Games People Play

I am participating in #SOL22. This is Day 19. Thanks for providing this space to write, share, and grow.

When I was growing up in the ’60s, I spent a good deal of time outside after school and on weekends. Outdoor activities included twirling hula hoops, catching butterflies with nets and letting them go (Of course!), bouncing on pogo sticks, and riding bikes. We played marbles on the sidewalk. I had a cookie jar full of different sizes and colors. Bobby and Lois Brucker had the best collection. Sometimes, we traded.

My favorite thing to do was to walk on stilts. Some friends had metal ones, but I preferred my wooden stilts. It was all the rage! I practiced almost every day. I could walk up and down the four steps leading to the stoop, hop on one stilt, and even balance on one stilt to twirl around! The height was adjustable, too. Sometimes, I balanced two feet from the ground.

When I wasn’t on stilts, I was roller skating. The only problem – I never learned how to stop. One day I took off on my skates to roll down East Mt. Airy Street, a freshly macadamed road. The only thing is – I gathered so much speed that I shot across the road that ran perpendicular to it. I tried to grab the looming telephone pole in my path and fell hard. That was probably when I broke my wrist, although I hid my injury from Mom until the next day when I fell a second time playing “Thread the Needle” in my elementary school’s playground.

Indoor activities were fun, too. My family loved to play board games. We were in love with Chutes and Ladders, Clue, Twister, Candyland, Mouse Trap, and Uncle Wiggly. I loved playing Pickup Sticks with my sisters. And wasn’t everyone interested in the strange and mysterious Ouija Board? Indoors at my grandparents’ home was a time to play cards or Parcheesi and Monopoly.

My sisters played with paper dolls and dressed them in paper clothes. Sandy had a Barbie and Ken and their “dream house” and even a car. The only doll I treasured was my Raggedy Ann doll. I did love my model horses and set up jumping courses for them. I even made paper ribbons in blue, red, yellow, white, pink, and green for the “horse shows.” I still have a few horses, some very old stuffed animals (including Flower, a skunk I received when I was five), and my Raggedy Ann.

I cannot part with them. They connect me with my childhood. They make me smile. They are part of the magic I cannot let go.