India Journal: Umaid Bhawan to Shen and Back

We were sitting at a refreshment stand at Umaid Bhawan palace in Jodhpur. We’d done the tour of the palace museum, and the hoi poloi aren’t allowed in the main section, which is a now a Taj hotel that hosts  jet-setters and the very rich. So, being around mid-day and hot, C and I found some shade and had a seat. C enjoyed an ice cream cone, and I sipped on a box of cold apple drink (pure juice not available). I saw a small girl run free from her mother along the dusty path into the sitting area, and I observed the sense of exhilaration in the child’s face as she ran from mom for a short way. In a sort-of Proustian moment, perhaps triggered by a headline in the NYT earlier in the day about the 100^th anniversary of the publication of Swann’s Way, and having  earlierobserved the two well to-to-do kids at the guest house where we stayed, I thought back on my childhood. 

I quickly brought C into my reverie as I sat there. In the 1950s and early 1960s in small town Shenandoah, Iowa, we had a pretty idyllic time. Compared to  the packs of unattended youngsters we sometimes see here and the well-to-do and very sheltered (and isolated) kids we see here, or the hyper-programmed kids in the U.S., I think that we had it pretty good. We both recalled kid-organized games of kick-the-can, halted temporarily by calls of “car!” to clear the street, and then back at it until it was completely dark. Kids of most ages (grade school) played. In the park behind our house, endless baseball games were ongoing. I was a horrible baseball player, but I played. The creek running between the park and the highway was more alluring (and forbidden), but exploring the creek was a continuing adventure. Standing under the wooden plank bridge when a car passed over provided quite the audio entertainment.

After moving to 6^th Avenue before third grade, I was now within easy biking distance of the baseball park (mornings) and the swimming pool (afternoons). My friends and I were almost amphibious during the summers. Swimming lessons; endless hours playing tag; jumping and diving off the raft; shooting headfirst down the big slide; and, eventually, after having swam the width of our very large pool, going to the deep end to use the boards: hour upon hour of fun and freedom. C reported the same experiences: mornings with her brother to the baseball field by bike and afternoons by bike to the pool. Parents were absent, unless we enjoyed the treat of an evening swim with the parents and siblings under the lights. I think that both of us have these distinct images of our respective fathers in swimming trunks, pale, skinny legs revealed. 

Of course, riding our bikes to Sportsman Park, which contained both the baseball fields and the swimming pool, provided its own adventures. The most exotic, both C and I agreed, was the Henry Fields building and the exotic shop inside. For a long time neither of us realized the hidden treasures inside. (By the way, this occurred quite independently of one another; we knew of the other’s existence, but neither was of any consequence to the other. Interest comes in junior high, but that’s a separate story.) The exterior of the building gave some clue to its exotic contents, as it consisted of a series of archways that one could walk or ride one’s bike under (provided some welcome shade). The arches and yellowish color of the building gave it a vaguely Spanish look, which, other than some seasonal Mexican migrant workers in the summer, seemed quite apart from the rest of the town. However, the unique façade also signaled a treasure inside a small store with a soda fountain and some exotic looking items, including live birds. Alas, other than the birds, I have no recollection of the particulars that created the exotic ambiance, only the certain feeling that this was indeed a hidden treasure. C’s recollection comported with mine. She remembers that she and her younger brother, having no spending money, ordered water from the fountain until told to scram. They too, had discovered the hidden cove. 

With our bikes, my friends and I could discover exotic locales at our whim. A large pile of sand by the railroad tracks served as a location of interest for several days when we found that we could grade roads and dig caves with our hands and then watch them disappear as the sand collapsed. Another time, my friend persuaded me to explore and picnic at Rose Hill, the local cemetery. Sure enough, on the edge of town, overlooking the broad river valley, with the graves of generations, including those of my grandparents and other ancestors, proved a fertile world for exploration—and a very pleasant picnic spot (two or three decades before I learned about the rural cemetery movement and that this wasn’t as bizarre an ideas as I’d thought at the time). Further, the cemetery lies east of Center Street, and it serves as a dividing line of sorts in the town. Having lived on the west side all my life, this was an unexplored area, and thus a completely new area in which to wander and explore. 

Now, watching the little girl back at the refreshment, having been corralled by her mother, C and I decided that we’d had it pretty good. Perfect? No. A nostalgic view? Of course, to some extent. But when she’s a little older, I hope that little girl enjoys some similar adventures.