Adult Wisdom

For a kid, Adult Wisdom is hard to fathom.  Our Bronx apartment building had apartments on three sides, six stories high.  The three walls all faced a courtyard in the middle that opened out onto the sidewalk and then the street.  On two sides of the courtyard there were low green bushes, a kid could jump over, and then green grass and finally against the walls, bigger bushes or small trees.  Lots of green.  Lots of families, and so lots of kids.  Adults wanted children, but they did not want them to act like children in the courtyard.  Kids make noise, and noise was forbidden in the courtyard, along with walking on the grass or jumping over bushes.  The courtyard was to be looked at as you walked back and forth to apartment entrances.  The courtyard was a good place to play, but we had to go onto the sidewalk and play our games, hopscotch, jump rope, and such.  Or we could play in the street which we would share with cars, traffic.  Adults did not want us run over by a car, but they would not let us play in the safer courtyard. For a kid, this meant that it was better to be run over by a car than to make noise in the courtyard.  The rules of adult thinking have consequences.  Kids are noisy.  That is what makes a kid in most cases.