Exploring by Ricky

Boys and “exploring” naturally fit together like peanut butter and jelly or love and marriage because curiosity and exploration are part of a boy’s job description.  

I began my career as an explorer in January 1949 when I began to explore my home by crawling about on the floor and tasting small objects I encountered.  Eventually, I reached other rooms as I began to walk and could “disappear” if my mother turned her back for more than 2-seconds.  I don't think the term “baby-proofing” existed yet so drawers and cupboards were never off-limits to me.  Mom did empress upon my mind, via my behind, exactly which bottles and boxes were dangerous to me.

 Somewhere between the ages of 1 and 3, I learned without spankings that spiders with the red hour-glass emblem were very dangerous and to stay away from them.  I suspect what I actually learned was, “if it has red, stay away.”  Once I began to open doors and explore outside the house, it was child’s play to open the gate in the fence and do some serious exploring.  I quickly learned to take the dog with me so no one would notice I was gone.

My exploration of kindergarten began in September 1953.  I looked over my classmates for a suitable playmate (I mean classmate) with which to be friends and chose a girl of all people, Sandra Flora.  I loved to color and play with all the messy artistic stuff.  In first grade, Sandra and I were sent to a fifth grade class to be an example to the other kids on how to work quietly.  I’m sure I did not measure up to the teacher’s expectations as I kept getting out of my seat, quietly of course, and going to the book shelves trying to find a book with lots of pictures.  Being unsuccessful in finding a book to keep me interested, I think the teacher became frustrated and eventually sent us back to our class.

Now enter 1956, I (a newly arrived eight-year old), was sent to live on my grandparents farm in central Minnesota while my parents were arranging their divorce.  Suddenly, I had a whole farm to explore that summer (and ultimately), autumn, winter, and spring in rotation.  Eighty acres of new frontier for the world’s greatest explorer and trapper to collect beautiful animal pelts and bring them in for the women back east to wear.  (Okay, so they really were not bison or bear pelts, but if an 8-year old boy squints, just right, under the proper lighting conditions, gopher skins can look just like bison or bear hides only smaller.)

1956 was the year of my awakening to the expanded world of exploring everything on the farm: the barn, milk house, hayloft, silo, chicken coop guarded by a vicious rooster, granary, workshop (nice adult stuff in there), equipment shed where various farm implements were stored until needed, and the outhouse (the stink you “enjoyed” twice a day).  State and county fair time brought other places to explore: animal barns for varieties of chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, horses, etc., judging of canning, 4-H, displays of quilts, new farm machinery (tractors, balers, rakes, yucky manure spreaders, thrashers, and combines), and of course the midway in the evenings.

As summer waned and school began, I met and made a few friends. 

I rode a school bus for three years in Los Angeles so that was not new.  One of my neighboring farm friends and I were part of the “space race” as we would design rocket ships every evening and then compare them on the bus ride to school the next morning.  Another farm boy and I did a bit of exploring of another type while riding the bus to school with our coats covering our crotches (use your imagination—and “No” we never were caught).

Another schoolyard “exploratory” activity involved games.  One favorite among all male students (townies and farm boys) was marbles.  Our version involved scooping out a shallow depression next to the wall of the school, placing the marbles we wanted to risk (bet) into the depression, and then stepping back a distance (which increased with each turn) and attempting to roll a “shooter” into the depression so it stayed.  If more than one boy’s shooter stayed in, the two “winners” would roll again from a greater distance and repeat the process until there was only one shooter in the depression.  The winner would then collect all the marbles in the hole and the betting process would begin again.  Sadly, I don’t remember the name of this game.

The second game we called Stretch.  I can’t speak for the townies, but all self-respecting farm boys had a small pocket knife in one of his pockets all the time (including at school).  In this game two boys would face each other and one would start by throwing his knife at the ground at a distance calculated to be beyond the reach of the other boy’s leg.  If the knife didn’t stick, it was retrieved and the other boy took his turn.  If the knife stuck, the other boy would have to “stretch” one leg/foot to touch the knife all the while keeping the other leg/foot firmly in place where he had been standing.  If he was successful in touching the knife without moving the other foot, he retrieved the knife, returned it to its owner, and then took his turn of throwing the knife.  If he could not touch the knife, he lost the game and another boy would take his place challenging the winner.

The third and fourth games were “King of the Hill” and snowball fights (obviously reserved for winter recess).  I trust I do not need to describe these.  In all of these games, we boys were “exploring” our limits or increasing our skills.

The elementary part of this school was of the old style, a “square” three-story edifice with one classroom located at each of the corners of the first two floors and storage rooms on the third floor.  The restrooms were in the basement and (miracles of miracles) the rope to ring the bell up in the cupola on the roof ran all the way into the boys’ restroom.  “Yes,” even during a pee break (raise one finger and wait for permission) I would occasionally “just have to” “explore” pulling on that rope and then run back to class, (mischievous is in a boy’s job description).

Once I turned 10, I began to explore the woods around our home sites in South Lake Tahoe.  My Boy Scout Troop provided many opportunities to explore not only the great outdoors but also my own leadership skills and camping abilities.  About this time, I also began to explore other boys; not sexually, but socially; learning to interact with them and developing an understanding of what “boy culture” is and is not.  Well, to be completely honest, of course there was a little pubescent sex play occasionally, but not on troop hikes or campouts.

During those halcyon days of early adolescence, more and more I learned that it is not what a person looks like on the outside but what a person is on the inside that really matters.  Therefore, I now explore the minds of new acquaintances by getting to know them enough to determine if they are friend or faux material.

Those early years of exploring my environment’s people, places, and things shaped my personality and instilled within my mind, a large dose of curiosity combined with a love of knowledge.  Those who know me best can certify that I ponder on the strangest things or ask unexpected questions on unusual topics in my searches for answers.  If that bothers some people, it is just too bad, because this is who I am; a curious little boy trapped in an adult body.

© 29 April 2013 

About the Author 

 I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.