The Goatman and my innocence

Sounds like an early, bad Bruce Springsteen song, huh?

It was 40 years ago that the Goatman "terrorized" the Lake Worth area outside Fort Worth. He really was just a hulking bunch of hair that scared good behavior back into parking teenagers and now seems was likely some high school offensive lineman with a wig and 1969 summer hippie hair running prank.

The event was very clear to me in part because I lived in the burg right next to Lake Worth, White Settlement. It was transition time for a 12-year-old, the cusp of teenagerness and moving from elementary school into junior high. I remember peddling my bicycle into the area where the Goatman was sighted - during the day only, of course - and wondering if during the sunshine he crouched in the surrounding areas through which I peddled.

The bicycle had high rise handlebars and a gold banana seat with silver flecks. It was so flashy that if a child chose it these days there would likely be questions about his sexual orientation. But in 1969 it was almost standard issue and we seemed to believe that 12-year-olds didn't have an established orientation to consider.

The timeline made me think of that bicycle and our relationship even further. Even in the two years prior to Goatman time, I put miles and miles on those wheels, disappearing for entire days peddling over next to the then unnamed Bobcat Canyon where I knew every trail in the woods, along the gates of the then General Dynamics plant where unknown to me research was on for the next generation fighter plans and up to the fences along Carswell Air Force base where B-52s still made the earth rumble like California earthquakes and the rumor was they had atomic weapons just in case.

I probably peddled through creeks poisoned with the metals from the plants, dodged commuters along too small roads who drove gas guzzling vehicles and was always far from anyone who could identify me and who I was with. And there was simply no such thing as a bicycle helmet. It was my hair in the wind (yes, there was a time I had lots of hair) and crashes that left elbows and shins bleeding but from which I just got up.

It's that innocence that's lost. What child could ride without a helmet anymore, much less for hours and wandering miles without his parents knowledge, much less accompaniment? It's a time that made me feel free and to instill a still-sought thrill for wandering aimlessly and anonymously. In that period I think I found a lust for unexpected adventure, for heading out and dealing with what I find when I get there. I still long for it.

But in our world we can't have children with free range, or Goatmen. We lock down their brains with helmets and curfews and limitations and danger. We round up search parties and infrared and satellites for Goatmen.

We just don't have an appreciation for the unknown anymore. And that seems to be a big blow to innocence.