Life on the Second Row, Piano Side: The Games We Played

A child of the 60's, a teenager of the 70's-that's what I'd call myself.

We knew what it was like to play.  We played from sun-up to sun-down. 

Our summer day began in the corn field or the pea patch.  The congregation was willing to share if we'd come and pick. 

I don't remember pulling corn.  Daddy and my brother were up before dawn to do that.  I do remember shucking, silking, cutting and blanching.  The chore started with Daddy, Doll, and the three older children.  We knew what we had to do before we could play so within a few hours the neighborhood kids were helping.  Mama finished blanching and bagging at sometime around midnight.

Summer days were filled with riding our bikes to town to buy "penny" candy, playing backyard baseball, climbing trees, picking plums and blackberries, fishing, flying kites in the cotton field behind our house, running through the cotton field to meet our friends on the other side and more riding our bikes til supper.  (We called it supper in the south. Everyone else called it dinner.  Dinner was the noon meal.)

We played until every mom in the neighborhood was calling for her child to come home. 

 Oh, there were chores to do.  We had a chart and each chore had a dollar amount.  The bigger the chore, the bigger the buck.  The highest paying inside job was cleaning the toilet.  I didn't mind one bit and no one else wanted it!  The biggest outside job was cutting grass and I didn't want that one!

The games we played were different from the ones my parents played.   We didn't know anything about kick-the-can, marbles or jacks.  We played paper dolls bought from the store.  Mama played paper dolls that came from the Sears Roebuck Catalog.  There were many uses for that catalog.  With so many children, I wonder how it lasted an entire season.

Toys were handmade. Mama's favorite toy was a flying-jenny that her daddy made from the stump of a pine tree.  Thick axle grease made for a fast spin.

My mama and her brother, Robert.  Every home needs a puppy!

Mama worked in a neighboring county.  After school on Fridays, Daddy would pick us up from school and take us to the pants factory where we waited for mama's work day to end.  From there we followed country roads to our grandparents house.  There was always something to play at Granny's.  There was no grass, only dirt.  One of mama's chores was to sweep the yard with a straw broom.  I can remember playing house with that broom.  We loved playing in the dirt at Granny's.  I loved to make frog holes or homes for frogs.  We went fishing and swimming in the ponds.  I can still feel the slime between my toes.  Yuck!     

The younger cousins at Granny's.  I'm the one in the cool shades.  My brother is the brown head with the crew cut in the front.

We had TV, but who needed it when there were so many games to play.