Growing up in Tahoe
In the 1960s and 70s, I spent my formative years in Dollar Point, a neighborhood a few miles outside of downtown Tahoe City. It was a totally different place than it is today. First, there were a ton of kids to play with just down the street. This was a good thing because we didn’t have much in the way of structured programs like soccer, ballet, kids camp, or afterschool-whatever, and the last thing parents would do is drive you to some other place to visit other kids. ‘What’s wrong with the kids down the street?’ they would ask.
In the summer we played Wiffle ball in the neighbor’s driveway, which was vaguely shaped like a baseball diamond. If I remember correctly, the lamp-post was first base, a rock at the top of the driveway second, and the tricky one, a culvert, for third. When that got boring, we would go play ‘clear the pier,’ which meant running on the pier and pushing everybody off into the water…or at least everybody you knew. This was before all those pesky rules about diving and running on piers and stuff.
It was much more fun when kids were more expendable. Child seats? We didn’t need those. We had station wagons that you could cram 10 kids into. If you were in the back it was fun to roll from one side to the other on every turn.
We spent as much time as possible on the beach, in the sun, or in the water, and of course away from home where the chores were and your mother was happy to point out for the 3,000th time that your bed still wasn’t made. Not sure if sunscreen was invented yet, but we certainly didn’t know anything about it. Scraping off all that peeling skin gave you something to do when you were bored.
Halloween was as Halloween should be. Scary. This was before there were ‘it’ neighborhoods where parents bring their kids to a Disney-like extravaganza. Back then, a few of us kids would go wandering around in an effort to accumulate as much candy as possible (some things don’t change). We of course would wait until it was pitch black and parents were certainly not involved in any way. The houses were fewer so we got a good workout, and the lack of lighting led to an occasional fall from a deck onto a Manzanita bush.
Speaking of walking, we really did walk a mile up to the school bus and a mile back down, which was OK because there were lots of cool things to explore along the way. We didn’t really have much homework back then and as stated above, chores awaited you once you made it through the door, so why hurry? Fortunately, my mom was nice enough to yell loudly ‘I’m home!’ as she walked through the front door. Our reaction was to jump up and say, ‘Quick, turn the TV off, shovel the deck, stack the firewood, and make your damn bed.’
In the fall and winter it was time for touch football on the street. The telephone poles served as the end zones and the edge of the road as the sidelines (in the winter, if there was enough snow, we allowed tackling into the snow banks). You could play with as little as four players. Often I seemed to be the youngest, so they would put me with the oldest and fastest, whose instructions were simple: ‘I will hike it and run. As soon as you get the ball, throw it as far as you can.’
If there were only two of you, it was time for tackle football. One friend had a real rarity — a lawn. It was 12 yards long and a first down was two yards. It was a pretty simple game. Pick up the ball and run forward while the other guy tried to tackle you. Then do it again and again, until it was time to go to the beach.
On rainy and snowy days we would find an available room in somebody’s house with doors on each side of the room. We then would close the door over a clothes hanger so it created a nice little basket. Grab a sock and it’s time for basketball. Dribbling involved moving the sock from one hand to the other. Stuffing the hanger was encouraged until you broke the hanger.
Occasionally a mom or dad would show up trying to figure out what all the ruckus was about, but in general parental philosophy was geared towards avoidance. They would just as soon us not be seen or heard; just be home for dinner.
A few years ago, I took a stroll along my old Dollar Point street in the off-season and hardly recognized the place. The pier was stuck in prison behind a high fence that requires a fancy card to open. The sidelines of our football field are now paved parking spots for the manicured tennis courts. The vacant lots that we used to spend hours playing army in are all now occupied by big fancy homes. Most startling, the kids are all gone. The families are gone.
~ Tim Hauserman grew up in Tahoe City when the most common conversation with friends wiling away a summer day was: ‘What do you want to do?’ ‘I don’t know, what do you want to do?’
