Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

EVERY SEASON HAD ITS ACTIVITIES

EVERY SEASON HAD ITS ACTIVITIES Margaret Walker recalls the games and activities of her late 1930s Saskatoon childhood. School and Recess Games These included skipping, soft ball, marbles, volley ball, and roller skating (metal wheels on the sidewalk). We bounced a hard Indian rubber ball off the windowless side of the school while following a set routine of claps before catching the ball: plainsies, clapsies, roly poly, etc. The ball was also bounced on the sidewalk while the bouncer went through a certain series of routines. We often engaged in Yo-yo and Bolo bat competitions and demonstrations. Winter Games Fox and Geese (always after the first snow fall), broom ball on ice, snow angels, skating, and sliding down snow banks on cardboard were the usual games. Street Games After supper all the kids on the block played games such as Hide and Seek, Tag, Arrows, or Hoist Your Sails. Arrows: In this game Team One hides, drawing arrows along the way, sometimes leaving mis-cues. Team Two follows, and as soon the first team is sighted they all dash for home. Hoist your Sails (Oyster Sails or Oyster Shells): Team One hides, a member comes back to “home” and draws a map of where team one went. Team two follows the route (shortcuts sometimes ), after sighting Team One they dash back to “home.” Other Street Games: Red Light, Simon Says, and Red Rover were played on the street because there were so few cars. Girls played hopscotch and jacks on the sidewalk in front of their houses. In the summer we would set up a lemonade stand and sell glasses of (watery) lemonade for 2 cents. The mailman would always buy. We prepared and presented neighbourhood concerts in someone’s garage. The charge would be 5 cents per person. Our parents usually attended. 126 Freedom to Play Dolly Dingle (cut-outs) were great favourites. Old catalogues provided extensive wardrobes for the dolls and furniture for the houses we made out of boxes. We had proper books of cutouts, but they really weren’t as much fun as the catalogue variety. Putting the dolls in the pram and taking them out for a walk was always popular. I always wanted an “Eaton’s Beauty” but I guess our Santa couldn’t afford it. One of my most cherished possessions was a lovely big singing top. Board games were very popular: Snakes and Ladders , Parcheesi, Crokinole (if your finger could take it), Checkers , Pick-up-Sticks, Chinese Checkers, and card games. We spent hours playing house, school, church, and having tea parties. Reading was a great passion. So was listening to the radio, and the whole family did this together. For us, highlights would be the school concerts, school assemblies (top floor of the school), Sunday School picnics, and Christmas concerts. Halloween would be a great adventure when we’d try to remember where we got the good home-made fudge the year before—far cry from where children can go today and what they are allowed to eat! We usually had a song or a poem that was required before the treat was dropped into the pillowcase. When we went to Vanscoy to visit we join the local children on their trek to the station to meet the passenger train. It was an important event in their day. This has been great fun recalling the carefree, innocent days of childhood—putting on skates and skating down the block to the outdoor rink at Caswell School lit by the corner street light. We would come home half-frozen, but it was great fun. Playing Is Playing Games 127 ...