“Great American sport. Horseshoes is a very great game. I love it.”
Today is perfectly lovely with a bright, warm sun and a breeze to keep the heat at bay. It will be in the 70’s today and during the rest of the week. The inside back of the house, though, is still rather chilly. The cool nights hold sway until the sun hits the windows in the afternoon. It was coffee and papers on the deck today. Gracie slept in the shade while I enjoyed the morning. The birds sang and the leaves rustled when the breeze blew. My fountain is a quiet one which gives me a feeling of contentment. I sat, closed my eyes and let my ears hear the morning.
I slept in today and was surprised at the lateness of the hour when I woke up. It was after 9, but I didn’t really care. I cleaned off the deck table and chairs, made coffee, grabbed the papers and got myself comfy outside. A bird would catch my eye, and I’d stop and watch. I heard the spawns of Satan running across from tree limb to tree limb, and I even gave them a quick look. It is a morning for dawdling.
I used to play horseshoes, and I was pretty good. At the end of our street was a playground, Pomeworth Park, where we spend our summer days. We were still kids then, still in elementary school. Two college students ran each playground in town, and we’d compete in softball or baseball games and at a huge game day which ended the summer. We did crafts, and I’d sit at the picnic table in the shade painting and using beads or gimp to create my artistic treasures. We played checkers, horseshoes and softball. In the early morning, before the rest of the playground opened, I took tennis lessons. I always grabbed the same racket from the box. It was red. We were never bored at our playground, and I always hated to leave, but the playground closed for an hour, and we’d go home for lunch. That was about the only time of the day my mother saw us. I think she liked the playground even more than we did.
Explore posts in the same categories: MusingsTags: horseshoes, playgrounds, summer, sun
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
June 16, 2011 at 2:32 pm
The day was warm and beautiful as long as I was working and while I drove home the clouds came and the wind got cold 🙂 🙂
I loved to play horse shoes but we have a similar game here called Varpa that we played more often. It´s supposed to be a heavy iron clump that one throws away towards a stick in the ground. But we used heavy stones instead 🙂
P.S. You´ve got mail 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
June 16, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Christer,
It was perfectly beautiful all day and into the evening. We stayed outside until quite late. It was a summer day and night!
Thanks for the mail-tomorrow I’ll shop!
June 16, 2011 at 4:18 pm
We had Little Hunting Creek Park and got free Tennis lessons; played basketball; and swam in the pool. Our parents would give us a dollar to buy either a cheeseburger, fries and a drink or a hot dog and ice cream cone. We loved it there and stayed from 9 am when it opened until 9pm when it closed. I still remember the swimming instructors name, Banks Prevatt. It was his teachings that got me interested as a teen to take the Junior and Senior Life Saving courses at the Red Cross.
June 16, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Z&Me,
We had a pool but it was on the opposite side of town a long way from where we lived. It was a dime to get in. We’d walk in both directions By the time we got home, we were exhausted.
My dad taught us to swim. He was a great swimmer.
June 16, 2011 at 5:01 pm
As for horseshoes, the aficionados in Texas are sorta nuts. If you look here:
http://www.horseshoepitching.com/nstats/TX.TXT
you can see that some of the official stats in tournaments for these folks go up to nearly ***80% ringers***!!! I used to dearly love horseshoes as a kid and still throw them as an aging adult. But that kind of fanatic practice it takes to get that good are simply beyond my interest level. How ’bout yours?
Rick Oztown
June 16, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Rick,
Nope, I haven’t thrown a horseshoe in years, but my friends and I talked about adding a pit to one of our yards. It seems we were all horseshoers in our youth and think it would be fun to start playing again.
June 16, 2011 at 5:18 pm
It’s much too easy these days; in the old days, you’d have to catch a horse first, to start the game.
Cheers
June 16, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Minicapt,
I’m so glad horses are no longer part of the game. I can’t imagine taking away their shoes!
June 16, 2011 at 7:57 pm
Still waving after all these months. My brain won’t put the puzzle pieces together to write about this post… later perhaps. It is a cooler day today, and and trying to rest after a hectic week of poolitics. We lived in the country, and my two best friends would walk across a field and meet each other near the school. When the weather was warmer, before I spent the summers by the lovely salt water, there was a rope you could swing on over a river. I was terrified. Finally my friends got me to do it and I hung on for dear life. I made it! I think I have a picture I put on FB, taken from an old slide of me doing this. We didn’t have anything organized, and we had to be very creative. I am terrible at sports, while my friends excelled. I miss those days.
June 16, 2011 at 10:47 pm
Lori,
I was a good athlete, but there weren’t a whole lot of organized sports for girls in those days. I did play basketball and softball.
I would have loved that tire!
We had the sun today while you had our cooler weather.
June 16, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Hi Kat,
We used to go to the lake and join the activities there all summer. You know the kind of thing, gimp-making, popsicle stick things etc. We would swim all the time too. I remember one of the neighborhood boys rubbing my arm to show me how you could pull up little rolls of dirt. He had to give up because I was too clean from swimming in the lake every day. 🙂
If we weren’t at the lake we were playing in the street or the empty lot or the back swamp. The only organized thing was baseball and that was because the big kids had the equipment. No one’s mom was ever out there watching over us but somebody’s mom always knew what was going on.
I still live in that neighborhood and the kids still play in the street or the empty lot. Not the swamp, it’s too wet now.
June 16, 2011 at 10:50 pm
Hi Caryn,
I loved lakes but we didn’t have any near us, at least any for swimming. I know all those things. I was a good gimp artists and could do three different knots. I used flat and made bracelets.
We had a swamp which I loved every season. In the summer we’d walk in the back jumping from island to island. In the winter we skated, and in the spring we caught polliwogs.
Our neighborhood hadn’t anything organized. We all just played games, roller skated and had the best fun all summer.