Playing Outside

Bicycle storage and laundry

Socializing!

I'm sure mom loved the non-winter months when she could kick us out of the house all day long so she could get things done.  She worked hard at maintaining her family. Between diaper washing, cooking, cleaning, and fixing us when we were wounded (which was often), she had a full-time job, so even when it was raining we had plenty of playtime outside. There were places there where we could play to a certain extent even when it was raining. Before we all came along, my grandpa built a structure in the yard for entertaining. I guess there were often family get-togethers and cookouts, so he built a special place for those social times. It was a big, rectangular concrete pad, open on all four sides, and had a regular pitched roof with cedar shake shingles on it. It was constructed of small, round, hand-smoothed logs, and it made a fun thing to play under when it was nasty out. I remember jumping up and swinging on the framework all the time too. I was pretty small then, and it seemed pretty big to us.  It was also where the laundry was hung to dry all year long. Who had a dryer?

The amazing car ramp

Another thing we had a great time with was our car ramp. It was a work of art, built by my dad and grandpa out of really beefy lumber they picked up at the dump one day. I think the planks were a full four inches thick, and I believe they were a foot wide. The ramp was built to drive a car up on top of, so you know it was plenty beefy. I think each of the sides that the tires drove on was two planks wide, so there was plenty of room. It was tall enough for an adult to work easily under a car without stooping over too much. It was heaven-sent when it comes to playing. It was a bicycle magnet! I can't count the number of times I fell off that ramp. It was used constantly by us. We would ride our bicycles fast enough to make it all the way up, but sometimes we'd misjudge and not quite make it, and end up falling off the side, landing in a tangled heap with our bicycle. The opposite happened too. Misjudging the speed wasn't really the cause, but missing the brakes in time would occasionally cause one of us to go all the way off the back side of the ramps. As high up as they were, it usually caused considerable pain when that happened. I can recall falling off sideways while turning around on the top too. Very painful.