The Games People Play

So did everybody open their windows yesterday? Take a long walk? Fifty three springs I've enjoyed, and they are still wonderful.

When I was a little girl in elementary school, physical education used to include square dancing. I loved square dancing. Do schools do that anymore? I read the local newsletter from the library and discovered that the grange has square dancing and mentioned to to Paul, asking if he would be interested. I received a quizzical look in response, and he said, "Sheila. We've been married seven years and I've NEVER heard you mention your passion for square dancing." I guess that's valid, he would have no way of knowing that I've been keeping my eyes open for square dancing opportunities. On the same hand, I throw a lot of ideas on the table that I never follow through with; beekeeping, backyard fowl, worm farming, vegetable gardening, painting furniture business, stone engraving, house flipping.....

Two more of my favorite playground games were tetherball and foursquare. Nobody plays those anymore, do they? I'd like to put a tetherball post up in my yard. Has it become one of those incorrect games, like dodgeball? (another favorite of mine) I'd like to paint a foursquare on my driveway, but I don't remember all the rules. I liked hopscotch, kickball, red light/green light, freeze tag and red rover. Does anybody play these anymore? And jump rope. I could jump rope for hours and loved when the neighbors got together and we had enough friends to use a long rope. I played pick-up-sticks, and jacks. My brothers and I used to play board games; parchesi, sorry, monopoly, scrabble. And cards. All kinds of card games. Does anybody play set-back?

I remember my mother punishing my brother and me. For some reason we were banned from the dinner table. She made the evening meal, which she and my two youngest brothers sat down and partook of. My brother Scott and I would make some peanut butter toast and head out the back door. We'd don our baseball mitts and have a pass. I remember feeling a bit sorry for my two youngest brothers having to sit at the table with her, eating some overdone roast or tuna pea wiggle while Scott and I were having fun and eating peanutbutter toast. Lucky us. We'd throw the ball to each other for hours, sibling competition kicking in as we aimed our hardest fastest throw, midsection, daring the other to miss the catch. We'd laugh, and our hands would be stinging by the time we called it quits. Good times. The funniest times were when we'd be bickering about something, and my mother would order us to get the boxing gloves. We'd go to the shed and dig them out, and head to the back yard. Then we'd go at it. It wouldn't take long before we couldn't do it because we'd be laughing too hard. On the ground, rolling, can't catch a breath, tears, laughing. If the lesson Mom was trying to teach us by refusing to allow Scott and I to join dinner failed, then the fighting strategy worked.

Playing is so important. It makes life manageable. Today I enjoy badmitton, dominoes and computer games. But I miss the old games, the abandon with which I played. I wonder if the next time we have an outdoor gathering if I could round up enough people to play red-rover? And will Paul go square dancing with me?

Yours truly,
the elf