Entertainment on zero dollars
October 24, 2008 (Friday)
Sitting here thinking about my grandmother, who was born in Leon County 123 years ago and traveled to Angelina County as a little girl in a covered wagon. She grew up in East Texas. I remember how she shared a few things with me that she had learned as a child. People learned how to entertain themselves in many ways in days gone by. She taught me how to have fun making string figures. She tied together the ends of a length of string to make a loop. Then she used her hands and fingers to make all sorts of figures. I have forgotten how to do it, but I found a place on the internet that explains it, complete with video illustrations, taking the viewer through the process step by step. The internet address is at the end of this blog.
The figure that immediately comes to mind, as I think back over an afternoon on a second floor screened-in porch in Houston 67 years ago, is the “crow’s foot.” After manipulating the loop of string with her fingers, she ended up with a straight string between her hands, that branches off on both ends to resemble a crow’s feet (using the imagination). It’s a splendid way for a grandparent to spend some time with grandchildren. I remember now how I was so thrilled with my first successful string figure. Then I went on to learn how to do other things with the string. (The old apartment house is still standing).
We never had big birthday bashes with rented rides and slides, complete with boom box music or even d.j.’s, but we had a lot of fun in those days, on the free slides at the public parks, stick baseball on the gravel streets, hop scotch, leap frog, “Simon Says,” “May I?” and “Hide and Go Seek.” We even made our own checkers game when we couldn’t find a kid who actually owned one. When times got better, sometimes our parents bought us jig saw puzzles for great fun on a rainy day.
As the Depression faded, my first big toy was a kiddie car. I convinced myself that pedaling that car down the street was much easier than walking or running. I remember driving it to the store one day. Today that street is about two blocks away from Loop 610 North. I drove down that street not long ago. Not a kiddie car in sight.
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Introduction to easy string figures:
http://www.alysion.org/figures/introduc.htm