Having Fun

When we were little girls living on Weed Street in Shawano, Uncle Louie built us a doll house that we could stand up in. I think the floor area was about three by five feet, just the right size for three girls. It was made of lath strips so we could see through the walls. That way we could look out a window in the house and see what we left out there and Mom could see what we were doing.

Mom and Dad had made doll beds for us for Christmas. Mom even padded the headboards and made miniature bedding. They were designed to match our beds in the house. This was a three bedroom house with Uncle Louie having one bedroom, Mom and Dad, theirs and the very largest one had three beds all matching. Now that I think about this, I bet Mom and Dad made frames and just put mattresses on them.

One time I took material out of Mom's sewing area and made a doll. I think I was about 10 and my stitches weren't that great but the doll turned out just the way I wanted it. It was made of brown material and I even made a grass skirt for her. The adults weren't sure about my creation because I put brown material patches on her breasts and stuffed them. Well, she was a lady doll.

In those days, when someone had a disease such as chickenpox, the doctor would come to the house to make sure that is what it they had. Then he would put a large red sign on our front door. (Now people have to go to the clinic to find out what they have. This
exposes everyone there whose immune systems are already over loaded. Sometimes progress isn't progress.)

Well, of course we got measles. Having three girls with measles is a challenge for anyone so the dining room was converted into a bedroom. Now Mom wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs. With Measles, it was feared that a lot of light could create eye
problems, so the heavy dining room drapes were pulled shut. The pocket doors to the living room were also shut.

A large double bed was put into this room and all three of us were there. We each got our own paperdoll book to cut out dolls along with their clothes. Then our paperdoll families could visit one of the other families living on this big bed. We had great fun.

Also "in those days", (sorry but I like what that says) families used to get catalogs from all the different companies like Sear and Roebuck, J.C. Pennys and Montgomery Wards. So we were allowed to use the old catalogs to shop in. When my paperdoll family went shopping and found a rug that they liked, I would cut it out for their house. My sister's might go clothes shopping, which meant cutting out a dress that they liked and making sure that it had tabs on the shoulders so it would go onto one of their dolls.

Another thing that we liked to do was take our cat for a doll buggy ride. We had this old grey and white cat that let us do anything with her. We would put doll clothes on her and put her in our little buggy and wheel her all over the neighborhood. When she was tired of the game, she would try to jump out and that was time to take the doll clothes off.

We did something like that with our dog but she didn't like being dressed. She had puppies and allowed us to haul her family all over in our wagon. We could show them off (as she sat there very proudly) but no one else was allowed to touch them.

Playing games was a lot of fun. (Remember that this was way before TV and Playstations) When we would go to visit people that didn't have children, I would ask for a paper bag and pencil. Then I would open it and create a game on the inside of it. We would use coins or rocks as our pieces to play the game. We would make up our rules as we went along.

We grew up playing around a lot of construction so we used sawdust to mark off our pretend rooms or as pretend food. Which reminds me that one time I was buying Oak bark (High in usable calcium) at a health food store and someone asked me what it tastes like? I thought about it and then told him that it tastes just like saw dust. Wonder how I knew that? Grandpa showed us how to straighten a bent nail so we were allowed to use all the nails that we straightened. We would make boats out of end-cuts to float on the lake in front of our house.

Playing games is still a lot of fun. When was the last time you played? Most adults think that jokes are fun but to make a joke, one usually puts something down to make something else look funny.

I have found that one can use what one has to make things funny. While visiting one of Mom's cousins, I was wearing a visor that didn't have a cap to it. We were out on the cousin's pontoon boat and Mother wasn't doing too well. She didn't enjoy being on water that much. I decided it was time to lighten life up a bit until we got back to shore. Do you have any idea how many ways you can wear a visor?

It can be worn around the back of the neck as a stand-up collar. It can be worn, visor up on the top of the head as a crown. It can be worn, visor down, hooked on top of the ears and sitting on the chin as a beard. It can be a duck's beak or a frog's chin. The ends can be put into the ears as a stethoscope. It can be made into as many things as you have imagination.

I remember sitting at a school board meeting, I was the PTA's Vice-President of the Weaver PTA and we were trying to get a bond passed so that this country school could have a hot lunch program. While at this meeting, one of the male board members had brought his young daughter. (Always wondered if this was to help the family or if it was to make sure that he came home after the meeting?) Well, this poor girl was bored as you can imagine. Most board/bored meetings of any kind are as exciting as watching grass grow. So I decided to create something for her to do. I took a paper out and created a dot picture and then numbered the dots for her to connect and I handed it to her. There are always ways to create fun. By the way, we got a bond passed on the third try.

I even had fun when my daughter was little. She had Barbie Dolls, four of them I think? I loved to make clothes for these dolls. We would take an old bedroom slipper with fur on it and attach the fur to coats and hats. When she got to be a teen, the dolls sat in the closet with their clothes in a little suitcase. At least once every week or so, two little four-year-olds would knock on the door and ask if Kathy could play with them. When we left California, Kathy divided the dolls and their clothes between these little girls.

Kathy was in 4-H so I became a leader. I taught knitting and crocheting. At the Halloween party we were all supposed to come in a costume so I made mine from a paper paint-drop-cloth. I took some cardboard, folding up the drop cloth, I made a large upside down paper bag and wore it over my head. I was the old bag.

How about when the boys were in cub scouts and I had 5 boys in my troop? Once when they got to our house, the back yard was a spider web of yarn. Each boy got a different color to wind up with a surprise on the end.

One time we went go to a grove of bamboo, cut 5 poles and brought them back to the house. Then they had to learn how to string a line on it for fishing. The game was that the cement of the driveway and the sidewalk was "solid ground" but the grass was "water". In the "Water" were a lot of metal things and after they attached a magnet to the end of their line, it was time to see who could catch the most fish. We had so much fun in our troop that when a teacher's family moved to the other side of town, he brought his son across town every week to my troop meeting for the rest of the year.

Life can be fun but we have to make it that way. Have I given you any ideas to use today?