Throughout my childhood, there was a consistent summertime staple that was created by our moms as a way to get us all together on a weekly basis. They called it Kid's Club. My mom, Alice, Sue, and eventually Missy would organize and drive it each week. The location always varied as it usually rotated around each of their houses. And at minimum, there were 13 kids involved. This number would sometimes grow as friends were brought every now and then. It may not seem like much at first glance, but it was the summertime outlet I needed.
So what was Kid's Club? The main purpose was for all us kids to do things together. The bare bones structure was that everyone would go to one of the houses mentioned previously and spend the afternoon doing activities together. Sometimes that would involve arts and crafts, outdoor sports, or recreational activities we hadn't played before. The cool thing was that once the scheduled activities ended, the day had not. We would spend hours coming up with our own adventures and having about thirteen friends made for some good times.
Kid's Club was more than a way to get together. It provided so many opportunities and experiences I probably wouldn't of otherwise had. We went on a lot of "field trips" with this group. Some experiences were split up into smaller groups, and some were altogether. These were some of those adventures.
There was a local potato chip factory in town called Martin's. They make some of the best kettle cooked chips in my opinion. They offered tours of the factory while in operation. So Kid's Club took a trip to see it. I remember having been immersed in the whole experience. We had to put on the goofy hairnets so as not to get hair in the potatoes. The tour began seeing the large semi trucks empty tons of potatoes onto a conveyor belt. The potatoes were then washed and peeled. We moved behind glass watching as machines sliced them. Workers would check for bad ones as they came through. We were given the chance to taste a raw, ripple cut, potato slice. It obviously didn't taste very good, but the texture was still fascinating. Then we watched as they moved through cooking ovens and came out on the other side as crispy chips. They still needed to go through a few more processes before they were bagged and ready to sell. At the end of the tour, they gave us free lunch box sized bags of chips and popcorn. It was a fascinating experience.
I wasn't always on board with what was planned and a fine example is when one of our field trips was to a greenhouse. I had no desire in gardening nor plants, but a trip to a massive greenhouse with all my other friends swayed my perspective. It was like wandering through a warm, lush, jungle of many plants I knew all too well and others I did not. We spent a good amount of time there exploring all the plants before we had to move on to the second portion planned for the day. We had a larger group of kids, including my cousins because the next part was spent at Al and Sue's where my grandfather was going to teach us about his carving. I loved watching the kids faces light up as he showed them some of the many birds he had brought forth from a block of wood. The coolest part, however, was that we each were given a bar of soap. Then some charcoal paper to trace an animal design on the soap and an exacto knife to "carve" our creation. I chose a rhinoceros design and managed to get a decent rhino out of that bar of soap; another memento I've hung onto all these years.
We visited many other exciting places over the years that included a few nature centers, movie days at the library, a picnic and fishing at Codorus State Park, a children's science museum, Kid's Kingdom playground, a pottery factory, and many more interesting and fun places. However, field trips were not the only things we did. One summer we had a water day at Alice's. The cast of characters involved were me and my siblings, Maggie and Katherine, Melinda and Joanna, my buddy Joe and his brother Danny, and a few smaller kids that Alice would babysit. It started out with some normal water games like water balloon toss and hose tag, but some newer ones were instituted as well. One of those was a large blanket with water balloons. Every kid grabbed an edge of the blanket and the goal was to 1) use the blanket to toss the water balloons into the air without breaking them and 2) try to break them on someone else if you could. This lead to a lot of chaos and squealing, but a lot of great fun. The day was capped off with swimming in a big above ground pool. Lots of splashing, lots of sharks and minnows, and lots of whirlpool making. That was a fun day.
Not everything always worked out the way it was supposed to. Sometimes rogue weather forced a change of plans or events got cancelled last second for unclear reasons. But the biggest thing for Kid's Club that never came to fruition was a play. All the moms came up with an idea to have all the kids perform a play for all the other parents. The theme was the Oregon Trail and we were a wagon train headed way out west. All of us kids were on board with the idea. We spent a few weeks planning and actually got as far as beginning to write a script. But sometimes, trying a huge project with a lot of young children doesn't always pan out. There were some who didn't want to do it from the start and only agreed to participate if they had a very minor role. Then some decided it was too much work and simply weren't going to do it anymore. Because of this, the story had to change and it caused some tension among other participants. Eventually it became too much and with not that many kids willing to do it anymore, the moms decided to let it go and try other things. Overall it was a good idea and would've been fun if we could've pulled it off, but some things just weren't meant to be.
The thing I cherished most about all the moms putting this together and keeping it running for so long was that gave us kids an excuse to be and do things together more often. What I didn't mention clearly in previous chapters was that even though we were a tight-knit group, we all went to different schools so it wasn't like we interacted with each other as often as we did with our school friends. Kids Club let us build stronger childhood bonds, go on adventures together, and even provided us with summers that weren't boring. I will add that not every session was sunshine and roses, but that's part of life and happens with anything we do. Kid's Club will forever hold a special place in my heart.
Author's note: The next chapter is going to touch on a very dark and emotional part of my life. I did not want to start off the new year with that being the first entry so I saved it for next month. I did promise when I started this project that I would not only detail the good parts, but I would also share the rough parts as they also shaped who I am. I am warning you now that it will be long, won't be an easy read, and may pull at the heartstrings. We are also coming to a point in my life where there were three very rough years from 2001-2005. I wanted to make you all aware so you know what you are getting into in the coming chapters.
