The Adventures of a Latchkey Kid
by Robert Hodum
In the late 50s suburbia exploded across the farmlands of Long Island, changing its landscape and small town culture forever. Families from Brooklyn and Queens pushed out to the sticks, looking for fresh air and a safe haven to raise their children. Later known as latchkey kids, we considered ourselves frontiersmen, daredevils, and self-confessed hellions. Keys around our necks, we escaped our empty homes by banding together and raising a lot of hell. This collection of vignettes recounts the antics and capers of us kids who loved adventure, roaming the fields and woods, and liked to just mess around.