War, Pine Straw and Spiders

It's time for a "When Gramama Was a Child" story. First of all, "back in the olden days" we didn't have the technology that there is today. I remember when we first got a TV and yes, it was black and white. No one else we knew had color either. So - no videos, DVDs, video games, computers, x-box and so forth. For that matter we only had three stations on the TV so even if we watched TV there wasn't a lot to choose from. (I remember when Sesame Street started and if you got the email I sent out some time back about the "evils" of Sesame Street then you know how I started out.

So, just what did we do to entertain ourselves? Well, when we came home from school we did our homework. Really! No kidding, ok maybe not but we were supposed to do it as soon as we got home. Mom worked at night and was asleep when we got home and I was supposedly in charge of Scott, who was two years younger. I say supposedly because I had no authority and if he chose to not do his chores or do something he wasn't supposed to do - well, let's just say that spanking and switching (and sometimes the belt) were normal then and wouldn't get a parent sent to jail or have their children taken away. I'd tell Mom or Dad what he had done or not done expecting them to at least speak to him but no, I'd get punished because I was in charge. Sometimes he would get punished too but it was still unfair. The not telling didn't work either cause they always found and and I'd get in trouble for whatever it was and for not telling. This could be a very long blog if I really get into the injustices so I'll stop with that.

We had chores. A lot of chores. We were responsible for keeping the house clean. There was the main cleaning day on Saturday when the cleaning was much more intense but during the week it was me and Scott. I was also in charge of supper, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. This all started when I was 8. Sounds worse than it was. Mom was there in the house in case Scott tried to burn the house down. (That only happened once.)

Now playing. War consisted of building forts out of pine straw of which we had tons. The entire back yard was a pine tree forest. Literally. The house was built on land that was part of the woods. If we weren't bombing each other with pine cones, then we'd turn the forts into the Wild Wild West and play cowboys and indians. More pine straw. We'd find scrap wood or branches to help hold everything up. I cringe thinking about it now because it was spider and tick city. We always had bites from those things and from the mosquitoes. Our claim to fame was showing Mom the pretty black spiders with the red hour glass on it's back. How the heck did we survive? I guess we were just too stupid to know we should have died from all this.

We had the run of the neighborhood and went to a nearby park or down to the creek either in our yard or down by the golf course. If my kids did any of the stupid stuff we did as kids, please don't tell me. I have enough gray hair.

I know my kids will groan when I say this next part. From the time I was in the 6th grade my favorite thing to do to entertain myself was reading. More on that another time.

One last thing. I don't know how old we were when it came on - but - we would always hurry home every day because at 4:00 there was a soap opera called Dark Shadows. I was half in love with the were-wolf, Quentin ,but most girls were gaga over Barnabus, the vampire. I should mention that a soon to be Charlie's Angel star, Kate Jackson, was also in the soap as a "normal" person. Beautiful Angelique, the witch, was always getting in trouble or trying to kill someone. Ah, what a wholesome sounding show. Actually it was very tame compared to some of the less violent shows of today.