the child and society essays

the child and society essays Growing up in Brooklyn was never always an easy thing to go through; however, it did have its moments. There were the summer time games of stick ball and rat tag, corner cards and dice, but what brought a smile to Tonys face the most as he sat reminiscing the days gone by, was the people. The people were always great, they had their faults and issues, but they were his people, and this was his home. And, as Tony sat on his balcony in the same old wooden chair his father use to sit on all those years ago, he felt at ease, a surge of wisdom running thru his mind as he stared onto the streets of his neighborhood. Some children gathered around a fire hydrant shooting water out of one spout, in their shorts, as he had at the same hydrant all those years ago. That hydrant was always easy to open. The old men sat out side Vitos Deli playing checkers and talking politics. Vito died many years before, but the men still came and the name never changed. The younger men, slicked back hair, leath er jackets and smoking non-stop sat out side the local pool hall and bar, whistling at the young girls walking to the market. This was the same Brooklyn he had run away from. It had never changed, clothes hanging from the balconies and rooftops, the shops were the same, and even the old cars were still driven and parked along the streets. Most of all, the people were the same, maybe they were the sons and daughters of the old generation, but they were still the same people. How strange the world is, Tony thought, you can never know what to expect. He remembered what his mother said to him when he was sixteen, he never understood it then, he thought she was just trying to translate some old Italian proverb, but now he understood, now he knew what she meant, if he only he had realized then, things would have been so different, but how was he to know, he was only a kid, and kids were not expected to know adult things at that age. Children were at ...