN.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 I nodded.\u00a0 Her dad liked to say silly stuff like that.\u00a0 My dad never said silly stuff like that, though he did like singing silly songs sometimes.\u00a0 But songs were different I guess, some of them were supposed to be silly.\u00a0 Kids even liked to sing silly songs, like the one I kept hearing at the park\u2026<\/p>\n

Comet, will make your teeth turn green
\nComet, it\u2019s made of gasoline
\nComet, will help you vomit
\nSo get some Comet, and vomit, today<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We looked for cars, and then went across the street to where the giant rock was.\u00a0 It was painted all white with big red letters on one side of it.\u00a0 The top letters were \u201cs\u201d, \u201cd\u201d and \u201cs\u201d, which wasn\u2019t any kind of word Molly or I knew.\u00a0 We couldn\u2019t even try to say it like a word we didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 But below it were smaller letters with words we could read, \u201cnew left\u201d.\u00a0 None of the letters were those \u201ccapital\u201d ones, only the regular kind you wrote most of the time.\u00a0 The bigger \u201cd\u201d letter was interesting because instead of the regular top part it had a red fist there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wonder what \u2018new left\u2019 means\u201d, Molly said.\u00a0 I lifted my shoulders to show I didn\u2019t know either, but I kind of liked the words.\u00a0 \u201cNew\u201d was better than \u201cold\u201d, because grownups were old and us kids were new.\u00a0 And \u201cleft\u201d was better than \u201cright\u201d, because I was left-handed.\u00a0 But I just thought that and didn\u2019t say it to Molly, because it might make her sad and feel different because she was right-handed.<\/p>\n

Cars were driving by around us.\u00a0 We heard one honking its horn and we turned to look.\u00a0 It was a car that looked like it had a bunch of those older kid \u201cstudents\u201d in it.\u00a0 The ones in the front seat and back stuck their arms out the windows, raised them up and made fists, like the one on top of that \u201cd\u201d letter.\u00a0 It felt like it was about kids changing things.\u00a0 I liked that.\u00a0 So I raised my left hand up high and made a fist like they were doing.\u00a0 Molly saw me do it, so she did one too.\u00a0 The older kids in the car really liked that because they kept honking, yelling and moving their fists up and down, until I couldn\u2019t see their car anymore as it went down the big street.<\/p>\n

A really old grownup man and woman walking together on the sidewalk had been watching that car go by and what we did, and they shook their heads like they didn\u2019t like it.\u00a0 I got worried that they\u2019d think we were bad.\u00a0 The man said something to the woman and he walked across the street to where we were by the rock.\u00a0 He looked at us, and at the letters and words on the rock and he looked straight at me with a worried look.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you know what communists are, young man?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 His voice was quiet but it was really fierce.\u00a0 I had heard that word before when grownups talked about that Soviet Union place, like \u201ccommunists\u201d were the new badguys instead of just the Russians.\u00a0 But I figured I better pretend that I didn\u2019t, pretend I was just a stupid kid, so I just shook my head.\u00a0 Molly shook her head too.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey destroyed Russia\u201d, he said, \u201cThey killed my grandparents and my aunts and uncles, and my mother and father fled to this country with nothing but a suitcase and the clothes on their backs.\u00a0 Now this \u2018SDS\u2019, the communists are trying to come here and they\u2019ll destroy this country as well.\u00a0 Do you want that to happen young man?\u00a0 How about you young lady?\u201d\u00a0 Molly and I didn\u2019t know what else to do so we shook our heads.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are your parents?\u201d he asked, still quiet and fierce, \u201cDon\u2019t they care about what you\u2019re doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur moms are back at my house\u201d, Molly said, \u201cThey said we could play by ourselves.\u201d\u00a0 He closed his eyes and shook his head.\u00a0 The woman had crossed the street now too and was standing behind him.\u00a0 He turned and looked at her and shook his head again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are just kids, Nicky\u201d, she said, \u201cThey don\u2019t know any better.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should be ashamed, Katya\u201d, he said to her, \u201cThey should have had better instruction from their parents.\u201d\u00a0 Then he turned to us and said, \u201cGo back to your mothers, and God have mercy on your souls!\u201d<\/p>\n

He turned and walked away from us back towards the woman.\u00a0 She turned too and walked by his side.\u00a0 He put his arm on her shoulders, still shaking his head.<\/p>\n

Molly and I crossed the street the other way together and headed back the way we came.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t say anything to each other, but we walked close to each other so our shoulders touched sometimes.\u00a0 We walked by those really big houses with the giant strange letters on the front and I wondered if people like that man and woman lived in those kinds of houses.<\/p>\n

We got back to the park and sat at the top of that \u201cbig hill\u201d again, saw all the kids playing, and heard them happy and yelling.\u00a0 That man and woman, the painted rock, and those houses with the giant strange letters seemed far away, like it hadn\u2019t really happened.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about it, and kept feeling mad and worried at the same time, even kind of scared too.\u00a0 Mad that that man thought we were bad, and that that woman thought we were stupid.\u00a0 Worried that even grownups we didn\u2019t know were watching us, and we didn\u2019t know enough to keep ourselves safe from them, or know enough to tell them that they were wrong.\u00a0 And after all that, wondering if kids would have to fight a war with some of the grownups someday, and whether our moms and dads would be on the grownup team.<\/p>\n

We talked about what we were going to do for our \u201csummer break\u201d.\u00a0 Molly was going to play with her new friends and play in the park too, but every Saturday her mom said she could come to my house or I could come to hers, maybe other days too because it was summer and we didn\u2019t have to go to school.\u00a0 I told her I would play with my friends too.\u00a0 I\u2019d see most of them in the park and then they could come over to my house or I\u2019d go to theirs.\u00a0 If they lived farther away I could ride my bicycle.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd every Saturday with me\u201d, she said.\u00a0 I nodded, but she just looked at me, maybe a little worried.\u00a0 I figured that wasn\u2019t enough just to nod.\u00a0 Saying yes was different than just nodding yes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYep\u201d, I said, smiling, \u201cEvery Saturday.\u201d\u00a0 Then she smiled too.<\/p>\n

She talked about that Larry guy that lived with them that her mom got married to.\u00a0 She said her new friends that didn\u2019t know about her real dad, asked her if that Larry guy was her dad.\u00a0 And Ricky\u2019s sister Jill, who knew Molly\u2019s real dad, asked her if Larry was her \u201cnew\u201d dad, which made Molly mad, she didn\u2019t want a new dad.\u00a0 She said that Larry WAS really nice, and he liked to do neat stuff like make those \u201cmodels\u201d and paint them really good.\u00a0 He even made models that SHE wanted, like \u201cWeird-oh\u201d models like \u201cFreddie Flameout\u201d and \u201cHuey\u2019s Hut Rod\u201d, that she could keep in her room.<\/p>\n

But we didn\u2019t talk about what happened at the painted rock, and what that man and woman said to us.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think we did anything bad, and I didn\u2019t think Molly did either.\u00a0 But we didn\u2019t know what those \u201csds\u201d letters or those \u201cnew left\u201d words meant.\u00a0 If we asked our moms they might tell us they were really bad, but we wouldn\u2019t know if they said that because they really were bad, or just because they were on the grownups team.\u00a0 Those older \u201cstudent\u201d kids in the car liked them, and liked that we liked them too, and we wanted the kids’ team to win.<\/p>\n

I figured it was okay to have another secret with my best friend, like when we got naked together up in her bedroom at her old house.\u00a0 Secrets made best friends even better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was Saturday and mom drove me over to Molly\u2019s house, but this time she didn\u2019t \u201cdrop me off\u201d but stayed too, to talk to Molly\u2019s mom.\u00a0 Mom told other grownups that Molly\u2019s mom was her \u201cgood friend\u201d.\u00a0 I wondered if she was mom\u2019s best friend too, since mom talked to her more than any […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1777,13,1774,1773,1799,1800,1775],"class_list":["post-7597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","tag-1960s","tag-ann-arbor","tag-autobiography","tag-childhood","tag-free-range-kid","tag-growing-up","tag-memoir"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7597"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7608,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7597\/revisions\/7608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.leftyparent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}