By Terry Hughes
Today, elementary school children are overwhelmed with electronic devices that at times seem to hypnotize them from the real world. It inhibits their personal communication skills and endangers socialization opportunities that were so much a part of our growing up. Everything is so organized leaving little time for self-initiative. And even though there is equipment for every opportunity, boredom is often a common ailment. Because we lacked this type of lifestyle, how in the world did we survive?
Looking back, and recalling the stuff that we used for play, entertainment and having fun, it was a simpler time. The only electronic equipment available: the telephone, sometimes with a party line; radio and television with a very few channels. Equipment could be a piece of rope for skipping, a ball and bat for softball in a vacant field and a sidewalk where we played hopscotch, tag, jacks and leapfrog. A telephone pole or tree in your neighbourhood acted as the “home free place” where you played hide and seek usually after supper until dark. Rocks acted as goal posts for kick the can or street hockey. A shoelace fitted through a hole drilled through a horse chestnut was done when playing Kingers.
Bicycles gave an opportunity to visit far away places. Just look at the boy with his bike without a helmet. The bike lacks handles for braking because all you had to do was back peddle engaging the rear wheel. Called coaster bikes, they required peddling at whatever speed you wanted not having to worry about changing gears or dropping your chain. You were in charge of repairing your bike and fixing a flat was a simple chore; no cables or chains to inhibit your work. One-size bike fits all or you waited until you were big enough to ride one. My bike was a second hand CCM.
Skipping was an art in itself. Regular skipping involved one or a multitude of folk that was popular with the girls. It was set to a rhythm established by a verse developed by them. Listed below are some of these verses:
One potato, two potato, three potato, four, .
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, or….
…..
Five little monkeys, jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head,
Mama called the doctor, the doctor said, no more monkeys, jumping on the bed.
…..
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around, teddy bear teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, go upstairs, teddy bear, teddy bear say your prayers…
…..
A big fat man came to our house and we asked him what he wanted, a bottle of wine to shine him up and that is all he wanted,
Where’s your money, in my pocket, where’s your pocket, I forgot it, where do you live, under the bridge, what’s your number cucumber,
What’s your street, pigs feet!
Different types of skipping were performed including red hot pepper based on how often you could jump and double Dutch requiring two ropes. Our picture of this happy young lady skipping showed home much fun it was.
Pretending was experienced by most of us and was based on our heroes and personalities we knew in the adult world. One of the pictures shows a little girl pouring a cup of tea into a tiny cup. Playing house was based on what moms did. My wife still has her tea set packed away waiting for some little person in our extended family to claim it. Just throw a blanket or old rug over the clothes line or back stoop and you were ready to bring your dolls and other personal belongings into play.
Good guys and bad guys based on radio personalities were played out and this was often extended to movie heroes like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy. A situation, unfortunately, occurred playing Cowboys and Indians. Thanks to the movies, the natives were always massacring the white folk when history shows us it was, in many cases, just the opposite. And in the textbooks of the day such as Pirates and Pathfinders, Champlain asked for religious orders to come to the New World to Christianize the Indians. And we’ll just leave it at that!
Role playing was much a part of our adventures. While playing cowboys, one of the competing guys came up behind his opponent and struck him on the head with the handle of his metal cap gun requiring several stitches. And if you wanted to imitate one of your super heroes, why not tie a towel around your neck and see if you could fly by jumping off of a neighbour’s garage!
Before television, radio provided a great opportunity to play with your mind. The Inner Sanctum with its creaking door and host who sent chills down your spine accompanied by an organ with verses that set the scene for tonight’s episode come to mind. A similar program on a competing network was called, Lights Out! And what about The Shadow, a person who could cloud people’s minds so they cannot see him. Here is his closing line: “The tree of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay! The Shadow knows!…. followed by a haunting laughter.
One other picture with this article was how money could be raised on one’s own initiative. Selling lemonade or, in this case, Kool Aid, created an awful lot of work with minimal return. While getting penny candy from your local store, cashing in pop bottles for two cents made it easy. But going on family picnics to Long Beach could be very profitable. People were very careless about bottle disposal so my sister and I would collect all the bottles we could and cram them into the trunk of the car. At home we washed the sand from them and took them to the store. Store owners were not happy about having to find room in their building so we spread our distribution over several different places.
Everything talked about here was done on our own initiative. And every activity was seasonal. Kingers were a fall activity while alleys took place in the spring. Bikes were put away for winter but walking trips to spend a day in the “bush” could be done any time. Ice skating took place on local ponds or outdoor rinks provided by the municipality in the winter. And would I change places with today’s generation? Absolutely NOT! How about you?
Next column: Don’t Mess With Lake Erie.
(Terry Hughes is a Wellander who is passionate about heritage, history and model railroading. His opinion column, Heritage Lives, appears on the blog once or twice monthly.)