Timber Valley SKP Park of Oregon, Inc

By Fred Prout

” Back when I was a kid…”

Oh, how I hate hearing that from people. It implies that things were sooo much different back in the day. ” You youngsters have no idea what it was like back then. . We had to walk to school in the snow…” ad infinitum.

If you have read my words you understand my relationship with circles. If you haven’t, let’s get started. Circles and I go back a long way.

So, as much as I hate hearing it , back when I was a kid…

Most of you remember, or at least understand that life in the forties and fifties was different from today. I’ll not bore you with how much I remember and how painful it might have been. Just one small slice of history. Remember my affair with circles.

At the time I didn’t know if we were a poor family or middle class . For sure we weren’t rich. Looking back, we were definitely not anything other than poor. Previous tales mentioned my job in a penny arcade. And riding the flying horses with the painted ponies going up and down .

Before that , there was my corner of Church Street and something as a shoeshine boy. At the time, an organization called Friends of Boys regulated us urchins. They assigned us a corner and sold us our equipment. No one dared encroach on anyone’s corner. They ran a very tight ship. We shined and shined and took our dimes and quarters home at end of a really long day. We were on the corner because working was better than not working. And fortunately I was able to work. Not to mention what the dimes and quarters could do.

Aside from the money, there was an element of pride.

For the past couple of weeks, I have seen a couple on the corner by the local Walmart. He stands holding a sign. She sits huddled on a blanket. In obvious distress. This morning it occurred to me that that corner might very well have had a shoeshine boy at one time. I also wondered what would happen if instead of giving the occasional dollar bill, I bought them a shoeshine kit . Think about it.