The better off kids had Radio Flyers, well up the line in terms of kids’ coaster wagons. Mine was a Bob’s Flyer or some-such off-brand.

But wait a moment. Only a looney kid would use one of those fool things as a coaster wagon more than once. Not with their dreadful out-of-control steering and flip over tendency.

Killing yourself was grand compared to the aftermath of a wagon disaster leaving you skinned and bruised near everywhere the sun had ever shone.

A successful coast (not at all like a sea coast) absolutely required a slope, as in hill, something in very short supply on Chicago’s south side. So why have a coaster at all other than show off yours was a Radio and not a humble-bumble Bob’s?

Simple. Kids hauled stuff. We labored building ball fields in empty lots. Along the way we earned well-deserved animosity from the city for undermining a

sidewalk that then toppled into our dugout. Can’t have a proper field without a dugout, can you?
City workers saw things elsewhen and came down hard. The game along with the rules, players and all else shifted to a new temporary permanent location. (Undermining a sidewalk had more allure than kids could endure or avoid, but that’s another tale to tell.)

Among things hauled was any scrap that in any way might in the present or the unforeseen future be of use in any of the forts or secret hideouts we, like ingeniously incorrect bees, constructed (threw up) in astonishing places.

An elder trying to access a basement might find a fort in the way. “What’s this mess doing here?”

Mess was the cherished effort of a handful of boys watched by dubious and critical girls. Mess was what we moaned and groaned or shed tears at having to dismantle. “Where’ll we go?”

There was always a place and always a solid childhood thrill finding use for useless junk.

That aside, even the humblest, junkiest coaster cart was a potential treasure wagon. Kid treasure in my Chicago days was in the form of glass pop (sometimes beer) bottles worth two cents each when presented to the correct storekeeper.

A Saturday spent bottle hunting down alley after alley was worthy effort that if successful was good as panning for gold. At two cents per bottle a load of 50 meant an entire dollar.

That, I must inform the doubters and unknowing, was big money, and not just for a kid. Savvy storekeepers inspected each rim for chips. Chipped – no good. Back to the trash from whence it came, darn, drat and damn. Bottles rejected cut into the fortune.

On the other hand, finding quart bottles was same as coming into possession of an entire nickel. A trio of quart beers and a matching clear-glass pop quart got you 20% on the way to a buck.

So what? A dollar bought a lot of candy in a lot of shapes, sizes, flavors and attachments. We’d pick from everything from powders to sugar dots on paper to nickel gobs of all-day determination.

Some of that truck, I’m sure, came from premises roach- and rat-infested from cellar to roof. Maybe is true, what doesn’t kill makes for strength.

I don’t tell the above for sake of good old days charm. Days that are gone are gone. Some comparison might be of interest, but fussing over what’s gone isn’t much use to the here and now we’re in.

I thought, instead, to add some urban recollection. Your past, like mine, is colored with recollections of things in precise detail. Like the pink of one’s first cotton candy (disappointing except for the mess) we’re so wired that a single detail can evoke a time and atmosphere in full.

It is a human gift, one I appreciate especially in autumn when a particular color or chilled puff of wind brings back an entire time and place that was.

Recollection is part of us. It’s important. I feel especially favored to have a junky coaster wagon full of return glass bottles to reside in memory alongside daily watching ice among reeds in shallows sending up the last scents of a dying summer.

It’s interesting to know you have recollections potent as mine. I hope yours will rouse you to appreciation as mine do for me.

You know, I wonder how it was an eight-year-old kid could be sent to the corner tavern two blocks down to buy smokes for mom and dad (I had a note, but was recognized without) or hurryhome with a lump of frozen vanilla and a few quarts of root beer for black cows.

The tavern had the best freezers. Their ice cream was solid brick. Mother knew enough to wait while a kid squirmed in insane anticipation. Eventually the brick softened and could be scooped, then root beer added. Foam and fizzle.

A black cow lover, mom had the special long spoons meant for black cows but also fine for floats and malts.

Made at home with ingredients bought and brought for the purpose, a malt could be tailored to be extra-extra rich and tasty. Oh, OK, I guess I have to do a good old day sermon after all.

Malt was a powder mixed with the ice cream whole milk base before your flavor was added. Dad liked strawberry chopped and mashed right there and whipped in. For mom it was straight vanilla extract. I’ll assume you know what that means.

Me? Chocolate. Put the whole tin of Hershey syrup in for me, and scrape the tin and risk tongue laceration going after every possible dab. Of course, the tin had to last and last so it was only at the very end I’d get to attack the thick residue.

But is not the memory something of wonder?

Whatever autumn brings you on air or sight, think how rich it is and you are having a depth of memory so deep you and I are able to stir up people and events to review, to cherish, to sigh about or to wish them away.

Deciding autumn’s color can be a personal thing.