Even in the old days, we kids sometimes found ourselves with time on our hands. For kids growing up on the farm, there were probably fewer times like that than for kids who didn’t have regular chores or animals to care for. But even though we worked hard, and sometimes long, we had our times when there was nothing to do.
To me there are at least two meanings to having nothing to do. One is where you have all your duties and assigned tasks done, and you have time to do things just for the fun of it. At those times you feel free at last, like a bird let out of a cage and no cat in sight! But the second meaning is when you have time on your hands and there is nothing to do, at least nothing appealing. I often hear children go to their mom or dad saying, “I’m bored.
I don’t got nuttin’ to do!
What can I do?”
This is often from a child who has almost every toy imaginable. I always listen closely to see what creative suggestion the Mom or Dad will give. Usually Mom or Dad’s suggestions will get nowhere, unless son or daughter does something in their own minds to become open to creative ideas. Developing your inner interests is usually more effective than expecting somebody else to fix your boredom.
We found that if wewent to Mom or Dad with news that we were bored, we usually got assigned some work to do; often stuff we didn’t want to do. When that happens to you time and again, you become more inclined to find ways to get yourself unbored without setting yourself up for more work assignments. Boredom often brings on mischief.
But mischievousness as a solution to boredom always seemed to get Mom and Dad involved again with those same work assignments as mentioned before. Actually we found lots of interesting things to do. We even learned that some things we thought couldn’t be interesting really turned out to be so.
Baseball has been called the great American pastime. As true Americans, we spent a lot of our time playing ball ourselves, or listening to the big leagues on the radio. Our team was the St. Louis Cardinals. As most seasons played out, our Cardinals would start out beating everybody. Harry Carey would be beside himself with excitement about the new rookies who were joining the Cardinal team that year. In exhibition games, our Cardinals would trounce the New York Yankees and the New York Giants and the Milwaukee Braves and everybody. But, typically our Cardinals ended up in fourth; the Brooklyn Dodgers would win the National League; the Yankees would top the American League; and the Pittsburgh Pirates would end up in the cellar as usual.
We didn’t have anything like Little League when I was young, but we boys spent lots of time playing ball. Usually, for us, it was softball. Softball was an everyday pursuit at school, and we played at home every chance we got. I hear that back in the days when Clyde “Pea Ridge” Day was growing up just a little north of where I grew up, playing ball was big for him and his brother, too. Clyde and Lem Day became fine pitchers. In their day, many of the small outlying communities had baseball teams, competing with other teams from the area, playing on makeshift diamonds in someone’s pastures. My brothers and I didn’t have teams like that to join, but that didn’t keep us from playing ball at home.
One advantage we had as kids growing up was Otter Creek. A little creek like Otter Creek was almost ideal when there was nothing to do. We could go fishing. We could go swimming. We could goexploring. We could look for bullfrogs. We could watch the water skippers.
Those water skippers were always fascinating critters to me. They were a little smaller than a wasp, and had no wings that I could see, but somehow their feet let them stand on the water’s surface without sinking; and they could skip far across the water with little effort. Also, skipping rocks is an art that you learn when you grow up on the creek with time on your hands.
Sometimes when there was nothing to do, we watched the ants at work, following their trails across the lawn. Sometimes we would pick up a board or stick or rock and discover where the ants were hiding their little antlets, and would see them scurry to carry the little ones to safety. I remember watching dirt dobbers build their mud nests on the barn walls.
We did a little whittling, tinkering and puttering.
Then, every boy needs time just to lie under the shade tree and look at the sky, and pretty much do nothing for awhile.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Community, Pages 5 on 08/25/2010