Okay–we have the first few entries into our Memory Lane contest, so I guess I can declare it open.
Unknowable remembers cashing in pop bottles. I should’ve done more of that; I would’ve had more root beer.
Ina mentions skipping rope, playing marbles, and something called “chute.” In our neighborhood the favorite sidewalk game was hopscotch.
Thewhiterabbit enjoyed pickup baseball and football games on the school’s playing field–which it seems is not allowed there anymore.
Let’s run the contest for two weeks and see how it turns out. Winner gets an autographed book and a write-up here.
I think I’ll ask Byron the Quokka to be the judge.
P.S.–You most certainly do not have to be “old” to play! The contest is open to all.
Okay, I’ll play! This one is going to make me sound older than I am. 😄 Stooking!
When I was quite young, my parents still harvested with a binder and threshing machine. At harvest time, my dad would drive the tractor, while my oldest brother operated the binder. My mother, my sister (the oldest), my other two brothers and I (the youngest) would follow along and stack the sheaves into stooks. I probably wasn’t much use to my parents, though! The youngest of my brothers and I were so small, we could both fit inside the stooks together to play.
When the stooks had dried in the sun long enough, we were all back out together. This time, the tractor was pulling the rack. My dad usually drove, and a couple of my brothers would be on the rack with pitch forks. The rest of us walked along as the tractor slowly ambled along, gathering up the sheaves and tossing them onto the rack, where my brothers would stack them efficiently until we could no longer reach to add more.
The rack would then be driven into the hay yard, near the barn, where the threshing machine would set up. I remember my dad inspecting all the belts, including the looooooong belt to the tractor that powered the whole thing. He had a can with a special grease in it – a can that looked a lot like those cardboard cans of pre-made cookies or croissants you can get in grocery stores, except a lot bigger. He’d hold the open end against the spinning belts to lubricate them. There were all sorts of openings with covers on the sides that swung aside, allowing him to check how the inner workings were doing, and the top had panels strong enough to walk on, that opened to the inside.
When the stack of stooks on the rack got lower and the rack bed was open, I was allowed to help take sheaves (we still called them stooks) with a pitchfork and load them on the track. A chute would spray the straw into a pile on the ground, while the grain was expelled into the back of a truck, later to be augered into an old shed we used as a granary.
Eventually, combines became more common in our area, and for years my father would rent one from a neighbour at harvest time. Stooking, however, is a memory that will never leave me, even though I was so very young at the time!
From here in suburban New Jersey, that looks exotic!
My uncle was a farmer, and he had a combine. I loved going to visit his farm. When my brother and me were ten and eleven, our uncle Bill let us drive his small John Deere tractors around his farm. “Keep it in first gear” was his only instruction.
Is it a memory if I still have them? I started buying Matchbox cars (or got as Christmas presents) when I was ten – fifteen years old (I am 71). I still have all of them (over one hundred, in good shape), including the first one, a maroon Austin Taxi Cab #17 (which is now over 60 years old), a blue Volkswagen Microvan #34, and others. They are all here in the Philippines with me.
Absolutely counts, if you still have stuff! I’ve kept my toy animals and dinosaurs… and I’m glad I did.
BTW, holding on to all those cars, that is very cool! I’ve tried to do the same with my toy dinosaurs. It’s kind of amazing that you haven’t lost any.
I would love to still have my toy dinosaurs and army-men, but alas, I fear they have become extinct.
Skipping rope, playing marbles, hopscotch, and a game called steal the beacon I remember well.
I still have my Boy Scout uniform from when I was twelve, the canteen, set of silverware, and cooking & eating utensils. I’m not sure why, but it’s here with me in the Philippines. I have three wool blankets (still in good shape) from our families’ camping days (about 50 – 60 years ago). I have used them here, a few times at night, surprisingly, it gets a bit cool after a typhoon blows through.