Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

A SCHOOL PICNIC

A SCHOOL PICNIC Maple Leaf Club, Family Herald and Weekly Star August 2, 1911 Gladys M. Davidson (13) North Grande Pre, N.S. Now girls and boys, I suppose most of you have gone for a picnic in the woods. I have, so I am going to tell you about one I went to last summer. All the boys and girls in our school, our teacher, and a few others, numbering in all about twenty-six, gathered at the schoolhouse at 1 p.m. with their baskets. When all had arrived, we started for a place known to us as “The Bluff,” it was not very far, so we soon got there. The Bluff is a high bank and twice a day the water of the Minas Basin washes away the sand at the foot of it. We found a cool place to put our baskets and then we sat down in the shade to rest and to eat candy. After we had rested a while we played games such as “charades ,” “hide and go seek,” etc. The boys had a game of football while the girls looked on. Then we had a nice game of baseball and by this time we were beginning to get hungry, so we sought out a nice shady place and the girls began to lay the table, which consisted of a tablecloth spread on the grass. When this was There Was Always Something to Do 185 The 24th of May parade in Victoria, 1925 (BC Provincial Archives [82691]). completed we all sat down on the grass around the table to have a feast of cakes, pies, doughnuts, cookies, tarts, sandwiches, and other things too numerous to mention. Then last and best of our feast came ice-cream and good ice-cream it was too. My! but it did taste good, especially on a hot day, and we had a nice piece of cake with it and it tasted lovely. The girls cleared away the dishes and put them in the baskets . We left very little but the dishes and a few crumbs. None of us felt much like playing any games now, so we strolled down to the seashore, the tide was out quite a distance, but a few who were not quite as tired as the rest walked down to the water’s edge, while the rest sat down on the grass. By the time we got back from the water we were all pretty tired so we started for home. We reached there about dark, after having spent a very pleasant afternoon in the woods. CHRISTMAS IN A PRISON CAMP From A Child in Prison Camp ©1971 by Shizuye Takashima, published by Tundra Books. The Takashima family was among those Japanese-Canadian families who, in 1942, were moved from the West Coast to prison camps in the interior of British Columbia. Shizuye’s parents struggled to keep family ties and cultural roots strong. Christmas at Home I swing my legs to and fro, Japanese music fills our tiny room. Mrs. Kono has a small record player. From this black, leather box, with shining handles which we turn from time to time, glorious music comes. In the hot burning oven, our Christmas chicken is cooking. It sputters and makes funny noises. The lemon pies father baked are already on the table. He has been cooking all day. They look so nice, my favorite pies. Only father can bake such lovely tasty pies. He must put magic into them. Father is an excellent cook. Before he became a gardener, he worked as a chef in a big restaurant and in hotels. And now, he 186 Freedom to Play ...