70s-child: Rememberances Of A 1975 Latch-Key Kid

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Rememberances Of A 1975 Latch-Key Kid

I was a latch-key kid. I remember ca. 1975/76 I would come home from school and mom would leave the house key under the welcome mat. I was around 8 years old. Mom and dad both had to work, so I came home to an empty house. I would let myself in the house and call mom at work to let her know I came home safely. I would watch The Brady Bunch reruns, and mom would come home 30 minutes later. One day mom forgot to leave the key so I was locked out of the house. It just so happened that it rained that day. I cried.

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...