old school playtime

It's hot out. Muggy and gross. I have this special sound I make when walking out in the muggy air. Eric still hasn't gotten used to it~ a cough-groan-moan-sigh sorta noise. He still asks me if I'm okay when I make it! I think by mid-June I'll just get a look that says "yeah, it's muggy and gross but knock that off, won't ya?!"
Our neighbors kids have the slip n' slide out and are having a blast. It's one of the cool ones that you hook up a hose and it sprays on both sides all the way like in a car wash. They may have had these when I was growing up but we didn't roll like that on H Blvd.
I grew up in Michigan and in the winter, my dad would put the plastic on the windows. A big piece of plastic was cut for each window then it was framed out with thin wood pieces and nailed around the windows. I remember seeing the air moving between the window and plastic but not being cold. I don't know if this is normal practice but the whole neighborhood had the same windows and they were junky. During the summer, we'd grab the plastic from the basement and lay it out in the backyard, put the hose at the top and Voila! Slip n' Slide H Blvd style. If you got going really fast, you'd fly into the chain link fence. I remember being so scared of that but the boys seemed to make it their goal.
This is such a funny memory from me. I think of all the things that kids have these days and the amount of toys and gadgets our kids are probably going to have and in a way, it's sad. We didn't use the plastic because we couldn't buy a slip n' slide but because we (I think it was my brothers invention so I'll give him props for this one!) were inventive. I'm not sure slip n' slides were available then, to be honest. Most of our games that us kids played was made up. We played pickle, like I mentioned on an earlier post. You'd put two bases on opposite ends of the sidewalk and one person would stand on each base. Those people would throw the ball and the monkey in the middle would try to get to one of the bases without being tagged. Man, we used to play that for hours. One time, our mean neighbor stole our bases and threw them in the trash. I plan to rant about him and other bizzare episodes in a further entry. I try to keep my ramblings to a max. of 3 subjects at a time and throwing neighbors in would be overkill. Okay, back on topic. Where ever that may be.
The kids my age used to make up crazy games or activities. We'd put on our rollar skates and head to the across the street neighbors unfinished cement basement. two people would grab a jump rope. The person in front would get going real fast, and the person in back holding the rope would have to maneuvere around the metal poles that were holding the house up! oh my gosh! I'm not sure our parents knew we were doing that~ how stupid! Now, from a "parents" perspective I realize how dangerous that was. No one or no thing ever got broken from that game so no harm, I guess. Most of the other games sound lame in black and white so I won't share them with you! But next time we hang out, let me know if you want to dark draw or corner pummel!
Enjoy your day!