Pete, Sad Cow and Diane

Writing about my memories of pets brought to mind some other playmates that I had at an early age.  I had a very active imagination, as a lot of children do. I’m so glad that the three of you use your imagination every day and get to live where you have the freedom to play outside.

Growing up I watched a lot of westerns on TV in the 1960’s.  My grandmother said that I would announce” I’m Wyatt Earp I am”.  This would’ve been before I had a lot of language skills. I was a late talker, but evidently I wanted people to know who I identified with. I had been given a cowgirl outfit with my own toy revolvers and I treasured it.  I think I can even see myself in my mind’s eye wearing the outfit with my guns drawn saying this to whoever would listen, usually Grandma Livingston was my best listener.

I soaked in everything I could learn about the cowboy life style from old shows like The Lone Ranger, The Rifleman, Maverick and later Gun Smoke.

 I watched Roy Rogers and Dale Evens but was more drawn to the horse Trigger than either Roy or Dale. I think Roy and Dale were a bit too polished for me, and I didn’t like their singing all the time. I liked the grittier cow boy types with dust from the trail and the threats of fights around every corner.  I dreamed of owning my own palomino horse  some day, and as an adult I did own a palomino named Sawdust, but he never lived up to the feats of Trigger.

I identified more with the cowboys than the Indians but was intrigued by the Indian life style also, although in those times the Indians were mostly portrayed as the bad guys and not to be admired.  But I wanted to be an American Indian too. I dreamed of living in a teepee, hunting buffalos and riding a paint pony bareback.

At our house by Devils Elbow there was a large forsythia bush that grew in the middle of the yard. The branches where so heavy that they sunk to the ground and formed an interesting cave effect underneath.

That became my cowboy hang out, where my gang slept and ate and got ready for the next show down. I remember having one special imaginary cow boy friend named Pete. I’m not sure why he was named Pete, maybe he was a character on a show that I watched, but he was in all my cowboy adventures.

My imaginary horses and cattle lived under the back porch. I had a special cow that was named Sad Cow and I think this name came from a children’s’ book that my Grandmother would read to me.

 In the book a calf was always sad and crying until it cried so hard that it froze itself into a puddle. The farmer had to break the ice to free the calf. The moral of the book for children was not to be moody or sad, because that would just cause you more pain. I think my personal interpretation of the story was a bit different. I identified with Sad Cow and just wanted to make her life better without insisting that she couldn’t be sad sometimes.

As I grew a little older my play expanded into the woods behind the house and my brother and I had a fort there. There was an abandoned road that ran through the woods father in and I would walk to the old road and play along the road.

 I remember walking the whole length of the road once with my parents and coming across an amusement park being built at the end were it joined a still active road. That park became Skyline Park and I spent my later childhood years going frequently to the park, though not usually walking to it.

When we first found the park I remember thinking that we were the only ones that knew of its existence, but of course that wasn’t true. The discovery made it special place to me though; in my mind we had discovered a new amusement land.

When we moved to Tioga Center and I began playing with other children.  But I still had fantasies about living in the woods and escaping life in my boring house.

My new friend Diane and I spent a great deal of time exploring the woods and creek behind our houses. We would play lost and build our own camps and pretend to find food so we could survive in the wild.

I still dreamt of being a cow boy but didn’t verbalize it as much because I discovered that it wasn’t socially acceptable for a girl to want to be a cow boy. It became my secrete passion.

 A group of older boys built an actual cabin out of trees that they cut, I think it was for a Boy Scout badge. We then had a fancier place to stay in and survive the elements better, while we pretended to be lost. Sometimes we were soldiers trying to outsmart the enemies or pioneers making our way out west.

 Close to the cabin was a large swamp area that froze in the winter and we would take our skates to ice skate there. There was an old pot belly stove in the cabin that we could fire up to warm up after skating. I’m amazed that no adults stopped us ever from building fires in the cabin.

 The boys “owned” the cabin but allowed the girls to stay in it over night for 25 cents each. Diane and I stayed there a few times overnight. The boys would try to scare us away, even after we had paid our 25 cents, by making strange sounds or tossing sticks on the roof or poking them in between the logs. We always knew it was the boys and stayed put.

Down by the creek was a huge tree that I would climb and thought of as my Swiss Family Robinson Tree. I dreamt of building an elaborate tree house in it but that never happened.

 After I was a teenager and needed some solitude, I would walk to that tree and sit in it for hours. I remember even walking and sitting there very early in the morning before school while I was in high school.

In warmer weather we spent a lot of our times at the creek, swimming or looking for cray fish and other small aquatic animals.

 There is a technique for catching cray fish, who are very fast swimmers, and also have claws that can pinch you. We would wait until they hid under a rock in the water and then rap the rock with a larger rock so that they would be stunned. Then they could be picked up without danger of being pinched.

My friend Diane recently reminded me that we would take of catch of cray fish and try to cook them to eat. I don’t remember if we ever really ate then or just pretended to. I think most of the time we just caught and released them.

Another adventure that Diane and I tried together was to catch a bird in a trap we had made with a cardboard box. They were Gold finches, or wild canaries, and they would gather in flocks each spring. We never caught one, which I don’t think was a surprise to anyone. We imagined that we could catch them and then sell them as pet birds.

 We would also make a maze in a box and catch toads and then we would see if they would hop through our maze. That wasn’t very successful either, I think the fun was in making the maze.

One time when Diane I were swimming in a neighbor’s pond we were playing life guard. Someone would jump in and pretend to drown, and the “life guard” jumped in to save them, bringing them to shore.

 When it was my turn to “drown”, and for Diane to save me, she put her arm around my neck and started to pull me into shore. The only problem was she was pulling my head under water as she swam. I was yelling and kicking but she thought I was being a really good actress. I finally had to bite her arm hard to get her to release me. She had a scar as a result of my bite for many years.

I’m very fortunate that I get to continue to play with you three, building forts, making trails and campsites, making up silly stories to share and using our imaginations together. It helps the child in me to be honored and nourished even now. I hope that you will always honor your imagination and allow yourself to play, no matter how old you get.

Written 2/4/18

 

Pictures of Diane at the pond, the creek behind my house and the cabin in the woods