Zigzag Tile

When I was young I used to walk from my grandparents’ home to the Dan’s on Fort Union and Highland Drive. The trip took roughly 20 minutes. There wasn’t a sidewalk; the roadside was full of dust and bull thorns. But it was worth the trouble because at Dan’s you could buy an ice cream cone for a nickel. When we lived in California most of my friends were within walking distance, but more often I played by myself in vacant lots and empty fields, hunting for horned toads and the like. Yesterday I read about a Florida mom who was arrested and charged with child neglect. She had let her seven-year-old son walk alone (with a cell phone) half a mile to the park to play. Is seven too young to walk a few blocks alone? It certainly wasn’t when I was that age. But back then no one assumed my neighborhood was full of pedophiles.