Like many working class families, my parents had to leave for work before the school day started, and didn't return home until after it ended, meaning we had babysitters. The first that I can really remember was back in St. Charles, Missouri, when I would have been approximately 5-7 years old, first and second grades (Kindergarten started the year after I would have taken it), Becky David Elementary.
One of the inevitable factors of child care in the working class is that the child-to-caregiver ratio is never as good as most would like, in essence, you get what you can afford to pay for. It's not unsafe, as the fact that the vast majority of our children grow up to be relatively well-adjusted mal-contents like the rest of us can attest, but most of us would still probably choose a little more personal care to our offspring than we can generally afford.
This meant that we had about an hour or so in the morning with our babysitter, and a couple hours in the afternoon during the school year, and the one thing I remember regarding as a true morning treat was my completely irregular episodic encounters with Jay Ward's progeny, most memorably as Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocket J. Squirrel, but also George of the Jungle, Tom Mix, and my favorite, Super Chicken, Fred and Super Sauce:
When you find youself in danger,
When you're threatened by a stranger,
When it looks like you will take a lickin', (puk, puk, puk)
There is someone waiting,
Who will hurry up and rescue you,
Just Call for Super Chicken! (puk, ack!)
lyrics
My school year babysitter was different from my summer babysitter, I suppose because of schedule availability, so I don't remember it too much, other than some mornings in a cramped kitchen with a countertop tv hopefully playing some Bullwinkle. The rest of the time I was in the library. Or shoplifting. I was young. It was the 70's.
