Ever smell something that triggers a memory? or hear a song?
I do. Made me think of my childhood, and the creativity we had. We sure had fun, without the aid of tv screens, computer screens, video games, cell phones, etc. etc.
The great outdoors was our playground, mud and sticks and the like our playthings.
A taught myself to ride a two wheeler bicycle when I was 4. We had fun. My older brother, Dan, was very creative. One time, when I was about 6, on an extremely windy day, my older siblings tied me to a tarp (a was tiny) and had me jump off our trampoline. Its the honest truth when I tell you the wind carried me across the yard, several inches off the ground, until I ran into our fence and twisted my ankle. That was Dan's idea. Another time, Dan created a "Rodeo" in the basement. He was the bull, and my other brother and I were the cowboys, and he sure bucked us off. Dan even made me chaps and a vest out of some ugly furry fabric he found in the basement. I was quite proud of them too.
We played pioneers in our pine trees, sweeping the pine needles to the side, and building "houses" by laying boards across tree branches for shelves, creating fireplaces by tying three sticks together with twine, teepee style, and hanging an old bucket from the center and making "soup" by filling it with water, dirt, grass, grapes (from our grape vines) and anything else we could find. We would get in trouble for that sometimes. We forgot to empty the buckets when we were finished, and a week later my dad would find them, and they'd be all smelly and mildewy and moldy (from the veggies we swiped from the garden, and the chicken scratch we added)
we played baseball at my neighbors house, and football. I was quite the athletic type. I used to be pretty good at both.
We weren't without our neighbor hood tiffs though. Once or twice I beat up the neighbor boys. Once or twice they beat me up. You'd think my brothers would stand up for me. Huh. Although Dan did hold wrestling matches in our basement, and taught my sister and I to fight. They must have figured I could fend for myself.
We made leaf houses in the fall, snow forts in the winter, played hide and seek on summer nights, made mudpies in the spring, and, on occasion, held caterpillar races. We also played flea market. We gathered all the toys and junk we could find in our back yard, set up our tables, and sold our items. We used mulch as money. Dan always got the best stuff, and us little ones got the leftovers.. Old ice cream buckets and such. We even sold "Popcorn' at our flea markets.We had a couple lilac trees out back, and we'd collect puffs of flowers, and then turned a bicyle upside down, turned the pedals and stuck the puffs through the spokes as they spun. that was our popcorn.
As we got older, we played different things. Once we created a "natural history museum" between my house and our neighbors. we collected feathers, birds nests, turtles, toads, rocks, leaves, caterpillars, and once, even a snake. We stacked them up in boxes and pens and old shelves and brought the grown ups through. The honestly didn't have much to see.
We also built "'hobbit houses". We tore up turf from out back, and covered logs and stumps with them, and decorated them, made roads in between, and even fields. They were really cool. We did that every spring for 3 or 4 years.
Once, when I was just old enough to be left home as the oldest, and in charge of the little kids, we took turns tying eachother to chairs as tight as we could, with the most difficult knots we could think of, and tried to escape. I told them we had to, cause if we were ever kidnapped (after all, it was one of the first times i was able to be in charge. who knew what could happen) we needed to know how to get away.
Thats only a tiny excerpt of the things we came up with. I pity the kids of today, whose main entertainment is video games and screens. They sure miss out on a lot.
