Autumn Traveler: 'Go Outside and Play'

Our childhood bedroom faced the southwest and on summer mornings when my sister and I awakened in our double bed, the room was cool and shadowy. For many years there was no door on our bedroom and I could see the sunlight shining on the wooden floors in the hallway. I can still feel the newness of each summer day and picture my favorite pink striped cotton shorty pajamas.

The rallying cry of my mother after we dressed and ate breakfast was, “Go outside and play.” Most of our summer was spent out of doors. Except for two weeks in the summer when we had to pick cherries, the days were free and unencumbered.

On hot days my mother would turn the sprinkler on or set galvanized tubs of water out for us to plop into. It was always special if we could have a popsicle my mother made out of Kool-Aid and froze in ice cube trays. On Saturday nights we often got a float, our favorite pop poured over vanilla ice cream. My father liked red pop floats. My brother and mother grape and I always wanted root beer. My sister probably had orange, as my mother always got a variety pack.

Sunday afternoons were spent taking a ride to relatives or swimming at Stony Lake. My father was a good swimmer and never hesitated if we wanted to go to the lake. If it got too hot during the week, my mother sometimes took us to Crystal Lake which was not very far from where we lived. However we always preferred to go to Stony if we could. We knew more of our friends would be there. It is also the lake where we took swimming lessons.

As we got older my sister and I sold sweet cherries by the side of the road. It got boring, but I could listen to a radio station from Milwaukee on a transister radio. My father had some fancy signs painted and we got our share of customers even though we knew another girl was selling cherries on the south side of town. She accused me once of taking business away from her. I should have said, “Blame my parents. It wasn’t my idea to sell cherries by the side of the road.”

By the time I was 12, I was riding my bike into town to take part in rec activities. I played softball and had my very own glove. I loved the game and was either pitching or playing first base. The games were in the afternoon and we must have just chosen up sides. However there was always an adult present. It was before the days when parents came to watch their children’s every move in sports. No one from my family saw me hit a homerun.

Because I was in high school in the 60’s, before Title IX, we girls had no organized sports teams. So it was only at recess when I was in elementary school that I could play sports with both boys and girls. We often played kick ball which I enjoyed and was good at. The softball I played at the age of twelve was an all girls’ event. That was it. Now I feel like we were cheated during that time. How much luckier girls are today with all the sports they can choose from.

Summer seemed to stretch on forever when I was a child and by August I was asking my mother when school would start again. If the upstairs of our house got too hot to sleep comfortably, my mother would make a bed for us on the living room floor. Air conditioning was unheard of. Another memory is camping with the neighbor kids between their house and ours and sleeping outside all night.

On Memorial weekend our five grandkids were told, “Go outside and play.” It was a beautiful weekend to be out. Their grandfather got a row boat out of the barn and put it on the pond. The girls floated and rowed back and forth and even went into the icy water.

Jay and Carter ran remote control boats that were given to Carter for his birthday. The pond was a perfect place to race them and they would run them into the boat the girls were floating in.

As summer comes again I wonder how many children will be told to go outside and play. We seem to be a nation that has turned being outside and free to roam into a thing to be feared. There is a name given to the movement of parents who allow their children that freedom….Free Range Parenting and many consider it a negative thing.

Yet in our little corner of the world, it is still encouraged and allowed. When our son was around four he disappeared. We looked everywhere, checking the ponds close to our house first. Since we live on a dead end road, we were not fearful of strangers as we seldom had anyone drive down our road except the mailman.

Our son had wandered down to our neighbors and they were trying to call us while we were out looking for him. When they asked him if we knew he was at their house he said, “They don’t need to know where I am all the time.” They gave him potato chips and candy and sent him back home.

I am not one to wish to go back in time. I know that every decade has had its negatives. However there should still be time in children’s lives to lie in the grass and look at the clouds. They can only discover the pleasure of that if they go outside and play.