Play consisted of many activities for us George kids. We might be building houses from whatever material was available, building roads from old wooden soda crates, walking a barrel, jumping board , making stilts from the heavy cardboard tubes that a new linoleum came in, climbing trees, exploring the woods, swinging across a swamp, jumping from the loft of a barn, riding a two-wheel cart down a hill with no one steering it, cutting paper dolls from a Sears and Roebucks catalog, or playing church. The list goes on of the many fun and exciting things our play consisted of. We were very imaginative and could make something fun out of nothing at all.
Playing Church:
Playing church didn't take many props and could happen anywhere. We've had church on the steps of the cafeteria at Success school, in our back yard, in a deserted hen house with the coops as pews, or in a bedroom when visiting with friends. The scenarios could be, and were, each very different from the other. But when children begin praising God, what often begins as play, becomes sincere as His presence shows up. It was a time like this when we went to clean the church one day.
When we were living at Cato we girls had gone into the church to pick up trash and put away song books one day and started playing church. As our service progressed our worship became real. God's Spirit made itself felt in our hearts as we prayed and worshipped. We sang, we preached, we wept and we testified about our need for the Holy Ghost and five-year-old Rhonda was filled that day.
Walking A Barrel:
Seeing the grace and balance of kids today as they ride a rip stick is so impressive. It is interesting to watch how they sway back and forth to propel themselves smoothly forward with their feet never moving. It is much different from our balancing toys as kids.
If you lay an empty fifty gallon oil barrel on it's side, and cautiously climb up onto it you can do a pretty good balancing act. It is much easier if you are barefoot, because your feet grip the barrel better than shoes, not that we ever tried it with our shoes on.
After you are balanced on the barrel you can walk forward or backward then the contest begins to see who can stay on the farthest. It is usually easier to keep your balance by extending your arms straight out and swaying to one side or the other to maintain it. And when you lose your balance and fall you are likely to be ran over by the barrel. Walking a barrel was not as smooth and graceful as rip sticking, but we had fun doing it.
Jumping Out of Barn Lofts:
It was probably around 1962 the first time I remember jumping from the loft of a barn. We were visiting with some friends, the England's, at Leachville and were challenged by Darrell to jump out. Deb, Linda and I accepted. He didn't warn us about not bringing our knees into our chin when we landed, but we learned it quickly as we lay balled up on the ground in pain.
We later moved to a large two-story house in the country near Leachville that had several out buildings. There was a chicken coop, a smoke house and a large barn. Since Deb and I were experienced barn-jumpers I suppose we felt that we had to teach this skill to Rhonda and to Sherlyn, who was only five.
On the ground in front of the barn was a large stack of lumber approximately six feet wide. So Deb and I were good sisters and warned Sherlyn and Rhonda to jump wide so they wouldn't get hurt. We were daring, but we tried to keep the fun safe. Evidently we were so intent on keeping them from landing in the lumber pile we forgot to warn them about their knees into their chin. That is one of the incidents that Sherlyn blames her problems on today.
Jumping Board:
Another fun thing that Dad taught us to do as kids was jumping board. You take a twelve foot 2x10 board and lay it across an 18"-24" block. One person stands on one end which causes the other end to raise up and the other person jumps onto it. The impact of a person jumping on one end of the board catapults the other into the air. Then as that one lands the other person is catapulted into the air. With good balance it is an exhilarating activity.
Dad and I were quite good at jumping board. He moved the board closer to one end to adjust for the difference in our weight and when his feet hit the board I felt like I was soaring high.
Some friends, who were visiting us from California wanted us to show them how to jump board. So Dad and I were giving them an exhibition. For several jumps everything went smoothly and I felt the usual invigoration as my feet left the board and I sailed above their heads. Then, too quickly to act, my feet slipped at the same time Dad's feet hit the board and my balance was lost. When my feet left the board that time I was flipping through the air and landed sprawled nearby.
Everyone who was watching the jump board exhibition said my head hit the ground first, with my body folded over it, and they were certain that my neck was broken. Dad picked me up and with everyone gathered around they rushed into the house to lay me on the bed, praying as they went. Thankfully I was fine after the incident but Dad would never jump board with us again. He thought he had killed me when I fell.
Stilts from Cardboard:
When we visited with the Butler side of our family we had watched Dad and our uncles walk on "Tommy Walkers". (Tommy Walkers were stilts made from two long boards about two or three inches wide and an inch thick. You would cut a block of wood and nail it to each of the long boards about eight inches or a foot from the ground, depending on your capabilities, then nail a small loop of leather to support your feet and a loop of leather to go around each wrist.)
We older girls had walked on Tommy Walkers before but we created a new style of stilts that proved to be more fun and took more skill.
Dad was laying new linoleum in our house and the large cardboard tubes that it came in, were tossed outside to be burned later. We were quick to grab it and our imaginations went to work to figure out the best use for it.
After several discarded ideas we hit on one that we all liked. One of us girls managed to sneak a knife outside and we cut the tube into sections, probably three feet long each. Then with two sections of the tube laying side-by-side we helped one girl to slide her legs into the tubes. Her feet were probably a foot or more from touching the ground and she could not bend her legs. With one girl on each side we helped her to her feet and propelled her forward until she was ready to walk on her own. Of course trying to walk in these was not as easy as the Tommy Walkers because you could not jump off if you lost your balance.
Even when helping each other to stand and walk in our new stilts was hilarious. You can picture us as we lifted one to stand upright and her weight shifted forward, it threw us all forward. We ran forward to regain our balance and try again only to be thrust backwards as we over compensated.
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