So You Think You Had Fun

I was never bored living at Grandma's house. I loved being so close to my grandma! I loved my grandma! I could always sneak up the basement steps that led to "her house"...even without my mother's permission...passing the shelves of home canned fruits that that framed the staircase. And Grandma always seemed glad to see me although I'm sure that at times I was a nuisance and interupted her daily activities. I also learned to love my Aunt Dorothy who, as a teenager living at home, doted over us three girls. She was a great help to Mom by becoming our oft-times babysitter so Mom could get the rest she needed. Our close relationship with her continued on through our adult years.

One of my favorite past times while living at Grandma's was collecting seeds from the flowers that grew in her yard. I would spend hours opening the seed pods of the "Four O'Clocks" (I'm sure they had a botanical name that I didn't know) that lined the front lawn. They were small pink flowers that only bloomed in the late afternoon...hence "four o'clocks". The black seeds inside the pods were large, about the size of peppercorns. I would collect small sacks of them to give to Grandma, who always acted excited to get them. I'm sure she threw most of them away, but she surely made me feel like I was doing something really important.

Then there were the games. Oh, how I loved playing those games with the neighborhood kids who would get together almost every afternoon. I was kind of young to be playing with my older sisters and their older friends who probably viewed me as a little pest. But I'm sure it was my mom who insisted that my sisters entertain me so she could get some rest. She needed a lot of that. Anyway, the games we played were "I Draw a Magic Frying Pan", "I Have a Little Doggie" and my favorite, "Run Sheepy Run". I think I liked it best because it was more of a BIG kids game. I'll try to describe that, but it is kind of complicated. Here goes. All those playing were divided into two teams (sheep). Each group of sheep appointed a captain (sheepherder) whose job it was to hide all his sheep together where the other team would have a hard time finding them. This could be anywhere in the neighborhood. While hiding his sheep, the captain would take them in a round about, zig zag. circular, back and forth pattern before taking them to the final hiding place. This is because when he returned to the other team whose job it was to find the sheep, he was required to draw a map where he had taken them. This was usually done with a stick in the dirt. The captain would draw all the different directions he had taken them to make it more difficult for his sheep to be found. When he finished drawing the map he would put an X at the spot where they were hidden and say "And this is where my sheepy lie." The search team would then begin looking for the sheep with the captain of the sheep joining them. If the sheep were found, it was a race to see who could get "home" first, the sheep or the other team. However, if the captain felt that the searching team was far enough away from his hiding sheep that they could all get home safe without being found, he would yell, "Run Sheepy Run", and that was the signal for all the sheep to run as fast as they could to "home". Of course that shout signaled the other team to run, too, and the race was on. Which ever team got home first got to be the one to hide. Confusing??? When I get to see you all again I'll try to explain it better, or maybe we'll just have to play it at Lake Lopez this year. You can see why I was a real liability to the team I was on because I was too young to run very fast. And all the sheep had to beat all the members of the opposing team to win.

The other games I mentioned were more for the younger kids. I'll teach the little ones those games during "Grandma's tent time" this summer. Doesn't playing with a bunch of friends outside, running and yelling, sound a lot more fun than X boxes and other video games? I think most children miss out on a lot of fun because of the society in which we live today. It is so sad. We never had to worry about being abducted or being influenced by unsavory people. We knew everyone in the neighborhood and everyone looked out for each other...and their kids. We could just run, yell, and be kids. And childhood obesity was a real rarity. We never even had television until late in my teens. It hadn't been invented yet, and when it first came out only the rich could afford it. And in a way I'm glad for that. My sister bought my mom a television set after she graduated from high school and went to work. It was a real Godsend for her because she was homebound with not much she could do. She really enjoyed watching Art Linkletter and wrestling. That is so funny if you had known my "strait-arrow" mom.

As a young child I never felt cramped in that little basement apartment of Grandma's, nor did I feel unloved or deprived because of my Mom's illness. Those feelings would surface later as I grew older and had to take on more and more responsibilites. Those stories will come later.





So was my early childhood fun...and we did have fun!