Throwback Thursday: Fly Like the Wind

As a little kid, there wasn't much we could do that felt like freedom. Oh yes, little kids can run and play and laugh and chase one another, but it is always contained somehow. "Stay out of the street!" "Watch for cars!" "Stay in the yard!" School had fences. Oh! but I remember when I was in sixth grade and we were enshrined in a heavy fog. At recess, Georgia and Sue and Diane and I would go out to the far corner of the play ground and draw houses in the dirt. Then we'd play neighbors. Well, this one day the fog was so thick that you couldn't see one another at times in our little "neighborhood." It was so thick that it softened the school bell. We never heard it; thus, we never came in from recess. All the adults came out, calling our names, searching for us. We still didn't hear them until they were almost beside us. I guess that was a way we ignored the fences LOL Anyway, it was difficult to be totally free as a little kid. 

But kids still found ways to fly. Yeah I mean FLY! Swings! Swing sets were the best thing ever! 

Back in the 1950s, when I was a little kid, most people bought their swing sets. Sears and Roebuck catalog had a great swing set for the hefty price of $24.95. But wait! There's more! For five dollars more, you could get the slide. 

We lived with the Sears and Roebuck catalog. Montgomery Wards was a cheap knock-off. Dad loved to looking through Sears' catalog, finding tools and appliances and good stuff.  "Good stuff" is usually stuff you don't have. For Dad, it also included stuff he already had but could get more. Yet, except for Craftsman tools, he rarely bought things new. New was a waste of money. Why buy something new when you can buy multiples used and put one together? Yeah Dad was like that. So we would peruse the catalog and add it to a wish list.

One of the problems with the store-bought swing sets is that when you really got to flying, the poles would lift up off the ground. Dad didn't want his little girls to get hurt, so he built our swing set himself. Our set had sturdy steel pipes set into the ground like a fence pole. It wasn't going to move. It had two swings and I think we had a slider thing on one side. It was built right outside the living room window so Mom could watch us. It was on the grass, under the elm tree.

My sister was always braver than me. I was a real wuss. I mean, when Dad taught us to roller skate, I stayed near the frame for his pick up truck while Pat skated like the wind with Dad up and down the driveway. It was the same with the swings. Sister would pump and pump and fly like the wind! I would sit and twirl. You know, twist the chains together and let go. Twirl! I always did like the dizzy feeling you got from doing that. Maybe that is why Dad always called me his Dingy Daughter. I was "My Darling Dingy Daughter Dori," which later shortened to "Four-D."

As I aged a bit, I fell in love with pumping high and flying. The contest (of course! Everything was a contest, wasn't it?) was who could touch the leaves on the elm tree with their feet the most. It only worked during spring and summer. Now that I am old and smarter, I know why my sister always won. I mean she was older and had longer legs. But the competition was REAL! 

Sadly, my sons didn't have a swing set as they grew up. We did have the school and a park near-by, but never could they just go out and fly. If we could visit the park, they were more interested in other gymnastics. They did have an open field connected to our house where they would play football and other muddy games, but no swings. My grandboy never had a swing set either, but we have a huge park only one block away. He and I would go play at the park all summer when he stayed with me. And I would push him as high as he could go, holding onto the seat and running with it, me under it, letting go and still running. And he would squeal and laugh. Flying.

And that's what it's all about. Feeling that freedom when you are contained. Hmmm...maybe I need some sort of swing in the house while we are staying-in-place from the smoke and pandemic. Let's see. I could somehow attach wires and ropes to the ceiling in the living room...

And so it goes
peace~~~