Our rather peaceful midwestern town
was a wonderful place to grow up. And
summers were the best time for a kid to run free range in the neighborhood without
incident because just about everyone knew their neighbors. People would sit outside on their porches in
the evenings and converse while the inside cooled down enough to return and the
cicadas serenaded a young kid to sleep.
Today’s modern conveniences such as
garbage disposals and attached garages were still in the future, prompting the
need for alleyways splitting the organized blocks right down the middle. That in turn allowed access to detached
garages and trash cans which were located away from the houses. Automobile fumes and hot decomposing food
then became less of a problem.
Alleys were a great place to ride a
bicycle in relative safety away from the busy streets and became an interesting
place to explore discarded treasures.
Our house just happened to be located relatively near a college and you
never knew what might be deposited out near the alley with student housing. One of our little merry band’s favorite
choice of bounty involved the annual homecoming Saturdays. All the frats and sororities participated in
a Parade with decorated floats prior to the big football game. Soon after the homecoming festivities, the
contents of the float decorations and parties could be salvaged in the alleys.
One of my neighborhood buddies and I
were attracted to a rather large papier-mâché
gorilla on one of those days which would have worked well for bow and arrow
practice. As we stopped to salvage the
gorilla, we came across a rather intriguing magazine. The worn and provocative cover of a
very attractive college age female was featured under the PLAYBOY title. We unsuspectingly opened this potential forbidden
fruit to the centerfold and beheld the beautiful form of a youthful college girl sans
clothing and thought we had just won the lottery! About that time a hungover frat guy appeared with
more trash to deposit and startled us so bad that my buddy dropped the magazine
and we scurried off so fast that our bikes were scattering dust and gravel in
our wake!
That brief introduction to the world of Playboy was a hoot for a couple of adventurous boys. And there’s no doubt that Hugh Hefner knew
that better than anybody!
P.S.
We did come back later for the gorilla but
the Playboy was missing, so we rode home and returned to boys at play.
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