Play
The lovely blogger-pals I join with to write this Tell Me About Series have picked the theme of “play” for this month. That initially threw me for a loop, as there’s nothing I do “play” – not golf or tennis, video games, cards or board games. I’m never bored, but instead am reading, writing, cooking, taking photos, or gardening.
I’ve never thought about it before, but all the things I now think of “playing” require at least one other person. The pattern may have been set because I grew up mostly as an only child. My brother and sister are 9 and 10 years older than me, so they were always off on far more sophisticated pursuits and certainly didn’t want an annoying youngster around (and I’m SURE I was annoying…).
Our parents bought a large farm and moved us there the summer I turned 6 years old. It was paradise for a child! We had dogs, cats, horses, sheep and LAMBS (there is NOTHING better to play with), chickens and an endless parade of hamsters, turtles, guinea pigs, rabbits, puppies, kittens, toads, crawdads (ouch) and salamanders. Yes, I’ve always loved animals, and wanted to be a vet when I grew up – thwarted by calculus and chemistry in school, unfortunately…
In a big old farmhouse, there were inevitable field mice who took refuge in the winter. I would tie string to pieces of cheese and lay in bed, with the bait placed in front of the gap in the closet door. The mice would sniff their way to the cheese, grab it and run, only to engage in epic tugs-of-war until I dissolved in giggles and they were scared back into my closet.
I was never much into baby dolls or Barbies (why was she permanently on tip-toe, and have that swollen chest?), but I adored a series of dolls put out by Mattel starting in 1965 called Liddle Kiddles. They were tiny dolls without bendable arms and legs, but long, rooted hair and with various themes from fairy tale characters to flowers in perfume bottles (my favorites were Liddle Red Riding Hood and Lilly of the Valley).
I became a pint-sized home-builder for the Liddles, and made log cabins (twigs from the yard), as well as stone houses (gravel from the driveway with mud mortar) for them, barns for their animals, and whole villages under the ash tree in our yard. Their livestock were (live) toads and grasshoppers. I admit I also learned to anesthetise the grasshoppers with chloroform linament (in our medicine cabinet for muscle aches) to put them to sleep and them resurrect them – kind of creepy when I think about it today…
I may have missed a calling as a civil engineer, as I also delighted in damming up the creek to create lakes , rapids and canals, until yelled at by my father for flooding the road.
My mother was a gifted athlete, whose hero was Babe Didrickson. If she’d lived in a later decade or born to a wealthier family, she could have been a national-class or even Olympic competitor. I got NONE of those genes! My father was more of an….intellectual – not that I got those genes, either. What I did have was dogged determination by my 20s, and while I lacked the coordination to be picked for team sports, I could succeed modestly at those sports where if I just kept at it long enough, perseverance would triumph over lack of talent – running, skiing, and water sports behind a boat – wakeboarding, kneeboarding and slalom skiing. I think of all those experiences, and the spectacular crashes that resulted, as I visit the chiropractor for my quarterly tune-up!
10 Comments
Connie Wright Stanley
M.K. I love this well done. I never knew about you thinking of being a Vet. I do have to take you to task saying you didn’t excel at sports. I saw you on that friggin wake board behind the speeding boat on Smith Mountain Lake and you were amazing and I was scared just watching you! I will in the future keep a wary eye should you approach me with a bottle and a cloth! Yikes poor froggies. Love YOU.
Connie
Gail
Brilliant, loved it. You sounded such a mischievous child but fun, with the cheese trick and putting grasshoppers to sleep! The Liddles never made it to these shores, though we did have Barbie plus our UK equivalent Sindy (smaller chest).
mkmiller
Bwahaha! I never heard of Sindy, but glad someone had some more sense!
mkmiller
Haha! Again, there was no talent involved, just nerve and dogged determination. I’ll only try to anesthetize you with bourbon nowadays!
Michelle
Wow! Creating a village for your Liddles is amazing. That sounds like a lot of fun. I got a giggle about you anesthetizing grasshoppers. You were quite inventive. So cool!
Michelle
https://followingmymuse.space
mkmiller
Thanks, Michelle – I’m WAY behind responding to comments. The whole grasshopper deal makes me feel like a budding mad scientist now – a bit creepy!
Stefanie Armstrong
Oh my goodness! I know SO much more about you than ever!! The mice tug of war means I have chosen well with you as my travel partner! You get any mice! I also adored the Liddles and had forgotten all about them until your post! Having seen you behind a boat on a knee board and wake board, you are FEARLESS and extrememly competent! If you didn’t mention the chiropractor, I would have thought you escaped unscathed! For the record, you are an intellectual and also one of the most emotionally intelligent women I know!!! I truly enjoyed reading your take on play!! I can’t wait to “play” on the Danube!
mkmiller
Thanks for all the kind words, dear friend. Clicking with you back in England was one of the best things to happen to me, and I love our adventures ever since, with many more to come!
jodie filogomo
I can’t believe I missed this. I hate not getting your emails even though I know i signed up for them.
Is that the farm you’re on now??
Gosh, you were so brave to play with the mice.
And determination is better than natural talent I think…you sure learn more about life that way.
I totally understand about the chiro, haha.
XOXO
Jodie
http://www.jtouchofstyle.com
mkmiller
I’m pretty slow replying as well! Yes, I’ll take determination every time…