A la recherche du temps perdu . . .

It was spitting wet snow when I picked up Kiddo at school yesterday but he wanted to stay and play in the school playground. I like to have him outside playing as much as possible so I had brought my toque and gloves and although not too many kids had been allowed to stay and play there were six hardy souls. He had a great time freezing, running around, going backwards on all of the paraphernalia and bumping into all and sundry. While he was playing I spoke with a younger woman, still a grandmother, who had adopted her two grandchildren and is doing a wonderful job bringing them up. The parents of the kids were so heavily into drugs that she and her husband felt they had no choice but to take over their care. Fortunate kids, nice kids. As we spoke she was remembering the way she used to play outside in her neighborhood with all the kids around and no parental supervision unless someone broke the well known law. "You can't pick on anyone or hurt anyone." If you were picked on the older kids always came to the rescue and made sure the bully was bullied into submission. Parents rarely came out to see what we were doing. This is certainly true of my childhood. If things did get out of hand, rarely, Ma would send everyone home to cool off and the next day we would all be out playing cops and robbers, mother may I, run my good sheep run, cowboys and Indians, tag, circle tag, hide and seek, baseball, football, hop scotch, jump rope, double dutch, marbles, roller skating and all sorts of made up games. I've put up some pictures of three different gangs I belonged to when I was just an imp. Oh my, we had good times even when there was no money for gadgets or TVs. Wish the present day kids didn't have to limit their fun to organized games with adult supervision. Oh well, I'm certain we only recall the halcyon days of our youth when we reach the beginnings of 70 years. ( At 68 I still feel as if I'm not getting older but the times they are a changing, telling me that I certainly am beginning to see the past with rose colored glasses.) Our parents definitely struggled hard to make a living and keep us fed and well educated. Alors, plus ça change, plus c'est la même. Not sure I have that quote right. Man's character doesn't change just his circumstances. Life is still a wonder to enjoy.

Quote: Time is the warp of life; oh tell the young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well. __Tatler