Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

THE VERY BEST TIME FOR US

the side of your head. Your chums will respect you the more, and in many cases follow your example. THE VERY BEST TIME FOR US Reprinted with permission from Barry Broadfoot, Memories of Settlers Who Opened the West: The Pioneer Years 1895-1914 (Toronto: Doubleday, 1978). The school was more than an educational institution; it was also a place where the entire community came together. Outside in the spring and fall we had a baseball diamond. The school board gave us one ball a year and that had to last. The bat lasted longer than that, of course, but if it broke, you could always go to the poplar bluff by the barn and whittle out another. The bat didn’t matter but the ball sure did. Once it started to unravel, somebody would take it home and get their dad to fix it. For the little kids there were swings. Know what they were? They put up two poles and then a crossbar across the top and they got a lot of old horsecollars, ones that were no good anymore , and they tied them with rope to the crossbar and that was the kids’ swings. Pretty good too. Every year just after school was out we would have a field day. About two days before the big day Mr. Banks and his hired man would come and bring his mower and cut down any grass that had grown too tall and then he’d rake it. The next day the men would come, and in the barn there were several boards and stools and benches and they would set them up outside. Usually in the shade of the schoolhouse or where it was going to be shady about three in the afternoon. Somebody would mark off 50 yards—that was for the racing—and if there was any boards to be fixed up in the backstop, then they were hammered in. That was for the ballgame. That’s when we got the new ball. The new ball was brought for the First of July field day and then given to the school for the rest of the year, starting some time in September. Playing Is Playing When Shared 77 Things started about one in the afternoon, as I recall. Everybody came. The children of the school, of course, and their families and the hired men and bachelors in the district. There were always a lot of them. But we didn’t get those that weren’t ours. Schools were pretty close together in those days because of the cold and children walking, so each bachelor went to his own school unless he was sweet on the teacher. That often happened. Things were run by the head of the school district or some important man. I mean he was the one who handed out the prizes. For the children I think a first prize in the three-legged race might be 50 cents to the winners and they split. Twenty-five cents to the winner of the 50-yard dash. They didn’t have things like the high jump and the broad jump, as I remember. Mostly running races. There was one that was a lot of fun and everybody played it, and that was the mixed shoe race. Down at one end everybody would take of his shoes and they’d be put together, all mumbledy-jumbledy in a pile. You had to run down and find your own shoes, put them on and run back to the finish line. Egg and spoon race. Blindfolded race. That was funny. And just straight races, of course. Then everybody would eat. Everybody brought pies and potato salad and cold meat and cookies, tarts, buttered buns with jam, pickles, and you just didn’t eat what you’d brought. Everything was put on the table and you ate anything you wanted, and if you wanted more, then you went and got it. Nobody said anything. Then there was a ball game. Sometimes the bachelors played the married men, or sometimes a team would come from town or the next district and there would be quite a game. We had some darn fine players in those days, fellows who could throw a ball through a hole in a barn from 50 feet or slap that old ball into any part of the field they wanted. Some, I guess, could have gone into Regina or Moose Jaw or down south and played with the...