When I was young, I knew girls who would lay out in the sun slathered with baby oil. The goal, brown the skin to a healthy glow. I didn’t do that. To me, it seemed like a waste of time to just lay there. I was what we now call a free-range child. My friends and I played outside all day, “out from underfoot,” my mother would say.

My friend, Louise, lived up the street. I would skate up to her house and stand outside calling her name, “Louuuuu-ee-es.” I don’t know why I didn’t walk up to her door and knock, it’s just what we did. When she wanted me, she stood in front of my house and called out, “Daaa-na.” We didn’t have phones, so that wasn’t an option. From there, strapped on roller skates adorned our shoed feet and we would traverse up and down the street negotiating the cracks, humps, and gravel the best we could. The skates we used fit over our shoes and could be adjusted with keys to fit our growing feet. Sometimes we had to oil the wheels and then be extra cautious because those wheels turned more freely when lubricated. And if we lost our key, we’d borrow someone else’s key, because they all worked interchangeably.