Looking back to when I was a Child, compared to the children of today, there are many changes, but one thing about children they go with the flow of any generation. Putting our great grandchildren back to the yesteryear would be real difficult.
First of all you would have to remove all the toys, bikes, game entertainment, the TV. Our entertainment was our imagination, and games that we made up, which was no small amount. We would carve out little cars or take a small block of wood and use it as a car.
Gil and Art would make airplanes out of balsam wood rubber bands and tissue paper. The planes flew quite well from the up stairs window. We made rubber band guns from wood, sometimes with clothes pins or made a regular trigger out of wire. The guns worked real well, we were allowed to play cowboy and Indians at school during a recess or our lunch hour.
Wow I would like to see the children play that to day. All the kids grew up to be law abiding people. They all grew up with a strong work ethic and made do with what life handed them.
The outside games consisted of kick the can, all hiding, when the seeker looked for those that were hidden a hider would come out and kick the can, so the kid that was looking for them hiding he had to start all over again. Porky pig was another game, these were usually played after dark. Another past time after dark was capturing fire flies, they were fun to catch and put in jars. When we played out after dark I mean dark no lighting outside, and only lamps inside.
We always ere challenged by the pets we had, dogs and cats were our regular pets. The other pets were from the wild what a wonderful way to study nature. Better than the text book. These are some of the pets
The ones I remember were, a baby racoon, dove, flying squirrel, and a fawn. All of these pets we required a different way.
Wisconsin is noted for there violent wind storm! One day while we were at school we had one of these wind storms. We were walking home from school after the wind storm, it had blown over a tree there was a baby coon that lost its mother. We felt sorry for the little thing so we took it home to raise. We improvised a little bottle until was old enough to feed by it self. Coony was so entertaining he used his little paws just like we use our hands. One time he was trying to take some syrup out of bottle with a small neck on it. He would put his paws inside than proceed to take it out with his fist doubled up he couldn’t get it out, he kept trying until he figured it out. The small town news paper man came out to takes some pictures of him. We looked all over for him, I guess he was taking his nap, we just could not find him, so disappointing we did not get our moment of fame. When he grew older he started eating our chickens, so Pop took the coon way out in the woods the next night Coony came back and had another chicken dinner. He took him out again this time he never came back, we decided Pop used a different method. I’ll leave that to your imagination??
Wintertime we would make homemade Ice cream, because we had lot of ice that was available. Living in Wisconsin, the cold cold, winters, I mean cold we would stand around the heating stove and eat our ice cream! We enjoyed every bite.
Our house was a two-story building; during the cold months we would only use the dining area, kitchen, and one bedroom. These were the only rooms our wood heater could keep warm during the cold months. The summer months it would be so hot inside we had a summer kitchen to cook and can in. The summer kitchen had just a cook stove, there was nothing else in the room, it was just used for caning. We would can hundreds of quarts of vegetables and meat. The only supplies we bought from the grocery store would be flour, sugar, and other staples.
The kind of running water you had to run for it out to the barn where the wind mill was. It would supply us with real good fresh water to drink and cooking. The other source of water came from the cistern in the cellar, which had a hand pump in the kitchen. This water was used for washing, bathing and cleaning The cistern was a place where it caught all of the rain water from the roof. The water that we cooked with we had to go out to the windmill which pumped water from a deep well.
When we were living in Washington. We had a pet flying squirrel, he was the cutest little guy. When we would feed him and he had filled his little tummy, he then would start hiding his food in our pockets One day somebody left his little cage open I guess he decided to go back to the woods. Hopefully the cat didn’t get him. We never saw him again; we really missed our little pet.
MY brothers found a fawn out in the forest, they thought the mother left him. Later we found they hide their babies, the mother deer will than lead you away from her fawn. All that said, the fawn made a wonderful pet he would come in the house, then sleep behind the stove. Fawns are completely odorless; He was nicer to have in the house than a dog. He would hear them milking in the barn then he would go out and get some milk. He also enjoyed taking a trip through our garden, he would take a little taste of every thing. He to left us for the bigger and better world or did some one poach him he was pretty good size when he disappeared. This mystery will never be solved. i
The creek was our favorite pass time in the summer, swimming, and fishing.
We did not have a rod and reel, it was just a willow stick and a little string on tied to it. Time was not a element it didn’t matter how long it took to catch a fish. The creek was real clear we would see crawfish and bull heads while wading in the creek. The same creek has changed to a dark murky color, partly because the berry canary sprayed the berries and the residue filtered into the creek which killed all living things in the eco system of the creek. Than with help our smart environmentalist theory back to nature, the brush growing into I the stream, it is no longer a free flowing creek.