Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

HOW I HAD FUN AS A KID

Q. What can be lengthened by cutting a piece off each end? A. A trench or ditch. HOW I HAD FUN AS A KID The Moulton children combined Ivy’s love of animals with Jack’s mechanical abilities to create their own equipment and games. The year I was born there were very few babies born in our district . I grew up on the farm and my playmates were the farm animals. I always had cats, dogs, horses, and calves with which to play. My only brother is three years older than I. He is very mechanically inclined and works very well with his hands. On the other hand, I am a voracious reader, and animal lover and completely mechanically illiterate. It was once said that the only thing Jack and I have in common is our parents. My earliest memories are of pretend games I played. I would pretend I was a wild horse and run about, stopping every once in a while to nicker. I got so good at it that sometimes the horses would even answer me. Jack and I would also play with items we found about the farm. For example, we used old gears from machinery and rolled them along the ground in a corner of the garden, building roads, dugouts, and ponds. One autumn Dad bought a pony for us. We rode her and drove her. One summer we needed a cart for her, so we took the old harrow cart that had been used on the farm years ago. We adapted it to our use by moving the bars that had held the harrow sections around to the front, and they became the shafts. The shafts were not set solid so we would grab one of the wheels, which were steel, to straighten everything up so the wheels weren’t rubbing against the steel shaft. Later on, after I had started school, Dad bought another pony for us. One summer we harnessed that pair of Shetland ponies to the scuffle cultivator (used by Mom and Dad to work between the rows of potatoes) and worked up part of the garden. 86 Freedom to Play We were doing the summer fallowing, you see. I was the driver and Jack guided the cultivator. One day we hitched the ponies to a four section harrow set and were very upset that Dollie and Babe couldn’t pull it. Dad told us that four sections of harrows were meant to be pulled by a team of draft horses. After that we used a single harrow for the ponies. Mother said she had one of her best gardens ever on that plot the following summer, nearly weed free because a weed only had to poke its nose through and we would work up the whole area again. During the winter we spent quite a bit of time listening to the radio. Some of the shows we followed were Superman, The Lone Ranger, and Fibber McGee and Mollie. Our favorite show was “L” for Lanky. It was the story of a Lancaster bomber’s missions over Europe during World War II. On Saturday evenings we listened to Foster Hewitt and Hockey Night in Canada. I remember the night I went to bed in tears. That night Syl Apps went crashing into the goal post and broke his leg. I knew that without Syl Apps the Leafs would not win the Stanley Cup—and they didn’t!!!! At our local one room school we played the usual games, tag, pump-pump-pull-away, softball, and hockey. Everyone played, Playing Is Playing When Shared 87 Ivy and Jack Moulton on their “arse cart.” regardless of age or gender. Sometimes our games were very imaginative and we made up new activities. Once we played “pirate.” We brought “treasures” from home and buried them in the spruce shelterbelt that surrounded the grounds. I imagine some of them are still there. Of course, as a family, we took part in community events. There was the annual school picnic with races and ice cream. We always had an annual Christmas concert. Every student took part and the whole district attended. We often attended the other school concerts in the surrounding districts. Occasionally there were whist drives at the school. Everyone went, regardless of age, to all the community events; grandparents, parents, and children of all ages. As the babies and toddlers tired, they...