How a Childhood on the Margins Left Its Mark

By CL Bledsoe — NOT ANOTHER TV DAD

When I was a kid, we lived at the top of a big hill. The world sloped down below us, to a flat valley bordered by a lake — The Lake, our overgrown stock pond, where we grew catfish and buffalo fish to sell in our fish shop. A bunch of neighborhood kids would climb up from the neat houses clustered around the back foot of our hill, those not too scared to venture into the pasture, what with all the rumors about our father shooting at strangers.

We didn’t own a sled. What we’d do, is go to the local tire shop, which also repaired tractor tires. We’d get an inner tube from a big rear tire and have them inflate that to use as a sled. I think this was my sister’s idea. The guy who ran it wasn’t too keen on selling them to us, but there were always plenty of drunks around the farm we could bribe or convince to buy one for us.

The inner tubes were huge. Several kids could fit in one, knocking heads when it flipped over on the way down. This was partially why I was always afraid to do it. One kid ended up slipping underneath one and sliding down on his face, his sister still in the inner tube above him. Later I got into a fistfight with the same boy over something I only realized was stupid after he started swinging, and I held him in a headlock while he struggled impotently until he calmed…