Friday, October 15, 2010

Paint me a picture

A recent conversation with some women turned sort of unexpectedly to memories of childhood play. I was fascinated to hear the accounts of each woman; each had a unique picture to paint. One woman reminisced over her pet June bug that she kept in a shoe box padded with cotton swabs. Another woman grew up with chinchillas and chickens and had adventures with her brothers in the empty lot behind their house. Another remembered having Saturday afternoon picnics on a grassy knoll in a small bit of forest close to her house where she would read for hours. My childhood play memories include trying to catch tree frogs and lizards, collecting cicada skins in yogurt cups, hide-and-seek with my brothers and the neighbor boys, creating aerobic-exercise obstacle courses on our driveway, bike rides, playing "house" in the fort my dad built, or going on "camping trips" in tents made from paint drop clothes and PVC pipes.

And so, reader, I am curious--what memories do you have of your play time as a child?

3 comments:

Jane said...

We used to play "baseball" in the backyard with a tennis ball, no gloves and one really hard bat. Also there was an airplane tail statue up the path from our house - the nieghborhood used to be an airfield during WWII - and we loved to go play at the airplane. And 'fixing' our 'fort' which was really a hollow bush with our dad's real tools.

Sara said...

My childhood memories usually involve playing with my sister. We'd color and draw and do crafts for hours. We'd design magazine covers, draw house plans, play with paper dolls, and write news stories. If the activity involved paper, we did it. :)

Phat Fiddle said...

Exploring the vast field near our house with my neighbor and intercepting CB radio signals from truck drivers on our massive walkie-talkies.