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I CAN’T RECALL A DULL MOMENT Judy Wells, daughter of R.B. Green, lived her first eleven years at Gander Falls, Newfoundland. There is an interesting contrast between the childhood years of father and daughter. Television wasn’t in my vocabulary until my family moved to Ontario in 1955 and we would be invited to neighbours’ homes to see “I Love Lucy” on Monday nights and cartoons and westerns on Saturday mornings. I can’t recall a dull moment “before television.” Time was filled with reading (Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys, etc.) long after lights out by use of a flashlight under the covers . Other indoor activities might be making crafts, using suggestions from mom’s old teacher’s manual, playing madeup paper games, such as Consequences (several people sat around the table, each with a sheet of paper and pencil. First, one would write an adjective and then fold the paper over so no one could read the word and then pass the paper to the next person who would write the name of a well-known male, either famous, a family member, or a local, fold and pass along. Next, another adjective—a well known female name [oh yes, one should write the word met after the male name to make the story flow], then the setting where they met—what he said, what she said, and the final outcome. Eight times the paper would be passed and then opened.) What laughter would erupt when these mixed up stories were read out! My sisters and I so enjoyed this game that we played it over and over with our own families—especially when camping. We also loved to get old catalogues and cut out people and make up stories using the cutouts. Often we would cut out other outfits from the catalogue and lick them to have them stick on the originals. What a treat it would be to be given a real cutout book where the outfits could be put on the figures with little tabs instead of having to lick them to stick! I could go on and on about rainy day activities, playing house or doctor (we never played school as we had enough of that from 9-4), experimenting with the short wave band on our radio, or getting a blanket and sliding down the wooden staircase. Go Outside and Play 63 We loved playing outdoors and spent hours in our yard with neighbours involved in games such as hide and seek, statues (where a leader would fling the rest, one at a time, with all his strength in a circle until they broke off and landed in some strange position which they would maintain until the leader chose the best to be the next leader), or just climbing on dad’s pile of birch logs not yet sawed up for fuel. I once found a lovely soft wide round chunk of wood and spent a most enjoyable morning driving in nails in the warm sunshine. How was I to know that it was my father’s chopping block! Our favourite pastime was to make up plays and perform them for the rest of the neighbourhood children, 1 cent admittance . An old unused hen house in the yard made a grand theatre. I spent hours on my bicycle, which I still have, going all over town, even to the next town, 10 miles away, with friends. On hot summer days we set up a Freshie stand and sold drinks to the thirsty mill workers as they walked home from work. We had lots of family picnics just out of town by the big Exploits River where we could see logs floating by on their way to the paper mill in town. Dad made many attempts to try to teach us to swim. In winter we did everything we could to snow—shovelled paths for 10 cents, made tunnels, igloos, snow people, and horses, spent hours on our wooden sleighs with iron runners, and even ate the odd mouthful. We would collect the neighbours’ Christmas trees and make a teepee by tying them together at the top and putting branches on the floor. What a cosy hut this made. Summer holidays were always something to look forward to. Mostly, we put our car on the train (the highway didn’t go all the way) and went to our grandparents’ homes in the Newfoundland outports. There was always a little boat which...

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