6/12/09
“Create a Dangerous Children’s Game”
Creating a dangerous children’s game really isn’t that difficult for me. As a child, my cousins and I were constantly trying to find ways to injure ourselves. I used to think I should have been born a boy, and I even tried to tee tee standing up, but that didn’t work out too well. My first recollection is the BB gun shooting contests. We would see how far we could stand from each other and then still shoot each other with the BB gun. Of course, we never wore any kind of protection when playing this game. I’m amazed that we both still have our vision.
Another game we played was trying to make a raft using old pieces of wood and empty milk jugs. We would then take our contraption to the pond, teaming with fish, water moccasins, and the occasional alligator, and then try to see who could make it float the longest before it sank. I am shocked that neither of us was ever eaten by an alligator or bitten by a snake.
We also tried to make go-carts. We would take lawn mower motors and attach them to metal frames. Then, we would see who could drive the fastest and longest before crashing or the cart flipping. I can not begin to count how many times I picked myself up from such a crash.
Calf riding was my next favorite game. My cousin, who is four years older than me, would jump on a calf and try to stay on as long as possible. Then, it was my turn. I was about five, so I was much smaller than him. He always won because I fell off quite quickly. That game wasn’t really dangerous, just dumb.
A somewhat dangerous game that we played was “Chase the Cow.” This involved a motorcycle and a field of grazing cows. We would drive as fast as possible at the cow to see if we could scare her. Once, the cow actually turned and ran in to us rather than running away. We crashed into her, but she ran away unscathed However, our impact caused the motorcycle to throw me off and for it to fall on my cousin. Thank goodness my grandfather was nearby because he was able to drive us home rather than allow us to limp all the way home. Neither of us was seriously injured, but we stopped the game for a few days.
Funny how all of my memories of dangerous games involve Greg. One time he convinced me that it would be fun to see how far we could walk across a field full of briars. The catch was that we had to be barefooted. Being the competitive type, I took the challenge. I can not begin to describe the pain of hundreds of little needles shooting into my foot. Both of us were determined to win, so we hobbled all the way across. I even had my shoes in my hand! How ridiculous! I would tell my mom what happened until my feet started swelling from all the briars in them. I hated having splinters out, so I screamed and fought with her. She ended up leaving me alone, and my foot got infected. A few days later, red lines started coming out from my toe. My mom took me the hospital, and the doctor and nurses had me lie on a table for them to examine my foot. The assured me they needed to remove the splinter immediately. Before they did it, they gave me one of the most painful shots I’ve ever had. Little did I know that the pain was because I was allergic to the shot – penicillin. A day or so after the hospital visit, I began to have hives all over my body. My mom took me back to the hospital, and she was informed that I was allergic to penicillin. All this because I listened to my cousin! My mom couldn’t believe I was dumb enough to listen to him. Now, I live right next door to him, and it appears that he has forgotten our childhood games, or at least he never mentions them. However, I will never forget them.
When I lived on a different farm, my step-sister and I used to play a game in the cow feeding area. The feeding troughs were about 200 feet long and on a concrete pad. The cows waited there until it was time to be milked, so lots of cow poop was on the pad. After milking, when this area was empty, my step-sister and I would take off our shoes, get a running start, and slide as far as we could on the cow poop. This wasn’t really dangerous, just extremely gross.
Since I have children, I can’t think of a game to injure them. I would never want them doing the things that I did, but they have their own “dangerous games.” My daughter’s current favorite is to run through the house, leap over the back of our huge leather chair, and flip on to the floor. She tries to convince her brother to do the same, but thankfully he isn’t even tall enough to get over. She also likes to stand on the back of the sofa and jump all the way to the floor, without touching the front part of the sofa. I’m waiting on a broken leg to happen.
Maybe I’m just sappy, but life is too short to think about bad things happening to kids. Why would anyone want to think of a way to possibly hurt children? They do a good enough job on their own. I think high school students would love to put a game together because they’ve already tried most of the things. Perspective has a lot to do with this topic, and mine is too close too home. Just this morning, I cried, which I rarely do, because I heard the song, Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flats. As I mentioned, I had a miscarriage before I conceived my son. Well, when my son turned one, we put together a video photo story of his first year. One song that I included was that song because I know that my broken road led me to the most precious baby boy in the world. Therefore, the concept of creating a game to hurt him is inconceivable to me right now.
“Create a Dangerous Children’s Game”
Creating a dangerous children’s game really isn’t that difficult for me. As a child, my cousins and I were constantly trying to find ways to injure ourselves. I used to think I should have been born a boy, and I even tried to tee tee standing up, but that didn’t work out too well. My first recollection is the BB gun shooting contests. We would see how far we could stand from each other and then still shoot each other with the BB gun. Of course, we never wore any kind of protection when playing this game. I’m amazed that we both still have our vision.
Another game we played was trying to make a raft using old pieces of wood and empty milk jugs. We would then take our contraption to the pond, teaming with fish, water moccasins, and the occasional alligator, and then try to see who could make it float the longest before it sank. I am shocked that neither of us was ever eaten by an alligator or bitten by a snake.
We also tried to make go-carts. We would take lawn mower motors and attach them to metal frames. Then, we would see who could drive the fastest and longest before crashing or the cart flipping. I can not begin to count how many times I picked myself up from such a crash.
Calf riding was my next favorite game. My cousin, who is four years older than me, would jump on a calf and try to stay on as long as possible. Then, it was my turn. I was about five, so I was much smaller than him. He always won because I fell off quite quickly. That game wasn’t really dangerous, just dumb.
A somewhat dangerous game that we played was “Chase the Cow.” This involved a motorcycle and a field of grazing cows. We would drive as fast as possible at the cow to see if we could scare her. Once, the cow actually turned and ran in to us rather than running away. We crashed into her, but she ran away unscathed However, our impact caused the motorcycle to throw me off and for it to fall on my cousin. Thank goodness my grandfather was nearby because he was able to drive us home rather than allow us to limp all the way home. Neither of us was seriously injured, but we stopped the game for a few days.
Funny how all of my memories of dangerous games involve Greg. One time he convinced me that it would be fun to see how far we could walk across a field full of briars. The catch was that we had to be barefooted. Being the competitive type, I took the challenge. I can not begin to describe the pain of hundreds of little needles shooting into my foot. Both of us were determined to win, so we hobbled all the way across. I even had my shoes in my hand! How ridiculous! I would tell my mom what happened until my feet started swelling from all the briars in them. I hated having splinters out, so I screamed and fought with her. She ended up leaving me alone, and my foot got infected. A few days later, red lines started coming out from my toe. My mom took me the hospital, and the doctor and nurses had me lie on a table for them to examine my foot. The assured me they needed to remove the splinter immediately. Before they did it, they gave me one of the most painful shots I’ve ever had. Little did I know that the pain was because I was allergic to the shot – penicillin. A day or so after the hospital visit, I began to have hives all over my body. My mom took me back to the hospital, and she was informed that I was allergic to penicillin. All this because I listened to my cousin! My mom couldn’t believe I was dumb enough to listen to him. Now, I live right next door to him, and it appears that he has forgotten our childhood games, or at least he never mentions them. However, I will never forget them.
When I lived on a different farm, my step-sister and I used to play a game in the cow feeding area. The feeding troughs were about 200 feet long and on a concrete pad. The cows waited there until it was time to be milked, so lots of cow poop was on the pad. After milking, when this area was empty, my step-sister and I would take off our shoes, get a running start, and slide as far as we could on the cow poop. This wasn’t really dangerous, just extremely gross.
Since I have children, I can’t think of a game to injure them. I would never want them doing the things that I did, but they have their own “dangerous games.” My daughter’s current favorite is to run through the house, leap over the back of our huge leather chair, and flip on to the floor. She tries to convince her brother to do the same, but thankfully he isn’t even tall enough to get over. She also likes to stand on the back of the sofa and jump all the way to the floor, without touching the front part of the sofa. I’m waiting on a broken leg to happen.
Maybe I’m just sappy, but life is too short to think about bad things happening to kids. Why would anyone want to think of a way to possibly hurt children? They do a good enough job on their own. I think high school students would love to put a game together because they’ve already tried most of the things. Perspective has a lot to do with this topic, and mine is too close too home. Just this morning, I cried, which I rarely do, because I heard the song, Bless The Broken Road by Rascal Flats. As I mentioned, I had a miscarriage before I conceived my son. Well, when my son turned one, we put together a video photo story of his first year. One song that I included was that song because I know that my broken road led me to the most precious baby boy in the world. Therefore, the concept of creating a game to hurt him is inconceivable to me right now.
posted by Mary Poppins at
9:05 AM
3 Comments:
Alison, I have to confess that I thought I was reading Lindsi's freewriting until I got to the part about your children. My family members and I also used to shoot each other with BB guns (well, my parents weren't involved), and I also tried to ride a calf of my granddaddy's named Charlie Brown when we lived in Quincy. Charlie Brown chose not to participate, and I sailed through the air and landed in a cushion. Not so much fun, as it turned out.
By
Donna Sewell, at 9:10 AM
The more time we spend together, the more things that I find out that we have in common. I also think that I should have been a boy, and I think that I also tried to go to the bathroom standing up.
You had me laughing with all of your farm stories. The story about the calf, priceless!
By
eromler, at 9:16 AM
I think you have a fascination with poop. The toilet story and now this. I can't believe you actually did the cow poop thing seeing as how you are a germ freak! What are you going to do when Abbey-Kate goes sliding through the cow poop?
By
nsmith, at 2:24 PM
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