Back in My Day. . .

I'm not quite old enough to bellow 'back in myyyy day' and proceed to tell a long and excruiatingly painful story about making soap by hand behind the barn with my brothers and sisters, concluding with a moral or values or something else long forgotten. Not quite yet anyway. I hope. Though I was in Target (I have my standards) the other day and over-heard a boy about 8 whine incessantly about not getting a new Wii game and ultimately fold his arms declaring that he was bored and that there was nothing to do. The parent subsequently caved. Now, aside from being privately flabbergasted and fondly reminiscing about the one time I tried throwing a tantrum in the store (which I am told (and only kinda remember) ended with my bare backside exposed to everyone in aisle 4, followed by a good long uncomfortable sit in a summertime Plymouth with blue vinyl seats), I thought back to what I did do when I was bored as a child. A small treasure trove of childhood memories burst forth, so I thought I would share :). Keep in mind we were a little bit poor, relatively speaking, but that we were far from a bunch of inbred hoochers living on the bayou - despite what you are about to read. So here goes, top 10 childhood memories about what we did when we were bored:

10) Rock fight. Pro: Easy to organize; rocks are cheap and abundant. Con: This always ends rather quickly with someone running home crying, and their mother subsequently shouting obscenities at others from the doorway.

9) Playing with fire. This actually has its own post, so for details on something that does not warrant repeating and probably should never have been posted in the first place, go here.

8) Making home-made radios. No wait! Allow me to explain! If you dig through the garbage (or your neighbor's garbage) you will eventually find an old can or a jar. If it's a jar with a lid, then you are indeed in luck that day - otherwise you'll have to make do with a can and something to cover the open end (tin foil, envelope, block of wood, etc). Mostly we found cans, and although cans had better acoustics than jars, they were also more dangerous. So get your can and follow me, and lets try to capture an unsuspecting flying insect and then we'll compare the sound of an angry yellow jacket vs. an angry hornet buzzing against the inside of your can. If it's a super-lucky day, then you might find a wasp instead - This is a real treat, because wasps have a sound all their own when irritated. How do you irritate them? Easy! Cover up your can and shake it up real hard. Put the metal side up to your ear. Hear all that buzzing? Now it's like you have a real walkman! No, of course no one ever got stung, repeatedly. . . :)

7) Digging. On a more industrious day, it would then turn into mixing the dirt in a pail with water to make mud. If you wanted to be more scientific about it, then you added a bit of sand, wood shavings, or whatever else you could find. Then we poured it back into the hole we dug it out of and smoothed it out like cement. This took hours.

6) Box car derby. This is probably not what you are thinking. Picture a little kid standing at the top of the stairs, a pampers box sitting at his feet. The pampers box is perched precariously at the edge of the first step, and is mostly empty except for a few diapers selectively arranged as a seat, and also inside, sitting upgright, his 9 month old sister. I am happy to report that there were no fatalities.

5) Roller derby. This is also probably not what you are thinking. Picture a slightly larger kid standing at the top of a long sloped driveway, with a cardboard packing barrel turned on its side, and held in place by a block of wood - and inside the barrel, lying on her stomach, his 4 year old sister. Once again, I am happy to report that there were no fatalities.

4) Mii Fit. Take one small water pail, such as only your grandmother would have, and one nasty old yellow tennis ball (also such as only your grandmother would have) and head out into the front yard. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to toss that nasty old tennis ball up on the roof to where it rolls high up, but does not go over to the other side. Now you track its trajectory as it heads back down the roof, anticipate the little bump and rise it gets from the gutter, and catch the ball in the pail. I am sorry to report that I chased that sad yellow ball around for hours at a time.

3) Doorjam magic. Find yourself a doorjam. Stand in it. No wait, there's more! Stand with your arms at your sides, then push up on the door jam with the backs of your hands as hrdasyoupsblycan andthencnt tosxty slwly. When you get to sixty, release, and walk out of the doorjam. Your arms will rise magically into the air for the next few seconds. It's magic! :)

2) What lives under this? If you have played this game, then you already know the appeal. If you haven't, then you probably won't get it anyway. It usually ended with a stomp fest, followed by carefully replacing the object of interest. My friend Rowdy (his real name), however, liked to poke worms and squeeze their brains right out of their little heads - then watch them wiggle uselessly on the ground. I didn't participate.

1) Build a fort. Boys love forts. Forts are everywhere. A fort could be as simple as a blanket draped over a piece of furniture in the house or as complicated as a wooden structure created from spare siding, a few nails, and some tall grass. One time we made a fort by cutting and stacking blocks of (essentially) ice with a snow shovel, after a massive snow-storm was followed by freezing rain in Idaho. A fort is your home away from home. A castle. A sanctuary, where you are free to sit and contemplate your existential state of being. Or perhaps sit clutching your knees, rocking back and forth chewing on your own hair, plotting the demise of all who have ever wronged you - real or imagined.

I was never really one for contemplation. ;)

Happy New Year!!