Memories of Growing up

 On May 22, 2024, I posted a blog titled Making Childhood Memories.  In that blog I wrote about the fun I had, admitting that some of my adventures may have been a little dangerous.  My brother was older than I was, and the year I entered 1st grade, he entered High School.  Growing up on the farm, we did not rely on finding entertainment by going somewhere.  We played games as a family--pitching horseshoes, playing croquet, setting up a volleyball net, and in the winter playing cards and board games, and clamping a home-made ping-pong table onto our dinner table in the dining room for serious matches.  The ping-pong table took up most of the room, but we squeezed our way around it much of the winter.  We almost always won when we played guests, because my father had made the ping-pong table out of a single sheet of plywood, and it was just a little short of regulation length.  Visitors accustomed to playing on a regulation table would often over- shoot the length of the homemade table.  When we retired to the farm decades later, the old horseshoes pictured above were still at the base of a tree, waiting for us to pitch a game of horseshoes!   

Despite our age differences, my brother and I found ways to play games together.  One of those games involved my going up on the roof of our 2-story house while my brother would see if he could kick a football over the house.  My challenge was to knock it down, if I could.  I believe my parents decided that game was a little too dangerous and put a stop to it.

In the "Making Childhood Memories" blog, I described our fun on a sack swing, but at the time I posted the blog, I could not find a photograph.  Recently, I found one, so now I can better explain that sack swing.  This is what I wrote in the earlier blog:  "I grabbed an old rope thrown up to me by my older brother and leaped out into space to wrap my legs around an old gunny sack with a little straw inside to soar through the air, never worrying about whether the strength of an old cottonwood tree limb could hold me."  Here is a better description of what our sack swing was really like.  There I am, bare foot, of course.  You can see the sagging gunny sack with a little straw inside, and the knotted rope to which I held onto for the ride.  However, what I need to describe is in the upper left corner of the picture.  Look closely, and you can see the wheels and the corner of the bed of the truck.  On the truck bed was the wooden picnic table, and on the table was an empty barrel of some kind.  Farms always had barrels around.  On top of that barrel was a smaller barrel, which I climbed upon.  Then my brother had to throw the sack swing up to me.  That was the hardest part--reaching out to catch the rope without tipping over the barrel.  Then, I got a good grip on the knot of the rope, launched myself out in space while trying to get my legs around the straw-filled gunny sack, and enjoying the thrill of the ride.  The second hardest thing I remember about the game was how difficult it was for me to throw the sack all the way up to my brother, waiting on top of the truck bead, picnic table, and barrels, so far above me, when it was his turn to ride. 

My childhood was a time to learn--what I could do and what I could not.  It was a time to develop imagination balanced with common sense.  It was a time when the family came together, to do chores and to play.  It was a time when reading fueled my imagination and my knowledge.  It was a time when I could see how hard my parents worked, helping me to accept my own responsibilities--to make my bed, to set the table and wash dishes and learn how to cook, to accept responsibilities, to share, and to learn that the world did not revolve around me.  I understand that our world has changed since then, but perhaps we need to find ways to give kids more of the learning opportunities I once had...even without a sack swing!