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D

Norms Bait and Tackle

Started by dapphne, March 30, 2016, 09:23:16 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

Marilyne

Same story here in California.  The sky was clear - no clouds or fog, plus a new moon - so everything looked perfect for viewing the meteor shower.  Only it never showed up.  Supposed to start around 10 PM.  I watched until Midnight - then gave up and went to bed.

CallieOK

I knew I wouldn't be able to see the meteors because of city lights and trees.  However, it was never mentioned on any of the local tv channels and I know the weather gurus on all of them would have gone on and on and.... ::)    about it.

Isn't there usually a big one in August?  Maybe this was "advance advertising"  ;) .

Denver

GOOD MORNING GREETINGS FROM the left coast‼️

We have been enjoying our time with family in San Francisco.  I love this city❣️  It has been my favorite place for as long as I can remember🥰 We arrived on Saturday.....got picked up at SFO driven around town to so many favorite sites.  Another tour around on Sunday.  Happy Happy‼️

We spent a quiet Memorial Day with our Grand Doodle as his parents headed off for a couple of days of beach time💗. Their home here is lovely and we are so comfortable.  We sat out in their back yard yesterday and felt like we were on a tropical island.

MARILYN, the weather has been perfect since we have been here.....beautiful blue  skies....just lovely 😊  A bit on the cooler side. The only fog was on a Saturday afternoon / evening and it hid the huge Sutro (?) Tower.  It is just amazing what can be hidden by the fog.  This area is known for not having fog as it does not come over the hills in Noe Valley. I just love it here.

Only a couple more days and our new grandson should be arriving🙏 So excited🥰

Enjoy this blessed day 💗

Jenny

🦋 Jenny
"Love many, trust few; learn to paddle your own canoe"

MarsGal

Callie, this particular meteor shower is usually very sparce. The astronomers thought that since there was a comet breakup last year, that we would be in line to get a spectacular meteor fall-out this year. I guess we just weren't lined up for it, like they hoped.

Marilyne

Jenny - I left you a message here a few days ago, commenting on your visit to San Francisco, plus your winning Colorado hockey team -  The Avalanche!  Then I came back a few hours later to clean up a few typos, and add some new comments, and somehow the entire message disappeared!  We all know how frustrating it is when that happens!  :tickedoff:

I won't try to rewrite!   Will just say that I hope you and Bob are back home again in Denver, and that your new grandson has arrived?   Also letting you know that we are rooting for The Avalanche, to go all the way, and win the Stanley Cup!  :cheer: 

MaryPage

I did not know you COULD edit your own posts that way!  I assume only you yourself can do your own post, but how do you get into it to do it?  I have thought that once you hit post, you are unable to make any corrections!  Please explain!

Marilyne

Mary Page -
At the bottom of your last post, you will see three boxes: 
Quote - Quick Edit - More

Click on Quick Edit , and your last post will show up, looking like it did when you were first composing it, before you hit "post".   You can then change things around any way you want to, like  removing, or adding sentences, paragraphs, spelling, names, etc.   When it looks the way you want it to, then click on the box that says SAVE.

so_P_bubble

The box 'more' is the same as "quick edit' but gives  you more possibilities of editing.

MaryPage

I thank you very gracious ladies.  After all these many years, I have had my Seniors & Friends experience revised; and to think it was there all along!  I am bowing in your directions.

All is quiet and peaceful here in Chesapeake Harbour this Saturday morning.   Lovely sunshine and quiet waters.  First Village, the section I inhabit, is just beginning a long period of feverish attentions to our roofs.  I have only to keep my draperies closed during working hours so as not to suddenly encounter the jarring experience of a face of a roofer staring back at me from a ladder and to endure the noise accompanying this great improvement.  They do take the weekends off: Hurrah!  The sun pours into my home this lovely morning!

Also, I feel blessed in that there are many buildings to be done, and mine is the very first.  This will all go away very soon.  Another Hurrah!

My heart is broken over those children in Texas, and my memories scuttle back to my hometown in the Shenandoah and to where I lived at the tender age of ten.  Daddy was stationed on River & Harbor duty in Jacksonville, Florida that year.  We lived on Ortega Boulevard on the St. John's River, and I walked to school by myself.  It was a pretty long way.  Never once during those school years, including getting there and back home again, was I in danger of any kind that I was ever aware of.  Children were cherished, and considered out of bounds.  Life was made up of lessons and fierce games of Dodge Ball at Recess.  Little girls always wore dresses.  Always.  And mine were generally little cotton frocks with sashes.  And Mama's biggest sighs came when I arrived home with yet another sash pulled from yet another frock, with a gap in my side where it had been sewn in, repeatedly.  Yes, Life was simple for children; as indeed, it should have been.  And still should be; but these children of the 21st Century do not know the certainty of partaking in their next frenzy of Dodge Ball.

The Age of Innocence no longer exists.  Yes, my heart is heavy.  I went to Debi's for lunch with four of my children on Wednesday.  We played Mexican Train both before and after eating much too much delicious food.  Debi sent clear to Chicago for the most delicious Spumoni I've EVer eaten!  I kept looking around the table at my children, seeing the little ones they once were, and rejoiced in the fact that they experienced being Free Range Kids.

RAMMEL

I think Dodge Ball is now considered a dangerous game, and not fit for children.  Surprising we all lived this long.  Some of us even climbed trees. Can you imagine?
It's the WINDMILLS

          THIMK

MaryPage

ARE YOU SERIOUS?  About the Dodge Ball?

I absolutely LIVED in trees, down there in Florida for the two years (4th & 5th grades) I lived there.  I had a hiding/reading place in a live oak.  We did not have live oaks in the Shenandoah.  This was all pre-air conditioning.  The moving picture theatres had it, and it was advertised with blue cardboard icicles wrapped around the marques.  But PEOPLE not only had no means of acquiring it, they did not yet dream of doing so.  So Mama and I got on one of the only two brand new "streamliner" trains in use as yet and headed up to Grandma's in the Shenandoah when school was over for the summer.  Uncle Buster would meet us at Union Station in D.C. and we would drive (35 mph) back to my beloved valley.  My closest relationship to a tree up there involved the swing he had built and installed in a tall tree right in front of our house.  Bless his boots, I was never so in awe of something so simple.  Life was good, and I am left now with all of them milling around in my heart and a great void of any memory of thanking them.  At least, I am quite, quite certain I did not thank them ENOUGH.  And I would give every smidgen I own and you own and we all own just to have them back for 5 minutes so I could tell them so!

They are all gone: every last one of them.  And I was the skinny little kid with brown braids and a mouth that never stopped talking.  Now my huge family call me their matriarch!  Wow, matriarch!

RAMMEL

Quote from: MaryPage on June 04, 2022, 11:41:08 AMARE YOU SERIOUS?  About the Dodge Ball?
Sadly, yes. As a kid we thought it was fun. Surely more fun than the "chores" we had to do.  But today those "chores" are considered child labor - out of the question.
It's the WINDMILLS

          THIMK

MaryPage

Amazing, is it not, the list of things considered too dangerous for kids today?  The unpasteurized milk I drank huge glasses of at Grandma's would be considered dangerous, as well and all, if, that is, they have ever given them a thought.  I suspect they have not.

I used to take a small stick and walk all the way down to the pasture and bring our Betsy home to the barn so Buster could milk her.  She knew I was one of her people, and would separate out from any other cows present and lead the way back to the barn and her stall there.  I never had to do more than tap her lightly on one flank with the tip of my little stick, if she slowed down to examine something.  After all, this was a chore I wanted to be done with. It was time for home and the radio.  Time for "Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy!"  Brought to us by Wheaties, if my recall is still any good!

CallieOK

#21853
Although my Dad was an attorney, we lived on a big acreage and always had "milk cows". My husband/sons were amazed when we once went to a farm exhibit and I proved I could milk a cow (although I could never hit the cat's mouth like my Dad and the helper did).
The milk was brought into the kitchen in the pails. Mother strained the cream off for making butter (in a Daisy churn - not a "pump up and down" one), cottage cheese and whipped cream.
Nobody ever got sick.

We played Dodge Ball in a big field behind the elementary school.  Also played "Red Rover" when two teams holding hands lined up facing one another.  The captain of one team would say "Red Rover, Red Rover, let (name of opponent) come over".  That person would run and try to break through the line.  If they couldn't, they had to stay with that team; if they did, they could return to their own team (I may have that backwards).   Winner was the team with the most members at the end of recess.
Don't remember anyone ever breaking any bones but do remember a few skinned knees because the field was pretty much dirt and small rocks.  The teacher or principal "doctored" those by using Merthyolate (sp?) which I didn't like because it stung a lot more than Mercurichrome (sp).

Also never heard of anyone being allergic to peanut butter - which was a staple for lunch sandwiches on bread or crackers.

Miss Ellen flew in from NYC yesterday and will be here for a week.  :)  Main event is her other grandmother's 90th birthday celebration today.  Nana is not a "tea and crumpets" sort of person so her kids, grandkids, great grands, spouses and "significant others" will gather for a fish fry at the family "compound" on a small lake near the town where she lives in her own house.  I suspect some of the fish may be "fresh caught" by Nana herself.
Ellen and I plan to have lunch and see the "Downton Abbey" movie on Monday. 

 

MaryPage

I remember "Red Rover, Red Rover, send Callie right over."  too, Callie.  And do you remember yet another one, called: "Mother, May I?"

The really, truly dangerous one was "Crack The Whip."  I remember being at the end of the line and getting actually HURLED off quite a ways before finally coming to a stop.

The thing I loved, and miss in spirit now, was the great camaraderie we had with all kids of all ages in the community.  It made for a bonding of us all that extended throughout our lives.  And we never wanted for playmates.  Neither did my children.  Free range, that's the ticket!

CallieOK

MaryPage,  we played "Mother, May I" on the front steps of the school.
There was a tennis court on the east side where we jumped rope and played Jacks in the middle and roller skated on the perimeter. We brought our own "equipment"; school provided none.

Marilyne

Callie - I had forgotten all about, Mother May I?   Mother may I take two giant steps, two baby steps, or three scissor steps?  Those scissor steps, were hard to do without falling down.  :D   

We had the same lonely tennis court, that was used for everything except tennis.  Our school provided only basketballs, and baseball bats and balls during school hours.  You had to bring your own baseballs, mitts, bats,  racquets and tennis balls from home for play in off hours, if you had any.  Most of us didn't.   I also believe there was no such thing as peanut allergy back in the '40's and 50's?    The only allergy we suffered from was called Hay Fever back then.  Now referred to as seasonal pollen allergy.

Here in the California Public Schools, Dodge Ball, is no longer allowed.  Also metal rings and bars and jungle gym's for climbing are long gone.   Does anyone else remember the blisters we used to get on the palms of our hands from swinging on the rings? 

CallieOK

#21857
Surface under existing jungle gyms is so well padded that it's like landing on a pillow.

Changing games :) ...I'm watching the Women's College Softball National Championship tournament being played here in OKC. If Oklahoma University and Oklahoma State both win their games today and their games on Monday, theyll play each other in the finals.  I'm saying "Go Sooners" and All My Children will be saying, "Go Cowgirls " May have to threaten to change the Will  ;D

MarsGal

We often played Red Rover, but I was usually one of the last, if not the last, one picked because I couldn't break the chain. I was, however, exceptionally good at Kick the Can. I even had a favorite top that was two shades of green and a brown. It blended in perfectly with the bushes around the houses. We had a very large playground a few blocks from our house. It included bleachers, football and baseball fields, several pavilions, a sand box or two, and of course, swings, jungle Jim. I forget the names of the several other metal gym bars and such. I also forget the name of the game with the big pole with a ball attached to batt at (not Wiffle ball, I think). We walked or rode our bike all over town and never once were accosted. We went down to the creek, unaccompanied, and waded or swam just below the little dam near where the creek met the river. Others brought their innertubes. That was probably the most dangerous thing we did besides roaming around in the woods, also unaccompanied by an adult. We never got lost in the woods, but there were a few (none I knew) who had accidents on the creek. Thanks for the memories.

RAMMEL

#21859
Don't forget See-Saw, or what we called a Log-Swing ( Much different that what is shown on Google today ).  We didn't have a Jungle-Gim, but called it Monkey-Bars.
It's the WINDMILLS

          THIMK

Sandy

  "It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out."

― Carl Sagan

RAMMEL

Good Morning - Sandy.

Does anyone know what a Log-Swing was? A playground thing, not a porch swing.  I spent quite a bit of time going through Search Engines and could NOT find a picture of one. So I've concluded it was a very local thing or considered so dangerous they can not show a picture of it.  I will try to describe it.  The sitting area similar to a see-saw seat (long flat board). Rather than going up and down, is swung end to end - Being suspended from an overhead frame on each end. It was suspended on rigid pipes rather than chain.
It's the WINDMILLS

          THIMK

MaryPage

#21862
When Daddy taught at West Point, and I was in school K-3, (this was 1934-1938) the school playground had a swing the likes of which I have never, ever seen since.

It was very wide, with little chair-like places across that width: maybe 6 of them?  We would, if we were lucky, because it was very much in demand and always busy, sit in these small seats and swing FROM SIDE TO SIDE.  All of us at once.  This side and that side and this side and that.  Everyone loved it, and a place on it was very much in demand.

But seriously, I have never seen the likes of it since.  It was great fun.  I have often wondered during my journey through Life, why I have only encountered that one.

Maybe they cost too much?  Maybe the powers that were took a dislike?  Maybe the makers went out of business?

Whatever, we kids ADORED swinging from side to side on this apparently one-of-a-kind contraption.  Have any of you ever seen the like?

so_P_bubble

Rammel, we have these swings in Israel! I have seen them in two different playground parks, with room for 8 or more kids on the swinging trunk. Yes, they hang on hinged pipes. They were very popular  where I saw them.

Marilyne

Mary Page and Rick - I also remember a playground swing of some sort, that was suspended from a frame, so your feet were not quite touching the ground.  However, you didn't sit in individual seats, but on a hardwood circular  bench.  Everyone was facing the middle, and holding on to a mental bar. As you moved around it went faster and faster.  I have no memory of how it started moving and how it finally stopped?  All equipment  was operated by "kid power" in those days, so I guess we learned how to control it ourselves?

MarsGal - "Kick the Can", was my favorite too.  I was also a fast runner, and could usually get to that can in short order.  Another popular street game in our neighborhood was called, "I Want a Beckon". I don't remember much - except that once you were captured, you had to call for a beckon, and someone hiding would  wave their hand, and then you were free again?

The two oldest boys - Bobby and Richard - were usually the ones who decided what game would be played.  If it required teams, they would each be a "captain", and would divide the kids up so that the teams were fair and even.  Looking back, I don't ever remember fights, or kids crying and leaving the game?  Seems like everyone was a good sport and fair minded back then . . . without any adult supervision.

Someone asked about the ball on a long rope, that you batted around pole?  That was called Tetherball, here in California.  Also, a See-Saw, was called a  Teeter-Totter.

RAMMEL

Quote from: so_P_bubble on June 05, 2022, 11:49:56 AMRammel, we have these swings in Israel! I have seen them in two different playground parks, with room for 8 or more kids on the swinging trunk. Yes, they hang on hinged pipes. They were very popular  where I saw them.
Bubble, --- Do they swing in the direction of the length of the "log" or perpendicular to it?
It's the WINDMILLS

          THIMK

CallieOK

I don't remember a swing with seats that went side to side but a friend's grandparents had a similar one with facing "chairlike" seats that swung back and forth.  3 or 4 girls could sit on each seat and we had a lot of fun on it.

My Dad put up a tether ball pole for me but I didn't like it because the ball kept hitting me in the face.  I also had a "swing set" that had been built of - I guess - pipes.  It had bars between the end poles that went up in an inverted V to the cross pole.
A swing and a pair of swinging rings were attached to the cross pole.  We liked to get on one of the bars and try to go across to the other one without touching the ground.  Tricky to do the rings.

I mentioned Ellen being home for her Nana's 90th birthday.  Haven't seen pictures of the Fish Fry yet but she posted a Facebook video of the family playing Kick Ball today at a small baseball diamond - probably in a nearby park.  Everyone from the 60-somethings to the "littlies" were participating.

She and I plan to see the "Downton Abbey" movie tomorrow.  'Twill be the first time I've been to a movie in almost 3 years.  Hope I remember how to behave. ;D 

MaryPage

Just don't chew your popcorn too loudly, Callie, and you'll be fine!

I have always had a huge crush on those face-to-face swings, and have a darling photo of two of my little girls in one when they were very small.  I'll post it when I find the time to learn how!  I owned one of those sit-in swings from my first house to my last.  Bought the smaller one at my first and a larger version later.

MarsGal

Oh, Right! Tetherball and Monkey Bars. I knew someone would find me the names.

MaryPage, I think I saw pictures of those side-to-side type swings long ago, but don't recall if they went back and forth or side to side. It was soooo long ago, I almost think it was a European or Brit thing. I can't find any old pix on the net.

While looking for a pix of the side to side swings, I found another thing we had at the playground. It looked kind of like a Maypole with long chains (ropes?) dangling with a loop at the end to hold onto as you ran around it as fast as you could. Don't remember if any of the kids actually went airborne on those.

Ah, this is nice. https://oshaughnessy-jr.com/2021/11/09/the-old-swing-set-poem/


MaryPage

That is lovely, MarsGal.

Now let me reminisce about mine.

We lived on a big old place called Sunnyside.  The house was very old, and had a porch with columns all the way across its width.  A doctor had owned it in some of the years before we got there, and his wife had prevailed upon him to tack on an addition.   So it really was a big ol' rambling thing.  Two stories.  Not a rambler as such.

There was a large front yard, broken by a long half-circle driveway.  Each end of this stopped at Route 11, which we called "The Valley Pike."  There was a tall square greystone column on each side of the place where the driveway ended at the pike.  Four of these, in all. 

The house is long gone now.  There are hundreds of houses on that old property.  One of them, right on the pike that is still Route 11, sports one of those columns.  It beats me why it did not come down like the rest of them.  There must be a story there.

The quite large half moon circle created by this driveway  was full of tall shade trees.  There were also two sizable white trellised concrete platforms with roofs: one considerably larger than the other.  The smaller was a spring house, while the larger was just an outdoor sitting room to help family members to cool off out of the sun in the cooling shade under all of those trees.

One morning, the summer I was nine, I went out after breakfast and found the tree closest to our long porch sported a newly installed swing of the simplest possible design.  It had ropes attached to a limb quite high in the tree, and a plain wooden plank for a seat.  It was Divine, and I was thrilled!  I spent many, many hours on that swing.  I got downright reckless regarding how high I would go.

My Uncle Buster, who was the sweetest man who ever lived.  He never said a word about it.  Grandma allowed that yes, it was all Buster's doing, when I asked.  I had thanked him before, but I thanked him again one last time just before he died.  I was 50 by then.  The house and the swing were just memories.  But they remain some of my very dearest memories.

We speak of old time games.  How about old time toys?  No plastics.  We did not have plastics for a long time yet. 

But do you remember characters from Mickey Mouse: Mickey and Minnie and Pluto and all, who were balloons you had to blow up and knot through holes in the bottom of these humongous cardboard feet that were shaped just as they were in the comics?  These balloons were especially hard to work with, because they had heads and bellies, the bellies being larger, of course.  No helium in stores in those days.

So the family was giving me a large surprise party for my 9th birthday.  They had to get the big front parlor (courtesy of that doctor's wife) ready AFTER I went to bed.  So my youngest uncle and Buster had the job of setting a lot of extra chairs around this room and placing one balloon on its feet on each of these chairs.  It took them forever, plus some spoiled balloons, but they had bought extra.  It was late by the time everyone got to bed.

The next morning, one of them went to put something in the party room.  Every balloon had lost its air and was drooping over those large cardboard feet, with heads pointed down at the floor.

And the balloons were not nearly as deflated as were a couple of uncles!

Somehow, they got them all back in shape and "on their feet" before the party.

Anyone remember those?