I once sought sanctuary status to no avail

The idea of a “sanctuary” haven is nothing new. Believe it or not, I invented the idea in Long Beach back in 1957.

It began with defiance of parental authority. You know how moms are — well at least mine, anyway.

She felt being a good parent was maintaining control over the boundaries of our domain.

Mom wanted to make sure her offspring were not dealing with unsavory peers or bringing illegal substances into our home. Safety was her primary concern.

But in those days, I was easily influenced by my sixth-grade friends, who simply ignored their mothers’ directives.

Their attitude was, “Why obey if there are no consequences for failing to do so?”

However, despite their defiant rhetoric, most of these kids were afraid of my mom and her determination to maintain order. This included myself. As an example, I could not protect hidden illicit contents in my room on a 24-hour watch.

I feared she would discover some of my most valued possessions. Under the bed was a rusty Daisy Red Rider BB gun that didn’t work. Stashed behind the dresser was a water-damaged “Playboy” magazine — purchased from a classmate in exchange for a punctured NBA basketball.

Placed in a Hopalong Cassidy cowboy boot was an almost empty bottle of Schnapps, found in one of our neighbor’s trash cans.

There was really only one option to deal with oppressive parental snooping and authority. In order to protect my chattel and friends, I had to declare my room a sanctuary slumber chamber. That’s right. All I had to do was write up a statement declaring it to be true and have all my buddies sign it.

To give the proclamation more clout, I got some sympathetic student reporters on the school paper, “The Weekly Whippersnapper,” to write a piece about my predicament.

Their story described how my friends and I were good students — well at least during recess anyway. They also claimed my associates were not criminals, as portrayed by Mom. (They certainly weren’t rapists because in those days, no one in our age group knew what sex was.)

The newspaper story continued with a reassurance that my sanctuary declaration would ease the fears of my friends and protect them from banishment.

But alas, despite good intentions, the document proved meaningless and only provided a false sense of security.

The laws of parenting were definitely on my mother’s side. She threatened to withhold my allowance if I did not cease and desist my rambunctious rebellion immediately.

Supportive public opinion seemed to be generated from the school article, but even that assurance began to wane, as neighborhood juvenile crime showed an upward trend. Cigarette butts were turning up behind school buildings, a number of bicycle “burnout” skid marks were appearing on public sidewalks and more bottles of cheap liqueurs were disappearing from family liquor supplies.

In the end, parental authority prevailed. Slowly but surely, my friends were detained and sent back to their own homes. Some tried to return in the middle of the night, but eventually terminated their tired attempts, as they were caught and ejected again.

In hindsight, was my sanctuary slumber chamber worth the effort? Well, it made me feel that I was doing something — even if it had no legal clout — to keep my friends within the boundaries of what I declared was mine.

But the room was not mine. It was only my domicile as long as my parents allowed it. Continued resistance resulted in occupying the rafters of a two-car garage containing a thin mattress — along with a crystal set, which received only one radio station and specialized in old folks’ music.

So as you can surmise, there’s a lesson to be learned from this traumatic and tearful tale. Defying mom or the federal government is never a viable nor realistic option.

No one really comes out ahead by playing this losing and illusionary childhood game.