Tar Baby

I must have been around three of four years old when I decided to leave Aunt Madeline & Clarence’s and walk home up the hills by Earl’s pond.  They lived in an old converted one-room school house.  Herman Huber lived there after the war.
 
I remember it was a very warm and sunny day and I’m not sure why I was there, probably to get me out of the families hair while they were doing something.

Anyway, the road leading up the hill in front of the house had been recently paved with large stones and asphalt.   The stones used were anywhere from about an inch to 2 inches in diameter which left ample room between the stones for the tar to collect.

I remember walking about halfway up the hill, then sitting down on the road and sticking my fingers into the warm tar and then pulling them out.  I did this for awhile, thoroughly coating my hands, clothes & arms, I even remember tasting it.  Overall I remember it as a quite pleasant experience.  The sun was warm and the hot tar comforting somehow.

Not sure how long I was there before Uncle Earl came driving up the hill.  He stopped and I remember his smiling face as he talked to me.  I remember riding in his car, a green coupe,  and then I remember my mother greeting us laughingly as we arrived at the house.  She was with several other women, the Hubbard aunts, I suppose.  I remember her cleaning me up with a cloth doused in kerosene but little else about the day.
Comment by Susan Hubbard Ciccci:

Gerry,  I’m just getting to read all of your postings.  I remember playing in the tar too, on the hill by the old butternut tree.  The tar would bubble up and the road would be loaded with all of these various sized tar bubbles, and we used to pop them with our fingers, shoes, the tires of the bike.  On time, Danny, Marilyn and Roland were visits from CA., and I think David and Craig were there, as well as John, Chris, Dougie and Jeff, Wayne’s kids: all of the cousins that age, and they got in the tar = DANNY especially, and when they came back to the house, all happy and having a wonderful time – we the family, didn’t think much about the tar being on his shoes and hands, but Roland had a FIT.  But being as experienced as we all were from the hill, kerosene took care of the matter.  J Susan