Playing Natives

Post war Maryland was an expansion frontier for Washington’s wartime employees converted to peacetime employees. Little box houses went up everywhere faster than babies were being born.  I was born in a maternity hospital, Columbia, and there were so many babies coming out  I remember my mother saying that I was born in the corridor because all the rooms were full. Actually, the war was still going on when I was born, but Germany surrendered three months later. I was at the leading edge of the baby boom.

Growing up in the baby boom generation meant one thing- you had a lot of friends your own age. You also had a lot of strangers your own age.  In fact, all my life I’ve felt surrounded by many people my own age. We’re growing older now and some of my dear friends and relatives have departed.  Living with so many good friends has a down side too- we have to say goodbye to them someday. But that’s another story.

When I was young I loved to play natives.  Don’t ask me what kind of native. I don’t remember. My native was a rich portrayal of what I saw on the Buster Brown Saturday morning Jungle Book, sprinkled with what I saw on Jungle Jim and Hopalong Cassidy. I knew one thing- natives didn’t wear a lot of cloths and sometimes they painted their faces and bodies. They usually carried spears or bows. They were stealthy and communicated with birdcalls and other animal impersonations. That was so cool.

Our neighbor had a bamboo thicket. I was always intrigued by bamboo. It grew so fast and straight. We’d sneak over and cut several long stalks every summer. We never asked if it was ok, but I’m sure it was. He had a lot of bamboo. They made great spears. I never was able to fasten a good stone point, but I tried. (In my heart I wished a native would come along and show me how it was done. I made do with my own recollections from books and movies.) We used to spend hours in a near by creek bed looking for flint and other stones that could knapped into arrowheads.  We found a lot of quartz crystals and lots of garnets embedded in sandstone, but sadly, no flint. The spear points we did make didn’t really make the spear stick into anything, but in hindsight the weight of the small stone did provide aerodynamic balance to make it fly straight and graceful, like you’d image it should.

I was standing in the front yard one hot sticky summer day with my brother, wearing a bathing suit, and painted lightly with a few stripes on my chest (war paint) holding our spears when an older boy walked by and asked, “What are you?”. I said,  “Natives”. I don’t think he believed me. He shook his head and walked on. For a split second I felt a little foolish for sharing my fantasy with a stranger.  We had convinced ourselves we were natives, but in one passing inquiry our play world was exposed for what it really was- the pleasure of imagination.

Playing natives never had the same thrill for me after that day. I grew older and wiser too. I could see the flaws in the game we played. It wasn’t real anymore, but while it was real, we had fun and we were natives.