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What Do Your Kids Do for Fun? - Two
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My good friend Tip has sent me a whole list of things that he did for fun when he was a kid and that occupied his time and kept him out of trouble—well nearly. All but about three of his things were things that I also did as a kid but that my advanced state of geriatric decay had kept me from remembering yesterday when I sent you the first list of things that kids used to do that I don’t seem to observe or hear about them doing these days and cause me to ask myself again, What Do Your Kids Do For Fun?
So here are some of the things that Tip mentioned that we can add to the list:
Annie-Over, Alley–Oop, Anti-Over — I’ve heard it called all of those names and probably some more – and there are many variations of this game – but it was universal throughout the five state area where I grew up. It was a form of catch and involved throwing a ball up on the roof of the house and your playmate catching it as it came down, or I have seen it played where one player is on one side of the house and his opponent is on the opposite side and the person throwing the ball over the pitch of the roof so that it comes down on the opposite side of the house where your opponent must catch it before it hits the ground. This version is best played with four persons in teams of two, so that you have members of both teams on both sides of the house to prevent lying and cheating by your opponent. There are a dozen ways to score this game also. Tennis balls, basket balls, baseballs and even your sister’s jacks ball can be used to play Annie -over. There were a dozen different little jingles that you yelled at the top of your voice before you threw the ball over so your opponent could be warned that it was coming — throwing before you yelled the jingle was dishonorable. The sound of the ball hitting the roof drives adults mad, which is another advantage of the game. Do your kids still play Annie-Over for hours on end?
Just Plain Catch – or Burnout – Two kids twenty yards or so apart with a baseball and each kid having a baseball glove that almost always started with each kid throwing the ball softly then progressively harder until someone yelled, "calf-rope,", or, "I give up". This version is what we used to call Burn Out. Do your kids play catch or burnout?
Firefly Lanterns — Catching fireflies and putting them in a quart mason jar and watching them close up lighting their abdomens was always a good July and August activity and I spent many an evening dashing barefoot through the lawn or garden trying to catch fireflies gently enough that they still retained their luminescent ability .Tip notes that fireflies are more rare than they used to be. I wonder why this is? We must protect a national treasure. Do your kids chase fireflies on hot summer evenings?
Digging Caves — The house where my kids mostly grew up sat on a city lot that was almost a full acre, and the back part of that lot had a few cedar trees and the ground there was good friable sandy loam. My kids referred to the very back of the lot as "camp", and they dug some pretty ambitious pits and caves and dens back there. I was not invited to go back there by them, and I respected their desire for privacy but inspected it when it was unoccupied to see if it was developing into anything that might resemble a coal mine disaster. As a kid who grew up entirely in rented houses where the landlady was generally on the premises I was usually forbidden to dig on the property, and I loved to dig in the dirt. My parents bought their first piece of property when I was in the Navy, and when I came home in 1946 mother handed me a short shovel and said, "You dig holes anywhere you wish." So I was attuned to the basic need of children to dig. Do your kids dig caves and dens and forts in the dirt? It is hard on clothes but it is much more fun than having one built for you.
Fighting Wasp Nests — There was a general belief among us boys when we were about six to nine years old that wasps wouldn’t sting you if you held your breath. We were brave – and not very smart – and tested that theory several times and always rationalized the reason that it failed to leave us sting-free. We reckoned that we picked the wrong kind of wasps and that hornets WOULD sting you but wasps would not, and we weren’t too sure about yellow jackets. I remember once in Carlsbad, New Mexico that I climbed up in a tree to attack a yellow Jacket nest, and I knocked it down and got stung repetitively and developed a rather high fever. Mother took me to a doctor, and when Dad came home from work he gave me the real low down on the "wasps won’t sting you if—" theory, but it lasted for several years. Do your kids fight wasp nests?
Making Paper Airplanes — We boys whiled away many an hour making paper airplanes and flying them competitively to see which boy had the plane that would stay aloft the longest. Boeing and Lockheed would have been envious of the design and modifications that we tested. And I am sorry to admit that more than one or two of us ended up in some trouble with the school administration for flying them in class while Mizz Struthers was writing on the board. Someone’s airplane went astray and hit Mizz Struthers rather ample posterior, and I had been stupid enough to use a piece of notebook paper with my name on it. Do your kids make paper airplanes in or out of school?
Riding My Horse – I got my first horse when I was five as a birthday present, and what an animal he was. His name was Popcorn. He was a paint stallion and was trained to herd and cut cattle. He came from the Pitchfork, Matador, 6666 and Swenson ranch country, and I am not sure which ranch he was foaled on. He was small for a cow horse, but he made up for it in meanness. That horse hated all adults – my Dad, my Uncle Weldon, my Aunt Rowena and the mayor of Lubbock’s daughter were all injured by that horse either biting or kicking them. He never offered any injury to any of us kids, and I rode him almost day and night for about three years. Once I attended a very rural school on the Plains called Bellview near Plainview and rode Popcorn to school every day and stabled him at the school and rode him home in the afternoon — about three or four miles each way. I always rode him bareback. I never had a saddle with him. I had a childish thought that Popcorn should go wherever I wanted to go. I rode him into Halsey’s drug store in Lubbock, tried to get him through the revolving doors of the Lubbock General hospital so we could visit my cousin Dick who was there but couldn’t do it. Finally he — and I — caused enough trouble around Lubbock that Dad insisted that we take him up to Plainview and retire him on Granddad’s farm — there Dad finally arranged for him to get lost. Do your kids have a horse to ride?
Crawdad Fishing — Tip added all of these. I have done my bit of Crawdad fishing but it was down in the Ellis and Dallas County area — the high Plains just isn’t crawdad country. But fishing for crawdads is something that every kid should do. No hook. Just a piece of bacon tied on the end of a string and swung into some shallow water and when you feel him pull just ease him out of the water and lift him onto the bank and put him in your bucket and you’ve got some mighty good eatin’. My sons were great crawdad fishermen in Irving in Dallas county. Do your kids spend hours fishin’ for crawdads? Someone said that the time a man spends fishing is not charged against him in the Book of Life. There was a sort of a slough of water over near the Rock Island railroad line and the boys used to fish for crawdads over there and bring home dozens of them You have taught your kids to fish for crawdads I hope...and how to cook and clean em? And teach them the crawdad song...you know..."Yonder come a man with a sack on his back honey—Yonder come a man with his sack on his back, Babe. Yonder come a man with a sack on his back He’s got more Crawdads than he can pack, Honey, Baby mine" Surely your kids know the Crawdad song — you have to sing that softly while fishin’ for them or they won’t bite.
Marbles — Every boy played marbles. Every boy sought and generally found a "cat-eye agate" or as we said then an "aggie" as a shooter or a "taw". Marbles had a complex and fluid set of rules that changed from one location to another and you had to be pretty good at it or you lost all your marbles pretty quick. I wasn’t too good at it but I was fairly lucky. Do your kids play marbles? Do they play for keeps?
Tops — Every boy had a top — one that was activated by throwing off a string wound around it and had a sharp metal point at the ground end which could be used to damage if not actually split another boys top while it was spinning on the ground — usually causing a fight. I wasn’t too expert at tops either but joined in on all tops contests. .Do your kids spin string tops?
Corn-cob Fights — I mentioned rubber gun fights but fights with corn cobs were frequent also. Those things hurt when they hit you, but they didn’t really cause an injury. None of these fights in my experience were racially motivated. Race was not a factor in my life until I went to the University or a little later. There were no African-Americans in West Texas and there were very few Latinos in the Panhandle. The fights we had were with boys just like us and that on some days we played with in perfect peace and that would be sitting next to us in history class at school next Monday. .Do your kids have corn cob fights?
Washers — Tossing washers at a line and scoring who could get closest to the line was what I thought the lines were put in sidewalks for until I was grown. And if there wasn’t a sidewalk nearby why just draw a line in the dirt. And if you have no washers use coins.
Now off Tips list that leaves Spool Tractors, clothes pin match shooters, match rockets that I am not familiar with and must get back with him on and about three more that I will put on the next edition of "What do your kids do for fun?"
One I must remember to discuss next time is "snipe hunting"
Love
dad, granpa, et al-
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