Todays conversation

as we were driving today, we recalled the fun we had as kids. It all started when I told your Dad about Evan asking me if I had TV Land when I was a kid? I explained to him, I only recall 3 channels and then we often had to turn the rabbit ears, hit the Television and play mind games with it until we could see the picture better. I do recall the Mickey Mouse club, with Annette, (my personal favorite) She later stared in lots of Beach Movies, Like Beach blanket Bingo, etc.
I did watch, (sort of) on school days, The grand ole Opry or the Louisiana Hayride, These were country music shows with the original stars. I recall seeing Patsy Cline, Jeannie C, Riley, String bean, (part of a comedy team), Marty Robbins, and of course my favorite, J.E, Maxine and Bonnie Brown. or better know as the Brown trio. We were not allowed to sit inside in front of the television, so unless the weather was bad, we played outside. Now on the our conversations.
We played a lot of games you probably have never heard of, How about Annie-Over. IN this game you have two teams, One on each side of the house, One calls Annie, the other team answers Over, Then the ball is thrown, It must be caught before hitting the ground. If the throwing team could not get it over, they Had 3 tries, and each time they let you know it was not a good pitch by calling Pig Tails, or Do Over, We used the Pig Tails line. The object is to run around the house and throw the ball at an opposing team member, You often synced them out, not letting them know who had the ball, any one of the team mates could have caught it. But we all pretended to have the ball so they did not know who to watch out for. Lots of fun and a great exercise . Next we often played "Piggier in the Pen wants a motion" Long name, lots of fun. You again had two teams, A circle (Pen) was drawn in a spot, A line was drawn at each end of the playing field. The teams stood behind the team until the game started. Then you could run, If a member of another team tagged you, you went to the Pig Pen. Then you could be heard begging for a motion to get out of the pen.If one of your team members could make it to you, (without being tagged too) You then got out and got a free walk. The game kept going until you were ready to stop. It usually ended up in a tie.

Your Dad said they made, Tommy Walkers, Of course that is Stilts, They took a 2by 4 and nailed a board on each one, about 18 inches up, The board was cut at an angle to fit smoothly on the long two by four. He said they often used leather straps to add additional support to the foot rest, Now the brave soul, stood on the foot rest and walked around the yard on poles. It is loads of fun. I hope each of you recall, We had some and I learned at the old age of 30 something.

My brothers made traps, using simple twigs and a prop to hold it off the ground. They would sit and wait, sometime, and when the prey got in the trap they would pull the string and drop the cage on the unsuspecting bird or rabbit. Roy told me of an incident, I am pretty sure I posted on this before but here goes. Daddy and Roy had made a trap. They were waiting on the prey to walk in, Well they did get something, It was a big Turkey with babies. When they went to get the turkey, our dog "Pooched" Was with them. He was a short hound. Kind of like a Basset hound. Well he was there all right but the turkey was fast, He kept bugging the trap, the turkey had chicks, When it got out, and away, (again thanks to Poochie), The big bird was flying away, Poochie, was having none of that so she grabbed onto the bird. The bird flew with the dog hanging on. Roy said he can still to this day see My Daddy running behind yelling, "Poochie Let go" LOL LOL I can just see it. It had to be hilarious. No we did not get the mama turkey and since turkeys cant really fly much, he did not get too far off the ground. Poochie finally let go and was safe. True Story.

What else did we do? I had a pine tree I loved to play under, I would go up to the tree, take a rake and rake the pine straw up to form walls to rooms. I would design my house this way. Of course it was small but it was my design. Hey with straw you can even move walls pretty easily.
I spent as much time in the dirt as I did anywhere. We took a garden hoe and made roads. They were long and involved. Sometimes going over a stream, (man made or should I say, Child made. We could spend hours pushing blocks around the roads and imagining the trip.
Roy was my favorite playmate. I do not recall ever playing with Rosie and Jeanette, They were pretty much indoor people, or sit in shade and do nothing.

One think I had to do I hated, We grew our own potatoes, Lots of potatoes, When the bugs got on them, we did not use insecticides, It was truly organic. So we picked the bugs off into coffee tins, and Roy would boil then around Mamas old Wash pot, We would see him stirring and spitting. The odor had to be horrible and we still kid him about the bugs he cooked. YUCK.
Mama would shake the tomato plants for tomato worms, and pick them off herself but our dogs would eat them, sounds gross but they are mostly tomato bush inside. They just devour the bush if not controlled. Not pleasant but a necessity's. So that is a few, just check in I have one one Door to Door Salesman. Not a joke a real happening in our lives.