The imaginations of children
When I was a kid, my favorite game to play was “cowboys and Indians.” Back then, the Indians were the bad guys. They attacked wagon trains full of settlers heading west and killed as many people as they could. Every Western back in the 50s had wild Indians attacking cowboys and innocent settlers. They tied them on ant hills, poured honey on them, and let the ants have them.
As a kid, I had a real problem with this because I liked Indians. In fact, when we played cowboys and Indians, I was always, and I mean always, an Indian. I wore a headband with a feather stuck in it, put war paint on, and my mom made me a great little bow and arrow. And I never was attacked, ever. I was the good guy. I was ahead of my time.
One time, this big boy grabbed my bow and arrows and broke them. I mean he snapped them and threw all the pieces in a ditch. He said Indians were bad and I did not take too kindly to him, his actions or his words. I picked up a handful of rocks and threw them at him. I charged him like I was a mad bull only I wasn’t a bull. I was a little girl who he outweighed by 50 pounds. Taking him by surprise, when I pushed him, he fell down … and started crying, y’all. This big old boy!
I just walked away from him. He was a bully picking on a little girl. I took care of the problem and he never bothered me again. Mom made me a new bow and arrow, but she also made me go over and apologize to that boy. Oh, I didn’t want to, but I did it. This was the same boy that left me standing on a writhing snake I had stepped on when we were crossing a ditch on our way home from school. That boy had his bike with him, jumped on it and headed down the road peddling like his life depended on it. I yelled after him that he was a coward and took my foot off a little black and green garden snake.
Honestly, I was not a mean kid. I was small for my age and learned early that other kids tended to pick on ones they thought were weaker. My mom and dad both were of Irish/Scot ancestry with German thrown in for good measure. Their DNA was infused with some Viking DNA. We all know about the Vikings. They were a warring bunch who were pretty much plunderers and destroyers. I inherited just a wee bit of that ancestry.
My sister and I used to like to play like we were abducted by aliens. We traveled to the stars with our dolls. Reenie named her doll Red Rocket. Mine was Susie. She was better at names than I was. We wore capes and “flew” though the universe. We named our friends “Actarians” and they were green or purple colored. They were fun and spoke English of all things. Reenie and I believed in extraterrestrials. We still do. I mean, think about it. In this vast universe, which is growing every second, how could we be the only intelligent (be nice) life form?
And this doesn’t have anything to do with religious beliefs. It has to do with common sense. One of my favorite movies of all time is Contact with Jodie Foster, David Morse, and Matthew McConaughey. This movie had to do with communicating with alien life, but it covered all kinds of bases like what happens to folks once they die. It made sense to me and still does.
No, kids don’t play cowboys and Indians anymore. And that’s okay. I’m not sure what they play in these crazy days of a pandemic. Our kids played their own made-up games. One of our sons created a miniature golf course and we played on it for a few years. I still find an occasional Styrofoam cup or a piece of one near that was part of that little golf course. Our grandkids play on their electronics, but also go outside and find wood nymphs and forest fairies like their parents and grandparents did, like all kids who grow up using their imaginations.
I wonder what kids will play in the future? Maybe they’ll be able to build their own landscapes with their own minds through their state-of-the-art computers. Oh, those computers will be nothing like what we have today. Maybe they’ll travel to distant stars and meet up with some real “Actarians” who will teach them about the universe and introduce them to others from more distant stars. It could happen.
What did you play when you were a kid?