I always liked the quote from one of my most valued B. Kliban books that Vicki and I loved in college. Pithy sayings with line drawing cartoons. Words to live by! Things like "Chiggers can be boozers" with a picture of a drunk chigger in a gutter with a bottle (instead of beggars can't be choosers), and "Hey Cuba, eat my Florida". Funny!
One was a picture of a grizzled old guy saying "It was hell recalled former child!" Except it wasn't hell. It was just much different than today's children experience. At book club the other night we discussed the stuff we used to do since there wasn't much on TV and we didn't have all those sophisticated video games etc. Plus there were more kids in our neighborhood, due to larger families.
We spent a great deal of time playing outdoors this time of year. Our house was a newer house on the edge of an older neighborhood - address 202 Crombie Place. It was a great place to grow up! Just down the big hill (bad idea to ride my trike down it that time - crash and burn!) was Fairlawns - a post WWII housing development with small starter homes filled with families.
The amounted to a lotta kids to play with! We did lots of running around. You could usually ride around on your bike and scrounge up something to do. Our next door neighbors, the Reinertsons had kids about the same age as each of us - either 1 year older or younger. We spent a lot of time with that family. Oh how I loved it when the older kids allowed us to join into their games! Freeze tag, Sardines, some ghost game where you said "1 o'clock and the ghosts are out" and so on. Kick the can caused Katherine Reinertson to cut her foot once - poorly chosen coffee can.
Most days were spent at the Country Club pool where we were on the go constantly. Baby pool, big pool, chairs to tip and cover with a towel to make a fort, snack shop, locker room, TV room. We watched Dark Shadows each day. We played Shark and Nibbles. We pretended to take each other's photo while going off the diving board. It was all great fun.
I'm sorry kids today have to be so supervised, and that they can't move about as freely as we did in the good old days. It's much more complicated for them to have a play date. They probably don't often get so busy that they forget to eat like we did. Finally Mom or Dad would track us down and we'd come in for a meal. Bathtime was truly needed after a day of all those activities. We were the lucky ones!
One was a picture of a grizzled old guy saying "It was hell recalled former child!" Except it wasn't hell. It was just much different than today's children experience. At book club the other night we discussed the stuff we used to do since there wasn't much on TV and we didn't have all those sophisticated video games etc. Plus there were more kids in our neighborhood, due to larger families.
We spent a great deal of time playing outdoors this time of year. Our house was a newer house on the edge of an older neighborhood - address 202 Crombie Place. It was a great place to grow up! Just down the big hill (bad idea to ride my trike down it that time - crash and burn!) was Fairlawns - a post WWII housing development with small starter homes filled with families.
The amounted to a lotta kids to play with! We did lots of running around. You could usually ride around on your bike and scrounge up something to do. Our next door neighbors, the Reinertsons had kids about the same age as each of us - either 1 year older or younger. We spent a lot of time with that family. Oh how I loved it when the older kids allowed us to join into their games! Freeze tag, Sardines, some ghost game where you said "1 o'clock and the ghosts are out" and so on. Kick the can caused Katherine Reinertson to cut her foot once - poorly chosen coffee can.
Most days were spent at the Country Club pool where we were on the go constantly. Baby pool, big pool, chairs to tip and cover with a towel to make a fort, snack shop, locker room, TV room. We watched Dark Shadows each day. We played Shark and Nibbles. We pretended to take each other's photo while going off the diving board. It was all great fun.
I'm sorry kids today have to be so supervised, and that they can't move about as freely as we did in the good old days. It's much more complicated for them to have a play date. They probably don't often get so busy that they forget to eat like we did. Finally Mom or Dad would track us down and we'd come in for a meal. Bathtime was truly needed after a day of all those activities. We were the lucky ones!
1 comment:
There was a video clip at the end of the play showing Bill Bryson saying how he grew up in the best time and the best place on earth. i agree-- we were the lucky ones.
Post a Comment