My dog and I just took a walk. Amid the warm and misty wetness of the valley, the breezes stripped a lot of tear-shaped leaves from off the old elm tree, and they flowed down diagonally like golden rain. Mick lifted up his nose into the leaves; he seemed to like to see them and to feel them as they fell. Me too.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
EARLY MORNING RIDES...
August 26
My sunrise errand drive took me to Geauga County and from there to Trumbull County this morning. The rosy color of the rising sun reflected on the tails and manes of horses in the pastures and even added pinkish color to the barns and fields. I had the highway mostly to myself, and it was a satisfying drive... even in that early hour of the morning.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
OH, THOSE DAYS OF CHILD'S PLAY AND BAREFOOT FREEDOMS
Every year, when the summer season is well-established, a question always nags at me: "When did children stop playing outdoors?" (I'm not referring to the organized athletics that are all-important in these modern times; I mean "just plain play!")
I am of an older generation for whom our outdoor play was a joy for all seasons. Even in the cold of winter, our parents shooed us out for the good fresh air and exercise they said was good for us. We built snowmen and snow forts, made snow angels, had snowball fights, played king-of-the-hill on mounds of snow, and sledded on the hills around our neighborhoods. With skates slung over our shoulders, we walked a mile (or more) to skate on frozen ponds
When springtime freed us from our heavy winter clothing, we shed them gratefully, feeling instantly lighter of weight, heart, step and spirit. In anticipation, we put our sleds and ice skates and other winter gear in storage and brought out our bikes, trikes, wagons, scooters, pogo sticks and yoyos. The March winds brought out our kites as well---some store-bought, some crazily homemade with newspaper comic-pages and balsa-wood frames...
We greeted April with our baseballs, bats and mitts; we couldn't wait to get the neighbor kids together on the nearest vacant lot to play, and those lots were always generously open to us. We hit the sidewalks with our wagons and clamp-on skates (with keys) and raced down the nearest hilly sidewalks on anything with wheels...
When May began to warm the ground, we gathered in small groups on porches, steps and lawns to plan the summer we knew would soon be coming, and we eagerly anticipated our summer play. We looked forward to those longer, school-free days with their extended freedoms....
BUT OH! THE SUMMERS! Those days of barefoot freedom! We stomped in summer puddles. We hiked; we swam in creeks and jumped into ponds; we staged impromptu backyard picnics; we played games with jacks and marbles. We sketched chalk-square patterns onto sidewalks to play hopscotch; we used our mother's clothes-lines for our jump-rope games; we hung on swings made from old tires hung by ropes in trees; we made tents with blankets over clothes lines or other available items...
We saved our dimes for bubble pipes and squirt guns, and mom and dad set up the nets for volleyball and badminton. We played croquet; we fished; we rode our bikes all over town and made hide-outs and playhouses out of cardboard boxes. We played war, cowboys-and-Indians, cops-and-robbers, kick-the-can, leap-frog and tag. We climbed trees, and if those trees had sturdy vines, we swung on them like our movie-idol, Tarzan. We made our own parades and marched through the neighborhoods on special summer days...
On rainy days, we produced our magic shows and puppet shows on porches or in garages or basements; admission was free, but applause was mandatory. One summer a special group of friends and I began to meet on Saturdays to write a mystery novel! (Who knows where that manuscript was hidden, to end up later in the hands of another generation?)...
We used our summer Popsicle sticks as noise-makers on the wheels of our bikes, and we saved the wrappers to send away to Popsicle Pete for prizes. On sizzling afternoons, we sipped cold drinks under trees and looked for patterns in the clouds. In the star-tossed mist of summer nights, we out-noised the cicada, played hide-and-seek and captured lightning bugs in mason jars...
By the time we were 10 or 11, we could ride the bus together to Euclid Beach and other places in and around our nearest big city, Cleveland. One of my favorite stops was the Cleveland Art Museum. As teenagers, we dressed up for that special place in which we liked to imagine we were guests at a beautiful mansion, with its outdoor reflecting pool. Upon arrival, as we prepared to tour the art displays, I usually took off my high heels and hid them so I could walk in comfort. Once I LOST those shoes, and just as I thought I would be riding the bus back home "all dressed up and barefoot," the guard smilingly produced them from behind his back and gave them back to me.
When summer blended into autumn, and the warm days still remained, the outside world was still our happy playground. We picked buckeyes to be used for hobbies and our friendly buckeye wars. We rolled and tumbled in the raked-up piles of fallen leaves and enjoyed the fine aroma when our parents set those piles ablaze. We sat under trees, the colorful leaves falling down upon us as we talked together...
OUR CHILD'S PLAY was free-form, spontaneous, unorganized, unplanned... fueled by our own imaginations. It cultivated our creativity, joy, and flexibility. It fostered many other saving graces we would need in later life. That included cooperation; we learned to understand each others' differences; our sometime-squabbles were mostly settled without grownups' interference; when there was bullying, it always seemed to be resolved...
We learned to plan and make decisions for ourselves without the set patterns produced by grownups had we, instead, been lodged in nursery school to play "by order and on schedule"...
Our "child's play" was accidental therapy that would bolster us through many seasons of our lives, endowing us with an inborn sense of laughter, fun, spontaneity and humor---a special currency for us to draw on in our later years; it would become as valuable as money tucked away for our retirement.
There were chores for us as well, required by our parents throughout the year; they were our responsibility as members of the family and community. We did house work, yard work, garden work, snow-shovelling and more. Often we did such chores for neighbors who might need a hand, and the work and play provided all the physical activities we really needed to stay fit.
SADLY NOW WE'RE seeing that the children of today are suffering stress and emotional problems at ever-younger ages. School begins almost in babyhood, beginning as child-care while parents are at work. Kindergarten is preceded by PRE-kindergarten...
By first grade, youngsters are learning to work toward and worry about the "Big T's" ---those looming all-important proficiency tests that strike real fear and seem to take a lot of the joy out of learning. Midway through grammar school, kids are pondering careers, and by middle school are beginning to worry about college.
Their recreational activities, organized and pre-planned by adults, are darkly shaded with the pressure of winning. In sports, our kids learn "sportsmanship" from adults who misbehave in the bleachers and insult other parents and even the officials.
Hours of homework every day during the school year, coupled with a year-round sedentary electronic games, have led to obesity at an early age, when children's metabolisms are usually in high gear.
I SAY THESE KIDS are missing something that can be important to their lives; as important in its way as their years in academia. And that "something" is a time for child's play; a time to just be children. A time and way to learn some basic things that can nurture human beings all through life. Even when, like me, they've reached their older years.
------------------
ATTACHED PHOTO... When my own kids and their friends in the neighborhood were growing up, sometimes child's play was as simple as gathering around the picnic table for ice cream, games or "making things."
I am of an older generation for whom our outdoor play was a joy for all seasons. Even in the cold of winter, our parents shooed us out for the good fresh air and exercise they said was good for us. We built snowmen and snow forts, made snow angels, had snowball fights, played king-of-the-hill on mounds of snow, and sledded on the hills around our neighborhoods. With skates slung over our shoulders, we walked a mile (or more) to skate on frozen ponds
When springtime freed us from our heavy winter clothing, we shed them gratefully, feeling instantly lighter of weight, heart, step and spirit. In anticipation, we put our sleds and ice skates and other winter gear in storage and brought out our bikes, trikes, wagons, scooters, pogo sticks and yoyos. The March winds brought out our kites as well---some store-bought, some crazily homemade with newspaper comic-pages and balsa-wood frames...
We greeted April with our baseballs, bats and mitts; we couldn't wait to get the neighbor kids together on the nearest vacant lot to play, and those lots were always generously open to us. We hit the sidewalks with our wagons and clamp-on skates (with keys) and raced down the nearest hilly sidewalks on anything with wheels...
When May began to warm the ground, we gathered in small groups on porches, steps and lawns to plan the summer we knew would soon be coming, and we eagerly anticipated our summer play. We looked forward to those longer, school-free days with their extended freedoms....
BUT OH! THE SUMMERS! Those days of barefoot freedom! We stomped in summer puddles. We hiked; we swam in creeks and jumped into ponds; we staged impromptu backyard picnics; we played games with jacks and marbles. We sketched chalk-square patterns onto sidewalks to play hopscotch; we used our mother's clothes-lines for our jump-rope games; we hung on swings made from old tires hung by ropes in trees; we made tents with blankets over clothes lines or other available items...
We saved our dimes for bubble pipes and squirt guns, and mom and dad set up the nets for volleyball and badminton. We played croquet; we fished; we rode our bikes all over town and made hide-outs and playhouses out of cardboard boxes. We played war, cowboys-and-Indians, cops-and-robbers, kick-the-can, leap-frog and tag. We climbed trees, and if those trees had sturdy vines, we swung on them like our movie-idol, Tarzan. We made our own parades and marched through the neighborhoods on special summer days...
On rainy days, we produced our magic shows and puppet shows on porches or in garages or basements; admission was free, but applause was mandatory. One summer a special group of friends and I began to meet on Saturdays to write a mystery novel! (Who knows where that manuscript was hidden, to end up later in the hands of another generation?)...
We used our summer Popsicle sticks as noise-makers on the wheels of our bikes, and we saved the wrappers to send away to Popsicle Pete for prizes. On sizzling afternoons, we sipped cold drinks under trees and looked for patterns in the clouds. In the star-tossed mist of summer nights, we out-noised the cicada, played hide-and-seek and captured lightning bugs in mason jars...
By the time we were 10 or 11, we could ride the bus together to Euclid Beach and other places in and around our nearest big city, Cleveland. One of my favorite stops was the Cleveland Art Museum. As teenagers, we dressed up for that special place in which we liked to imagine we were guests at a beautiful mansion, with its outdoor reflecting pool. Upon arrival, as we prepared to tour the art displays, I usually took off my high heels and hid them so I could walk in comfort. Once I LOST those shoes, and just as I thought I would be riding the bus back home "all dressed up and barefoot," the guard smilingly produced them from behind his back and gave them back to me.
When summer blended into autumn, and the warm days still remained, the outside world was still our happy playground. We picked buckeyes to be used for hobbies and our friendly buckeye wars. We rolled and tumbled in the raked-up piles of fallen leaves and enjoyed the fine aroma when our parents set those piles ablaze. We sat under trees, the colorful leaves falling down upon us as we talked together...
OUR CHILD'S PLAY was free-form, spontaneous, unorganized, unplanned... fueled by our own imaginations. It cultivated our creativity, joy, and flexibility. It fostered many other saving graces we would need in later life. That included cooperation; we learned to understand each others' differences; our sometime-squabbles were mostly settled without grownups' interference; when there was bullying, it always seemed to be resolved...
We learned to plan and make decisions for ourselves without the set patterns produced by grownups had we, instead, been lodged in nursery school to play "by order and on schedule"...
Our "child's play" was accidental therapy that would bolster us through many seasons of our lives, endowing us with an inborn sense of laughter, fun, spontaneity and humor---a special currency for us to draw on in our later years; it would become as valuable as money tucked away for our retirement.
There were chores for us as well, required by our parents throughout the year; they were our responsibility as members of the family and community. We did house work, yard work, garden work, snow-shovelling and more. Often we did such chores for neighbors who might need a hand, and the work and play provided all the physical activities we really needed to stay fit.
SADLY NOW WE'RE seeing that the children of today are suffering stress and emotional problems at ever-younger ages. School begins almost in babyhood, beginning as child-care while parents are at work. Kindergarten is preceded by PRE-kindergarten...
By first grade, youngsters are learning to work toward and worry about the "Big T's" ---those looming all-important proficiency tests that strike real fear and seem to take a lot of the joy out of learning. Midway through grammar school, kids are pondering careers, and by middle school are beginning to worry about college.
Their recreational activities, organized and pre-planned by adults, are darkly shaded with the pressure of winning. In sports, our kids learn "sportsmanship" from adults who misbehave in the bleachers and insult other parents and even the officials.
Hours of homework every day during the school year, coupled with a year-round sedentary electronic games, have led to obesity at an early age, when children's metabolisms are usually in high gear.
I SAY THESE KIDS are missing something that can be important to their lives; as important in its way as their years in academia. And that "something" is a time for child's play; a time to just be children. A time and way to learn some basic things that can nurture human beings all through life. Even when, like me, they've reached their older years.
------------------
ATTACHED PHOTO... When my own kids and their friends in the neighborhood were growing up, sometimes child's play was as simple as gathering around the picnic table for ice cream, games or "making things."
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