Just before dinner time,all of the machines would come to a rest.All of the men,the "monkeys" would gather up their lunch boxes and monkey hats and walk,or drive away,leaving our neighborhood very quiet.All of the monkeys had little black lunch pails and I always wondered what could possibly be in them,as we sat down to our own lunch inside.I thought it strange to eat out of a black box,I thought that when we were called to eat,that all the monkeys should come and gather around our table too.But they never did.Still,I really did want to eat out of a lunchbox just like the monkeys.
There were not so many people living in our neighborhood then,as there are now,So when the construction stopped for the day,it seemed an almost silent place.Lots of the houses were still unfinished,without families living in them so there did not seem to be many children around.And because so many of the streets were still under construction,hardly anyone used the neighborhood as a short cut,as they would come to do later.
It was summertime and sometimes my father would take us out walking in the evening.On those occasions we would up and down the new streets,past the unfinished houses and open excavations,and we could walk right up to some of the equipment that was left parked on the road.There were lots of bulldozers and graders,and even the shovel that was used to trench out the sewers and curbs.Except for maybe one other machine,that shovel was the one that most interested me.They were completely different sorts of things when they were still.My father always said they were sleeping.They were not safe to play around,but we could get right up close and look at them.One or two times my father even boosted me up onto the seat of one of the bulldozers.He told us never to climb on the equipment when he wasn't there,and,we were not allowed on the roadway anyway.For the most part I complied.
But then there was the tar truck.It got parked at night too.My parents always wondered why someone couldn't take it home with them,but nobody seemed to want to.They likely didn't want it parked near their house any more than we did.Nobody wanted to steal the foul thing either,because it could only creep along and wasn't made for joy riding.Not what you would call a cool set of wheels,at any time ,ever. It really was dirty and foul,smeared with oil,big gobs of tar and coated in dust and mud from driving around all day.And of course,it absolutely reeked.I think the only one who liked it at all was me.
After the tar truck had passed,usually much later,we could walk up the street and see what it had done.When it went by it oozed wet,hot and very sticky black tar from a pipe that ran across the back of the truck. You could see it seeping out,and you could certainly smell it.I could tell that it was very hot because steam would rise from the road for a while after each time it went by.So I knew it was dangerous and that I shouldn't go near it.
Eventually I got my chance to get closer to the tar truck.I remember it as a wonderful kind of storybook adventure,a delightful taste of forbidden fruit.My mother and father both worked at the time,so some of my mother's family had come down from Canterbury.My grandmother was there for a time and so was Aunt Ruby,my mothers sister.On this particular day both my parents were at work.I recall standing at the back door with my grandmother,and her telling me to wave to my mother as she left for work.We would stand at the door and wait for her return too.In my mind,there were a lot of days like that,but in reality there could not have been that many.
Sometimes,if it rained all the equipment outside would shut down early,and that's what happened on the day I found the tar.It had been a very warm day and both my sister and I were out playing in the backyard.Sometime about midway through the afternoon,the truck crept up Crandall Street,leaving tar behind it.Right after it passed,it began to rain.Not hard,just a gentle summer shower.I don't even think we came back inside.But by the time the shower had passed,none of the machinery was still running and the monkeys were not around.But the tar truck was very nearby.So I slipped through our neighbors yard to the edge of the street.It was all tar and water,and,because of the heat from the tar,it was a bit foggy right over the road.That fog interested me too.There was water standing in the potholes.My sister was right at my side,and I just couldn't resist the tar.At first I just stuck one foot past the edge of the road.Really the road had no edge.The grass just ended and the dirt began.If I put just one foot down.I reasoned,it wouldn't really be like playing on the road.And so I did.The tar was wet and warm,but,at the same time,the rainwater was cool and there was no danger of burning myself.It was like putting my foot in bathwater that was both hot and cold at the same time,and it felt delicious to my feet.I didn't mind the stickiness,though it was a new and unfamiliar sensation and texture.I couldn't really understand the fog either,or why it disappeared when I walked in it.There was just something magical about the road that day.And so I stepped fully out into the road,starting for the place where the old tar truck was parked.And just a moment later I saw Aunt Ruby coming through the back yard on the run,and we were quickly herded back toward the house.I'm surprised we didn't get spanked for our misadventure.We may have,I just don't recall it that way.Aunt Ruby used the garden hose to wash that delicious tar from our feet,and thus ended what seemed like one of the best adventures of all my childhood.
My mother,and sometimes my father or other adults even would tell us,or read us stories,especially at bedtime.One of the stories I recall was about a fox that kept trying to catch a rabbit without success.So he made something called a tarbaby,a kind of doll covered in tar,and he put the tarbaby out in the road,where the rabbit came along,touched the tarbaby and ended up caught.I don't recall the whole of the story but from what I do recall,It turned out well in the end.So,for a while I though of myself as a tarbaby,whatever a tarbaby actually was.
Authors note: I've been writing for quite a number of years now and this particular story has been recorded in several incarnations prior to this.Sometimes I'm asked what is my favorite piece of writing that I've done.This would have to be near the top of my list.Actually,of course I hope that my best writing is ahead of me,as writers always do.Still this story is both endearing and enchanting,and this memory has never lost it's sense of magic to me,no matter how often,or how many different ways it gets told.
There were not so many people living in our neighborhood then,as there are now,So when the construction stopped for the day,it seemed an almost silent place.Lots of the houses were still unfinished,without families living in them so there did not seem to be many children around.And because so many of the streets were still under construction,hardly anyone used the neighborhood as a short cut,as they would come to do later.
It was summertime and sometimes my father would take us out walking in the evening.On those occasions we would up and down the new streets,past the unfinished houses and open excavations,and we could walk right up to some of the equipment that was left parked on the road.There were lots of bulldozers and graders,and even the shovel that was used to trench out the sewers and curbs.Except for maybe one other machine,that shovel was the one that most interested me.They were completely different sorts of things when they were still.My father always said they were sleeping.They were not safe to play around,but we could get right up close and look at them.One or two times my father even boosted me up onto the seat of one of the bulldozers.He told us never to climb on the equipment when he wasn't there,and,we were not allowed on the roadway anyway.For the most part I complied.
But then there was the tar truck.It got parked at night too.My parents always wondered why someone couldn't take it home with them,but nobody seemed to want to.They likely didn't want it parked near their house any more than we did.Nobody wanted to steal the foul thing either,because it could only creep along and wasn't made for joy riding.Not what you would call a cool set of wheels,at any time ,ever. It really was dirty and foul,smeared with oil,big gobs of tar and coated in dust and mud from driving around all day.And of course,it absolutely reeked.I think the only one who liked it at all was me.
After the tar truck had passed,usually much later,we could walk up the street and see what it had done.When it went by it oozed wet,hot and very sticky black tar from a pipe that ran across the back of the truck. You could see it seeping out,and you could certainly smell it.I could tell that it was very hot because steam would rise from the road for a while after each time it went by.So I knew it was dangerous and that I shouldn't go near it.
Eventually I got my chance to get closer to the tar truck.I remember it as a wonderful kind of storybook adventure,a delightful taste of forbidden fruit.My mother and father both worked at the time,so some of my mother's family had come down from Canterbury.My grandmother was there for a time and so was Aunt Ruby,my mothers sister.On this particular day both my parents were at work.I recall standing at the back door with my grandmother,and her telling me to wave to my mother as she left for work.We would stand at the door and wait for her return too.In my mind,there were a lot of days like that,but in reality there could not have been that many.
Sometimes,if it rained all the equipment outside would shut down early,and that's what happened on the day I found the tar.It had been a very warm day and both my sister and I were out playing in the backyard.Sometime about midway through the afternoon,the truck crept up Crandall Street,leaving tar behind it.Right after it passed,it began to rain.Not hard,just a gentle summer shower.I don't even think we came back inside.But by the time the shower had passed,none of the machinery was still running and the monkeys were not around.But the tar truck was very nearby.So I slipped through our neighbors yard to the edge of the street.It was all tar and water,and,because of the heat from the tar,it was a bit foggy right over the road.That fog interested me too.There was water standing in the potholes.My sister was right at my side,and I just couldn't resist the tar.At first I just stuck one foot past the edge of the road.Really the road had no edge.The grass just ended and the dirt began.If I put just one foot down.I reasoned,it wouldn't really be like playing on the road.And so I did.The tar was wet and warm,but,at the same time,the rainwater was cool and there was no danger of burning myself.It was like putting my foot in bathwater that was both hot and cold at the same time,and it felt delicious to my feet.I didn't mind the stickiness,though it was a new and unfamiliar sensation and texture.I couldn't really understand the fog either,or why it disappeared when I walked in it.There was just something magical about the road that day.And so I stepped fully out into the road,starting for the place where the old tar truck was parked.And just a moment later I saw Aunt Ruby coming through the back yard on the run,and we were quickly herded back toward the house.I'm surprised we didn't get spanked for our misadventure.We may have,I just don't recall it that way.Aunt Ruby used the garden hose to wash that delicious tar from our feet,and thus ended what seemed like one of the best adventures of all my childhood.
My mother,and sometimes my father or other adults even would tell us,or read us stories,especially at bedtime.One of the stories I recall was about a fox that kept trying to catch a rabbit without success.So he made something called a tarbaby,a kind of doll covered in tar,and he put the tarbaby out in the road,where the rabbit came along,touched the tarbaby and ended up caught.I don't recall the whole of the story but from what I do recall,It turned out well in the end.So,for a while I though of myself as a tarbaby,whatever a tarbaby actually was.
Authors note: I've been writing for quite a number of years now and this particular story has been recorded in several incarnations prior to this.Sometimes I'm asked what is my favorite piece of writing that I've done.This would have to be near the top of my list.Actually,of course I hope that my best writing is ahead of me,as writers always do.Still this story is both endearing and enchanting,and this memory has never lost it's sense of magic to me,no matter how often,or how many different ways it gets told.
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