Part of the lyrics of a song made famous by The Rolling Stones brought to mind days of childhood living, when many things cost very little but required, at times, some movement and creativity. I recall when many of our staff members at South Hamilton Elementary School taught traditional hand clapping and jump rope rhymes to children. Delores Howell and a host of other educators were busy with children, preparing them to go on stage for the Florida Folk Festival. Ruby Williams, Earnestine Johnson and others did the same, teaching children the traditional maypole dance, plaiting and unplaiting the maypole.
There was physical and mental acuity involved in playing these games and learning the rhymes and dances; the lightning quick movements of those who could really jump rope and the rhythmic movement of hands in hand clapping games. Now, you may wonder "what planet is he on this week, writing about all these things of the past?" I can tell you. Most of what was done for leisure time with children involved cooperation, consideration, using one's mind and exercising one's body.
Today, crank up a computer and some folks can show you how to make it do everything but walk the dog. I am impressed by their skills. I wish I were more impressed with the computer games I see some children playing, as some of these games, not all, are of a violent nature; but then, so is a lot of television and so is a lot of young adult literature, one of the main reasons parents need to know what their children are watching and reading.
We talk about Generation X, snowflakes and why some folks, regardless of age, see the world as being only about themselves. I wonder how different the world might be if some of these people had to play "red rover," "hide and seek" or other games that involved cooperation, but I am just one person musing here with an article. Outside, at school we played games that required physical movement and cooperation and inside we were memorizing and reciting for teachers passages such as: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
We jumped rope, played high and go seek, shot marbles, played jacks, repeated hand clapping rhymes, drank well water out of rubber hoses, went barefoot in the summer and managed, somehow, to learn the eight parts of speech, diagram sentences, do long division and sing all the words of the National anthem. It was a different world, some folks will say it was a simpler time and it was. We turned the lights on and off rather than computers and we had to learn to engage and cooperate with others and at times, even had to suffer the humiliation of being the last chosen to play on certain teams and at times, not making the team; but we lived. Life is wonderful, but it has its rough patches too and sometimes I think the world of cooperative games and memory work prepared us better for what the world is.
I give kudos to all who can make a computer whir but, sooner or later, one has to leave the computer screen and interact with others and that seems to present more of a challenge for many groups regardless of age and if you don't believe it, turn on any news channel at any time. I don't think a lot of those folks on the news in Tom Ford suits and shoes walking on marble floors ever had to be part of a team or be cooperative with each other. In fact, in my day, they might have gotten a paddling, as I had never heard of time out and if you got a paddling at school, you had one waiting on you at home and word always traveled. There was a thing called respect and we learned early on that respect wins respect. To reiterate: it was a simpler time, but a classic is often very simple and stands the test of time.
From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs, wishing you a day filled with joy, peace and, above all, lots of love and laughter. The world is always better when you are eating one of Raleigh Brown's wings from the Brown Lantern in Live Oak, a classic that stands the test of time.