PLAYTIMES

We kids all have such great memories being raised on this farm, the wide open spaces, playing in the fields and the wood thickets, and the woods. Over 120 acres of the farm is wooded land. I often took walks in the woods, and when I was a teen, girl friends and I would walk out to the back fields, so we could talk, without other "ears" around.

When we were little we would play cowboys and Indians in the thickets. In the winter we played Eskimos in the snow and iced over drive ways to the back fields. When it would rain hard, we’d run around outside in our bare feet, in the puddles of the driveways. I would play “house” along the creek in the cow meadow. One time my brother Jerry and I were playing in the woods, and we walked away too far, so that we didn’t know how to get back. I was age 7 or 8. We were lost. I still remember that awful feeling, it was fall and it was a cold day. We were cold and scared. We walked and walked until we finally found a clearing. It was the field of a neighbor, we walked to their house, told them our name, and they took us back home.

One year the township came along and cut down almost all the trees along the main road. There was a giant pile of some sort of bark, I’m not sure what, from the trees, or maybe it was the wood itself, I'm not sure. Anyhow, it was left there in the fall and stayed all winter. I was in 2nd or third grade and was by the bus stop where we waited for the school bus. We would play Indians around this pile, pretending it was an Indian tepee, and even play while we were waiting for the school bus.

Once a summer, Dad would buy stone gravel to put on the lane and roadways around the farm buildings. There was a distance between the farm buildings and the main road that we always called “the lane”. The gravel would be put on a huge pile by the milk house. He would leave enough for us kids to play in. It was our “sand box”. We would take the hose from the milk house and make it wet, and we would make roadways, and houses, ponds and pretend all sorts of things. I guess it was like if we were on the seashore sand, and played like one would play in the beach sand. We spent hours there. It was so much fun. Eventually the pile would go down, but we'd still have some left for play. I sure wish we had some pictures of it.

We even had fun when Dad would be shoveling out the lane and driveways after a big snow! We would “help” him, but actually we played more than we helped. These were the days before snow-blowers and apparently he didn’t have a plow for the front of the tractor to use to push the snow, or maybe he wanted the exercise, but Dad always hand shoveled! (Of course we didn’t get the snow amounts and as many snow falls there as we do here in Duluth). Anyhow, his shoveling, gave us the chance to play!

We sure had a lot of fun as kids. Do you think that kids today have the imagination that we did? (feel free to post your answer or thoughts). We didn’t have friends to play with, we had to play together as siblings or entertain ourselves with our imagination. We weren’t taken to soccer, little league, dance lessons, “play dates”, community club, swimming lessons, and other organized play, like the children of today. We didn’t depend on our parents to play with us, or to entertain us.

We made our own fun and entertained ourselves. Those were the days!
(Photo above: Mom brought hot coffee out to Dad, to give him a break from his snow shoveling of the lane. note: to the right of the end of the lane, is where my sister's house is today.)