Whatever happened to the simple family life

Where did the simple family life go?  To work and making money instead of making memories. It costs so much to live that both parents have to work anymore just to keep their family fed and clothed but is it worth it?

May Pole
Do you remember dancing the May pole?  I understand that is a Russian event but we sure had fun doing it when I was a child. Dressing up in our pretty clothes and everyone getting a different strand of colored crape paper and getting in a circle and going in and out like a square dancer wrapping the flag pole in all our pretty colors.

Gunny Sack Races.
Do you remember the sack races. All the farm kids had feed sacks or better known as gunny sacks. They think the "gunny" came from an old English word meaning spinning.  Gunny means coarse heavy fabric.

We used to have gunny sack races on the farm, at school and at social events.  Before they flooded the cove a lot of businesses would have a social event in the fall at The Cove and gunny sack races were always there along with a few others.

Three legged race.
In the three legged race you found a partner and took off you belts and put one belt around your ankles, one belt just above your knee. Then you placed your inside arm around your partners shoulder and waited for them to yell "go".  Off you ran trying to keep together where you would not fall and that is really hard to do when you have the giggles.  It was best to find a partner near your size and stride. My girlfriend Dianna and myself were really good at the 3 legged race but then we practiced a lot on the farm.  The memories flow or how good it felt when we had our team work going good and how funny when we didn't. It is even hard to get off the ground once you fall when your legs are tied together but oh what fun we had.


Horse Shoes
When you are broke and don't have a lot of money anything becomes a toy to play with.  With horse shoes (everyone had some as they used work horses in the old days but when we were young we had to buy them at the farm store) you drive a metal pole into the ground at each end of your horse shoe pit. You each get two horse shoes and you try to get as close to the metal pole as possible and if you are really good you can get what is called a ringer where your horse shoe goes right around the metal pole.  Then the team at the other end throws them back towards the metal pole at your end.  Lots of laughter and jokes around for everyone.

Bobbing for Apples
During the fall harvest there were apples everywhere and being kids they became a toy. You take the old wash tub and fill it with apples and put your arms behind your back and try to get an apple in the slowest amount of time.

Sheep, Pig riding
When you went out to feed the pigs or the sheep it was always fun to climb aboard and see how far you could stay one. Many PeeWee rodeos to this day have sheep bustin in them.  Riding a sheep sounds like it is easy but I assure you it is closer to the ground when you fall off so you don't hurt as bad but it is 4 times as hard as riding a calf.  Half the time you are on the ground and still have the same grip on the wool you had when you were on top the sheep.

Farming
We did not play farming like on the Facebook game, we went out under the tree and divided the tree into sections that were your farm. Your got your little plastic toys, cows, tractors etc and you built a farm, you planted stuff, you made fences. I must admit I got in trouble once for getting into my dad's nails to use for fence posts and his fishing line for my wire and I had one great big huge fenced areas for my horses which were my life in those days. I had a lot of fence to remove and wash and dry good and put back for when dad needed them they would not be rusted.

Bull Fights
We used to go out with the young cattle and take our gunny sacks and pretend we were bull fighters, that was a blast until the cattle got bigger and then it was not so much fun to get hit by them. It really wasn't fun when dad went out to feed and turned his back on the bigger one and was shaking the feed sack to get all the feed out when the steer hit him right square in the butt and knocked him into the feeder.  Now tell me why when he got up he immediately yelled "Linda!"  I mean it could have been my brother or my neighbor kid or my cousin, now couldn't it?  Dad knew me way to well.

Electric Fence fights.
We used to unhook the electric fence from the fence and put a make us a sword out of wire wrapped tight and stand and have a sword fight. Now there was not doubt in anyone's mind when you got stabbed with that sword, yep no fights at all of I wasn't hit, yes you were...as you were to busy picking yourself off the ground shaking your head. I hate electric fences and shocks to this day. I almost did not get my EMT III because you had to shock people and I was terrified of getting shocked.  I did it anyway and I lived through the years of being an EMT III.

Rotten egg fights
Now this one was a gross one as you always took an egg when you gathered them at night and hid them somewhere safe. All the kids had a stash somewhere and while our parents were playing cards we would be having an egg fight..STINKY..we were so lucky we lived on the canal where we could all go wash off when we were done before going in the house. We always wore our bathing suits and the parents just thought we were swimming. Well that was until my brother got a chemistry set and we poked a hole in one of our rotten eggs and started dumping chemicals into it and the dang thing blew up all over the bedroom, yep you guessed it, my bedroom. What a stinky mess to clean up and washing clothes in those days meant you had to iron everything. The only good think that came out of that fight was that all our friends got to stay overnight for a couple of days to help clean up our mess.

Fishing
Dad used to take the tractor and trailer and take all us kids down behind Gateway to Trout Creek to fish. My dad was a hard working man and not only did he do our farm, he did custom haying for others and he worked at the mill so  you know he did not get much sleep. We thought he was taking us fishing...right!  He was babysitting while mom worked and when he got to the point of exhaustion he would take us to Trout Creek. We would run around and play as we had to much energy to fish except for my brother and couple of his friends. Dad would lay down on his back, throw his worm out there (you could fish with worms in those days) and then tie the line around his big toe and go to sleep.  He had us convinced you had to hold real still for a fish to come was what he was doing. But the sound effects of his snoring I am sure did not attract the fish.  In those days you had to have a truck or tractor to get down behind Gateway.  When time was up we would load up on the trailer and back home we would come.  When we would get to the railroad viaduct under the track we thought it was a big tunnel and we would yell and scream.

I could go all day long with the things we did as kids to entertain ourselves and you know what, not once was a video game involved.  Maybe some later date I will do some more memories of a farm kid.

I don't think Video games are bad but I think they need a time limit and kids need to go outside and play with others. I bought my kids a video game and they had TV but once I unhooked the TV and we did not have TV for over a year as everyone was getting where that is what they wanted to do, set in front of the TV to watch or to play games.  Even stats show that kids and parents that play games together the families stay together and are closer.  You can't be close to a TV set or a Video game or a movie. It is a fantasy life not a real one.

I met a man at the RV store once that had a big 40 foot motorhome with a huge trailer on behind it. We were talking about where we were going etc. and I told him I was taking my grandkids camping. He said he had ATV's, Dirt bikes, regular bikes and all this outdoor type stuff and his kids would not get out of the RV where they were watching satellite and playing video games.  He asked me how I got mine out to play.  I told him for the first thing I would turn off their video games and I was the parent I would not give them a choice in them going outside as I would kick them out and lock the door and then I would play and giggle and have fun until they joined in.

Twice, once in Coos Bay and once in Ketchikan I told everyone I was having an old fashioned Halloween party and everyone was welcome. None of the parents wanted to come and thought I was crazy when I told them to just drop the kids off and leave.  They would come to drop off the kids and watch for a few moments to be polite to me and visit and guess what...neither time did the parents leave and before long they were out there playing with the kids and laughing away.  The parents learned a lot that night about having fun. Many of them had never done games like that. I have a ton of games we play and they ended up joining in almost everyone of them. The ones they could not get down on the floor they laughed at the rest of us until tears ran down their cheeks.

Good old fashioned fun is the way to go.  Old fashioned values, old fashion fun and modern medicine makes life great.  Thank you God for giving us everything we need without all the fancy stuff man made.  You know once we were skipping rocks at a lake and my mom asked what we were laughing about, we showed her and here she was 80 and had never skipped a rock. They did not have much water in Kansas where she lived. She had more fun trying to do us in and got really good at it.


 This had a whole lot more exercise, socializing with kids and memories then any video game you set and play with yourself and a machine or one friend.  I just can't imagine years later someone reminiscing about playing a video game.