Isn't it absolutely AMAZING !! what little kids can do besides stare blankly at a television screen from their tiny little recliner seat, graduating soon to a sitting position to do same - - at about age six, gradute to a hand-held Game Boy, etc. to keep the poor little dear from getting (look out - here comes the word I LOATHE..) B-O-R-E-D ...|:>( with all those piles of expensive toys of which they are sooooo tired.
Heaven forbid they do that old-fashioned thing called "play with others" at all kinds of useful athletic activities like Hide 'n Seek and dodgeball (where one hurls a 'lethal' object to 'maim' someone; sometimes employing discrimination against gender, race, etc. No - instead, they do video games where they deliberately seek to kill the target - whatta way to go, Mom and Dad - let 'em kill without blood and have highly skilled fingers.)
We were duped to think it was fun, and took skill to judge the rate of the flight of the ball and jump nimbly aside to avoid it!
Played jump rope and marbles and Pick-Up-Sticks and jacks, and as a WWII child, I at 7 was digging foxholes in vacant lots with all the little boys in the neighborhood....led them a merry chase as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, having the huge pithecolobium tree with treeshouse and genuine sturdy vines to use to swing down!
When at 9 we moved to the country farther upstate, I roamed the canal banks, the Lord giving me a seventh sense to alert me to the presence of one of the many poisonous snakes indigenous to the area....had gators and water moccasins in the waters, but that didn't deter me to accept a challenge at 17 from a fella at school..."I dare you to use the one-man life raft you have to float all the way from your bridge to Canal # 1 - a mile north."
Piece of cake, impeded by water hyacinths a it, but I did it.
That year was when I like Joan of B.C. wielded a puny 4' stake to beat to death a diamondback rattler (with a much bigger girth than the stake) that stretched to more than 5 feet in length....took half an hour to drag it the quarter-mile back to the house, and my from-the-North boyfriend, seeing it, nearly threw up and fainted..:))
With no brothers, I from age 11 was the Yard Person (with a reel push mower), and chopped wood, used the .22 rifle when necessary, had my own horse, surveyed land, sewed and embroidered; did the Miami Herald Crossword Puzzle and was an "A" student, class and Student Officer and several awards winner. The first girl at Melbourne High to take Mechanical Drawing, too, Daddy an engineer.
We had only magazines and newspapers and a radio in those days, and if I lacked something I wanted to do, I read and wrote things and went to the canal banks to 'dream.'
I would NEVER have said to my parents "I am bored.." because it was unthinkable, not 'getting' today's concept of childhood of "ME-ME-ME" in the scheme of things.
We we were thrilled during the war to receive at Christmas a handerchief from an aunt - a single book - stationery - perhaps one inexpensive article of clothing, *maybe* a new board game.
We never considered ourselves deprived, though, as Nan and MEG will tell you.
Contentment is making the most of whatever your situation, and learning what it takes to grow and be self-sufficient.
It thus never bothered me to move so often, knowing 'Home' was wherever God wanted me to be, until we go back to His special one.
As you and I exchanged once, TC, we each had a horse named 'Grasshopper' at an early age...
Have to confess, however, I never mastered using a slingshot..:))
Obviously, your Hero, in addition to Roy Rogers, was young David - a shepherd boy...and most assuredly still is today, I assume.
A beautiful Sunday to one and all coming to The Finest Cafe...
