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What Do Your Kids Do for Fun?
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My parents and my grandparents were firm believers in the adage that an idle mind is the Devil's workshop. The concept of just sitting around twiddling one's thumbs just wasn't in their lexicon. My maternal grandmother, Mary Ellen, was perhaps the greatest proponent of staying busy and keeping our hands as well as our minds busy. Many of the things that we did as kids--very frequently joined by any adults around seem to have passed out of practice. It is difficult for me to determine what it is that kids do these days---and adults too really. My grandmother never laid a punishing hand on me but I believe that she would have if I had said "I am bored." Being bored was not allowed. Mary Ellen held that God had given us this great big wonderful world to live in and it was up to us to work with it, explore it, use it and preserve it to have a full and useful life. I was also an only child and spent much time alone or in the company of adults. To my parents and Marry Ellen this was no excuse for being bored---it was up to me to entertain myself. But adults in that day seemed to be involved in more things than they are today. Many of the activities I cite below were joined into with adults as well as attempted alone.
Let me list some of the things we did as children or as adults:
Making Kites – You know who taught me to make a kite? My grandmother, Mary Ellen. Not only that but she did a fairly good job of explaining the aerodynamic principles involved and why a tail was necessary and how the design of a kit was a trade off between weight and lift. I don't think I ever bought a kite in my life. I made simple kites, box kites, round kites – not all of them flew well. Many were wrecked on first launch but the value of making kites was in the making. Mary Ellen would always cheer from the kitchen window when I got a new kite up in the West Texas sky. Your kids make their own kites these days don't they?
Snow Ice Cream – Making snow ice cream was a ritual my mother introduced me to when I was very young and many times I wished for snow so that I could go gather snow off the ground and make snow ice cream. I believe that high plains snow (it is drier than hill country snow) and fresh Jersey cream separated a few minutes before (it has a higher butter fat content) make the best snow ice cream. But if you have a young audience snow ice cream made with any snow and any cream will be deemed delightful and occupy four-year-olds for hours. Do people still make snow ice cream and teach their kids how to find clean snow and separate cream from milk and how much richer Jersey milk is than Holstein milk? Your kids make snow ice cream don't they?
Button Whizzers – It has been a long time since I have seen a button whizzer. If you take a big button (I mean really big--like an inch in diameter or approaching that) from your Mother's button box (she has a button box doesn't she?) and put about a yard of string through two diagonally opposed holes on the button and then slip the string over a finger of each hand and saw back and forth with it you can cause the button to rotate at great speed and make a whizzing noise. This is a button-whizzer, and it is excellent for boys to use to chase a girl around the house threatening to get the button tangled in her hair and listening to her scream most appealingly. An excellent way to pass a rainy morning when you can't get outside. The little girls scream a lot, but they actually like to be chased around in the house by the boys. Do your kids know how to make button whizzers?
Making Cottage Cheese – I didn't know that they sold cottage cheese in stores until I was an adult; and then I didn't approve of it, for it was not nearly as good as my Aunt Rowena used to make and hang on the back porch to drain. Cottage cheese is easy to make and good, and good for you, and your kids will get a good feeling out of making some of their own food. It is almost pure protein and has almost no trans fatty acid content. Why don't you teach your kids how to make cottage cheese? Of course there is a problem now. All the milk you buy in a store is homogenized, reconstituted to a fixed butter fat content, and pasteurized so it really isn't milk any more. It is a manufactured drink. But maybe you know someone with a cow. If so, teach your kids to make cottage cheese. They will like to do it, it is simple, and it is good and good for you.
Making Candy – I probably can't sell this activity on a health basis, but we use to make candy at home about one evening a week. Fudge (loaded with pecans), divinity (loaded with walnuts), taffy (pulled until it was brittle almost), pralines (chewy and brittle), and the candy was not only good it was fun to participate in the making. You do make candy with your kids don't you?
Singing on the Front Porch – We used to sit on the front porch and sing songs. Actually my best contribution to music in any form is an attentive ear, but it was a get-together that was comfortable for children to be in and around. When I visited my Way cousins there was a chance that Uncle Ott would get his guitar and play, or they had visiting uncles from Snyder (one, a young man who always sang "Sippin Cider Through Two Straws”). Out on the farm there was only us for an audience (and the dogs), but we used to sing on the porch when we lived in town too and passers-by and neighbors would frequently stop and join in the sing-song. It was a relaxed, neighborly sort of get together and I am not sure we do much of that any more. Your kids have sing-songs on the front porch?
Apple Butter – My grandmother (Mary Ellen) used to make apple butter so thick you could slice it with a knife and pick up the piece. Over-spiced with cinnamon and nutmeg and held at 55 degrees constant by water from the Ogallala Aquifer running through the milk trough where it set in a crock jar – you talk about good slathered on a piece of homemade yeast bread or sourdough.
Papier-mâché Vases – If things got really dull around the farm – and they rarely did – my grandmother would say, “Why don't you kids make me a couple of vases?,” and this would keep us busy for several days. First, we had to find old newspapers or other newsprint paper and tear it into tiny shreds by hand and then put it in a wash tub with barely enough water to cover it. Then we’d locate two mason fruit jars and wash them clean. And then came the great day of putting the mushy papier-mâché cover on the fruit jars and making it stick and carefully and slowly drying the completed vase. We would artistically mold the papier-mâché around the jar and press depressions in it with our thumb in random patterns. Then after drying we painted them with water colors and this took several days. Your kids do get to make papier-mâché vases don't they?
Poke Salad and Dewberries – If I happened to be at my paternal grandparents in the early spring, I would be sent to the creek bottom to seek out Poke salad (or is it Polk salad?) and gather wild dew berries and blackberries. Your kids do know how to identify Poke salad and dewberries don't they.
Donkey Baseball and Rodeo – In the summer from the farm we went to church on Sunday morning and Sunday night and Prayer Meeting on Wednesday night, and attendance at other events was not too frequent; because, after all, gas cost 13 cents a gallon, and we had to drive about twelve miles to town and just couldn't afford to go to town that often. However, there was a traveling team of baseball players called The House of David team, and they were all bearded – it was a religious sect of some kind. My grandparents didn't take too kindly to any type of religious observance, except what Brother Apple led every Sunday at Aiken, but they did tolerate going to the House Of David baseball games when they either came to play the local scrub team or when they put on a donkey baseball game. In donkey baseball a batter after hitting the ball had to ride to first base on a donkey tethered near home plate. This donkey was trained to balk, buck, kick and be generally obstreperous, so it was actually a comedy routine. Also, rodeos around the Fourth of July were considered good wholesome entertainments. You do take your kids to donkey baseball games and rodeos don't you?
Swimming – I don't remember when I could not swim. The farm was a glorious place to swim. I swam in the exit pool of the irrigation well which was about 25 or 30 feet in diameter and about chin deep to a 12 year old in the center. The water coming into the pool was at a constant 55 degrees and entered at about 1200 gallons per minute straight up from the Ogallala aquifer. Wonderful place to swim. If I was at my paternal grandparents I swam (sans suit) in the clear waters of Ten-Mile Creek and had it all to myself usually. I was an excellent swimmer. If I was in some west Texas town with my parents there was rarely such a thing as a swimming pool but if there was a river or creek nearby I'd find a place to swim. You do send your kids off to the creek to swim don't you?
Bows, Arrows, Rubber Guns and Sling-Shots – Every boy I ever knew made his own rubber guns, bows and arrows, and a device which we did not call a sling shot but which served the same purpose as one. These were pretty sophisticated things by the way. There were rubber gun pistols, cannon, machine guns, sniper rifles all laboriously made with what tools one could steal from his father's tool box. Some of us made animal traps. The rubber gun arsenal has been sadly depleted however by the advent of synthetic rubber inner tubes which are not nearly as good as the old natural rubber inner tubes for making rubber bands to fire from these devices. Your kids do make rubber guns and have rubber gun wars don't they?
Sleepin' Out – When people came to visit there was rarely room wherever I lived to accommodate another family, so as a rule all the kids in the house were handed a blanket or a quilt apiece and told to go sleep in the front yard on the Bermuda grass or if it existed on the front porch. No tent. No sleeping bag. Just a quilt and space to spread it. I tell you there is nothing as clear and brilliant as a sky full of stars on a west Texas farm. It almost seems that you can reach up and touch the stars. Any kid who grows up without sleeping on the ground under a west Texas sky is missing something they can get no other way. Sometimes we kids would sleep out when there were no visitors. You do let your kids sleep out in the open once or twice a month don't you?
Political Rallies – I use to go to town in the summer with my granddad when he made his weekly trip to sell eggs and cream and buy "necessaries". It was always a hard decision for me whether to go to town on Saturday with granddad or stay at the farm with my grandmother. Saturday was her baking day – she didn't believe in baking on Sunday – and she made cakes, pies and about ten loaves of light bread plus buns. This activity offered great opportunity to boys to scrape the bowls and pans and to try the finished product to see if it was edible. On the other hand, if I went with Granddad, I could go to the western movie-show and get a hot fudge sundae and a bag of popcorn all for quarter. In addition, if it was an election year, I could go to the political rally at the court house square. I used to stay well up on politics and would discuss with Granddad who he should vote for on the way to and from town. Your kids do go to political rallies don't they?
In addition to these desultory little amusements we kids did have our regular chores. At home in town I had to wash dishes, make my bed, keep my room picked up and clean, and I usually had yard chores depending on when and where we lived. At the farm I worked at hay-baling time (usually driving the pick up rake), I rode the go-devil, I harnessed my own team and I milked one cow morning and night and separated all of the milk with a hand-turned centrifugal cream separator and then meticulously washed all of the multiple parts of the separator.. Now don't get to feeling sorry for me. None of that was back-breaking or even strenuous work, but it taught me a lot and gave me a pride of doing. I was also usually delegated to feed the pigs and calves. Your kids have chores don't they?
Do your kids ever go snipe hunting?
Well it just seems that kids these days spend an awful lot of time in watching things rather than in doing things. I am not sure that is good.
More soon on over-supervising your child.
Love
dad, granpa et al
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