Neighborhood Games

   I am writing a book of stories from my life.  It is called "Grandma's Stories."  Following is one of the stories from that book.

Neighborhood Games

I grew up in a fun neighborhood.  Most summer days, the kids in the neighborhood gathered to play each day.  During the day, we played army, hide and seek, and Annie I Over.  One summer we dug a huge “fort” in a vacant lot. It took us all summer, but we got it really deep.  We had to use a ladder to get out.  At night we played night games like No Bears are Out Tonight, Kick the Can, and Run, Sheepy, Run.  Because most of my playmates were boys, army was the favorite daytime game.  But because I was a girl, I got last choice on guns and usually got assigned the bazooka.  

It was big and heavy.  I don’t remember exactly how army was played, but I have vivid memories of hiding under evergreen bushes in cold, muddy dirt, waiting for the enemy.  My favorite place to hide when we played hide and seek was in our shed in our back yard.  I would hide among the tools and breathe in the smell of cut grass and gasoline as I hid.  My playmates were my sister, Joan, Sherm Gigray, Bill Balding (along with his German Shepherd, Lady- loved that dog,) and Janis Blacker.  (This is a picture of some of the neighborhood kids.  Janis is in the purple dress and Joan and I are in the matching outfits in the front.

 

 

  Others from the area would join us occasionally.  In the autumn, we would make “houses” out of the raked leaves.  We would spend hours creating the walls, doors, windows -like a blueprint on the ground.  I can almost feel the chill and smell the leaves.  It was so much fun.  I have a specific memory of my mom calling us in for dinner as we played in our house, and me being very reluctant to leave my beautiful leaf house.  I was afraid it would be gone by the next afternoon when I was free to play again. 

On that occasional day that it snowed in the winter, we had so much fun playing in the snow, having snowball fights, and snowman building.  But summer was the best.

In the summer between 6^th and 7^th grade, there was a very important tradition in our town and neighborhood. In the summer between 6^th and 7^th grade, you were required by the 7^th grade science teacher, Mr. Teichert, to prepare an insect collection.  Mr. Teichert would come into the 6^th grade classes at the end of the year and give all the 6^th graders the assignment with instructions on how to kill and mount the bugs.  He gave us a list of the things we would need to complete the assignment: insect nets, fingernail polish remover, jar, cotton balls, mounting board and box, etc.   You had to collect so many bugs to complete your collection.  I don’t remember the exact number, but fifty is in my mind.  A certain number of them had to be butterflies, beetles, etc.  He would tell you at the end of 6^th grade, so you had the whole summer to do it. He gave us a chart of the different kinds of insects.  He taught us how to kill and pin them into a collection.  I still remember the excitement of him coming in to our class.  But I hardly needed the instructions because I had helped so many of the kids in my neighborhood get their collections and pin them, that I already knew what was expected.  But this would be MY summer.  Everyone would be helping me.  It was so exciting!  All of the neighborhood kids owned collection nets already.  We had spent our summers for several years helping each other get our collections, so we already had nets, and the older kids helped the younger get them killed and pinned properly.  I remember roaming through the vacant lots/fields in our neighborhood, chasing insects.  I can almost hear the sound of the grasshoppers, or see the pretty swallowtail butterflies as I chased them with my net cocked.   My collection is long gone, but the memories will last forever.

We also swam a lot during the summers.  We most often swam in Janis Blacker’s pool, but occasionally in Bill Baulding’s.

 We loved to play Marco Polo, colors, and race.  We had diving competitions and races. My favorite was to see how far you could swim underwater in one breath.  I think I liked it because I usually won this game.  I could hold my breath for a very long time and I was a pretty fast swimmer, so I could usually swim two laps in Blacker’s pool before having to come up for air. 

(This is our family at Blacker’s pool, not the neighborhood kids, but it is a good shot of the pool.)

Summer evenings were the best when we would all gather to play night games as named above.  They were so fun.  I love that, now I am a grandma, the neighborhood kids in our neighborhood gather in our yard to play some of those very same games.  We are not sure why they choose our yard, but it is fun to hear their shrieks and giggles as they play the very same games we used to play.  Sometimes there are many, many kids, including teenagers out there playing.  I think a text goes out, “Meet at Hintons at 7” and they come in force.   We aren’t crazy about the broken sprinkler heads or the pilfered unripe peaches, found on the ground with just one bite gone, but it is worth it to be surrounded by happy children.

As we got older, we were reluctant to give up our games.  We played them well into our teens.  After that, we often just sat on someone’s porch or grass and talked.  We were all good friends.  I feel very blessed to have grown up in such a fun and safe neighborhood.