After one of my last blog posts about the oil lamp in my bedroom as a young child, I started thinking about my childhood pastimes and entertainment.  None of which had safety helmets, knee pads, or much parental-supervision.  I really only had two friends growing up and one wasn’t very good.  My best friend to this day is my cousin (time for another alias).  We will call her Betty Jo-Bob……………

Betty Jo-Bob is an extremely good sport.  She does, however, embody that saying “still waters run deep”……………………….real deep.

Yep, that’s Betty Jo-Bob.  My kin, my cousin, my bestie.  In a social setting she is mannerly, polite, & appropriate.  She’s a good dresser and always brushes her teeth and her hair.  She arrived in this world four months before I did. We’ve been friends ever since.  And being family——she has to over-look a lot in me.

But there is a side of Betty that I know that probably few others do………………she is a GREAT sport & up for just about anything.  AND she’s just a little tilted & crazy (always a plus in my book).  Betty Jo-Bob has always added nuances and flamboyance where I was just too mundane…………………………and nobody wants mundane.

Example #1:=====A truly wonderful childhood pastime (before we hit dating age & were concerned about how our legs looked with excessive cuts & bruises).  It takes two people and a sapling with about a 4″ diameter trunk base for this wonderful game.  Two people (Betty Jo-Bob & me) climb up the sapling one after the other, to as high as the first person can go, to where the main trunk still supports your body weight and the tree starts to bend and arc over to the ground.  Then when the sapling bends enough that the second person can reach the ground with dangling feet…………….the second person lets go/leaving the first climber clinging for their life…………………………..

You guessed it………………………that sapling whips back up and back and forth and back and forth.  It’s a really great ride!  A tad dangerous, I guess, but a great game. You had to really hang on because during the sapling’s whiplashing-phase, that was when any of your un-entangled/flopping limbs would really get cut up and bruised………………………but hey, it was the early-sixties in rural Ohio……………..you had to get creative with your fun!

There were no computer games with ergonomic chairs along with carpal tunnel syndrome wrist supports.

There were no computers………………….there were still only rotary phones.

 

Betty Jo-Bob & I did not lack in creativity.

 

 

That game continued for quite a while even after the demise of a great many young trees.  But there were innumerable saplings in our pasture, so they weren’t noticed right away.  What was noticed however was our accumulating bruises & goose-eggs & skinned shins.  I do remember my Mother having a heart-to-heart talk with me saying that I would never find a man who would like me because of my scarred legs……………………I kid you not.

But hey~~~~~it was the early sixties……………………….a woman needed a man (or so I was told repeatedly).  And apparently scarred shins were a big deterrent.

~~~~~Yep.  That was the early sixties.~~~~~

I’m here to say that now I am in my sixties, I still have “my man” and the scars don’t show up on my legs anymore (because they are completely eclipsed by varicose veins and surgical scars).

So There!

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Here’s another fond Betty Jo-Bob story~~~~~~~~~~~~~~And it still comes up over the dinner table whenever we get together.

Example #2:=====Hide & Go Seek in the barn.  I can remember three of us at least being involved.  My older sister, Betty Jo-Bob & me.  My sister was “It”. Betty Jo-Bob and I were both hiding in the hayloft.  I wasn’t “found”, but my sister came up the inside staircase in the barn and spotted Betty.

Betty Jo-Bob had a tendency towards the occasional over-reaction………………(She used to get hysterical at the sight of blood/hers/but we got her over that.)

 

 

 

 

 

So upon seeing my sister coming her way, Betty Jo-Bob turned on her heels, ran to the end of the hayloft (where there was the opening to the outside of the barn——on the second story).  (You know what’s coming, don’t you?)

Yep, without any hesitation whatsoever (and without any concern for her own physical safety or intended longevity) Betty Jo-Bob hurled herself out the doorway, into mid-air……………………….

 

From my clandestine hiding place, I watched all of this unfold.

It had been a sunny day.  But what struck me at that point in time was the darkened silhouette of airborne Betty Jo-Bob frozen in time with the evening sky splashed across the background——forever frozen in time & in my memory.

Two things crossed my mind.  #1).  Betty Jo-Bob wasn’t going to be “It” (phew).

And #2).  We were all going to get into so much trouble again, because there was no way Betty Jo-Bob was going to survive this unscathed.

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But here’s another plus with Betty Jo-Bob===========She has well-tested, multiple lives, just like a cat.

…………..And because, the manure pile broke her fall………….

It was a veritable cushion of poo for her to hit and it was directly under the hayloft opening that she vaulted out of.

Parents/Aunts/Uncles/& Grandparents were none the wiser.

Phew, Betty, that was a close one.

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This was an easy post.  There are so many more childhood games to write about………………like how I have been erroneously accused of making Betty Jo-Bob permanently scarred and claustrophobic.  (not true at all)-(maybe just a little)-(maybe just a little bit more than just a little)——–

Okay~~~~~I’m sorry Betty.  I didn’t know you couldn’t reach the door knob.

More on the saga of Betty Jo-Bob, later……………(an accompanying acoustic, un-plugged guitar is mandatory background music with “Betty’s Saga”).