Homemade Fun

I am really over-eager for spring to get here; remembering warmer, long ago days when I was a girl in the country.   When I was a child, we had chores to do but we also had time for fun. All my younger brother and I needed were active imaginations and we had that a-plenty. Sometimes my oldest nephew would come to stay a few days with us. Clint was only 5 years younger than my brother, so they were great pals. One of their favorite things was to go hunting. They’d take their BB guns, Clint would stuff his pockets with my mom’s homemade biscuits and off would trek these two little boys on  an adventure.

Our house was surrounded with lots and lots of trees and this was in the days when Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were popular. So, taking their fearless companions, Pluto, the black and tan hound mix and Feisty, a black and white spaniel mix, they’d fearlessly trudge into the woods, just like frontiersmen. They’d scare up a few rabbits and see plenty of squirrels but these animals were safe from the mighty hunters. The rabbits and squirrels were in more danger from the dogs. Feisty and Pluto had a buddy system for hunting. Feisty would jump up above grasses and when he spied his prey, he’d chase it toward Pluto. The rabbit had to use lots of fancy footwork to elude those two.

Although my brother and nephew didn’t bag any game, they saw animal tracks  in the mud by the pond. What stealthy wild creatures had been slipping around?  Clint’s brown eyes would grow bigger and bigger as they told about those elusive  wild things that had prowled through and left their footprints. And his pockets would be suspiciously empty of biscuits.

I didn’t hunt with the boys. My sympathies were more for the animals. But I found fun with paper dolls, reading, or writing those stories with, of course, me as the heroine who faced many dangers but always emerged triumphant.

Without a television, we found our own entertainment. We weren’t onlookers, we were involved. And those childhood adventures made the memories of  today.