10 Things I Loved to Do Before the Age of 10
Groovy dad and his butchy daughter--fresh with a haircut from mom (notice the diagnal bangs) at Rincanada Park in 1974!1. Watch Spiderman cartoons--although the spooky music and psychadelic colors in the "interlude scenes" freaked me out.
2. Play with Barbie Dolls and Tonka Trucks--it was always "Moving Day" for the Barbies--which, come to think of it, must have looked like a bizarre harem of blonde quintuplets and the one guy, Ken, in the back of a pickup, always shirtless.
3. Draw pictures of ladies standing next to short, quare houses, sheltered by a lovely rainbow nestled into two twin clouds and a sun.
4. Play with the brown and white rats that lived in the classroom. I can't do this now. Time has made me squeamish over their tails.
5. Listen to Disney Records. My first turntable and record, Cinderella, was given to me by my stepdad, Gary. When I remember how I wore out the needle in a matter of weeks, I must have driven the household crazy with playing that record over an dover again. At a garage sale my mother acquired Lady and the Tramp and Fantasia. I'd do this weird torturous thing, by putting on the music of Fantasia (which scared the wits out of me) and then run and hide.
6. Make "milkshakes"--which consisted of milk, vanilla extract and an egg, blended in a blender. I can't believe I never got salmanilla.
7. Make up plays about a girl who lived on an island with only her animal friends. I'd give out tickets to the adults and say, "Show at eight! Show at eight!" The shows were mostly improvised with stuffed animals and a basket. VERY minimalist, stuff. Way ahead of its time.
8. Fantasize about living with Pippi Longstockings. She had my dream life: living in a giant house with a horse! She was also the strongest girl in the world!
9. Play with toads in the creek in the back of our house. They were huge and fat and fun to catch. There were so many in that area that cars used to run them over in the street. Then their skins would dry fly against pavement and stay there for weeks.
10. Search for a place called "kid island," where only kids lived. Every park with a pond, a creek, a lake, a large puddle, I'd search out the islands and hope I'd finally discovered Kid Island. When that failed, I started scouting out locations for starting my own "Kid Island." I think I had some issues with the adults around me.
posted by Summer Pierre at
3:19 PM
9 Comments:
Great list.
In regards to #6, I used to eat "cookie dough" which consisted of one egg, one cup of peanut butter and one cup of sugar. I can't believe I never got sick, either...
I never participate in these lists although I love reading them. I always find it hard to think about stuff to say, so I will use my little grey cells for a change and give you a short list of my top 10 things; just because I love your photo so much!
Warning - we did not own a TV but there is a lot of TV in this list anyway (used to watch these at a friend's house who had a cool black & white box):
1. Star Treck (loved Bones, Cpt Kirk was too arrogant)
2. Lassie (made me scared of tornados)
3. Bonanza (Hoss, Little Jo and Pa Cartwright, jipee!)
4. Upstairs Downstairs (British stiff upper lip show)
5. Play field hockey (yep, there was a time I loved sports!)
6. Ice-skating on frozen lakes (they no longer freeze)
7. French fries with lots of mayonnaise (a German thing)
8. Beating up my little brother (before he outgrew me)
9. Make 3 costumes for carnival (loved dressing up)
10. Drawing, yes I loved drawing too ...
Great post, thanks :)
:) magic mama. i'm inspired and i've only gotten caught up on this very most recent entry. my list:
1. i spent hours in the front yard pretending i was nadia comaneci. i would do a cartwheel and then go into a backbend from where i would try flailingly to generate enough power to kick my leg over to do a (delayed) back walkover. when i'd finally get over (about 3 minutes later), i'd stand up and do the gymnast's olympic finish, facing the judges at every corner with my hands JUST SO, the way the pros did it in that wierd pointy way. i felt like a star.
2. i pretended with the neighbor kids that the rock in the woods by my house was our own little house. and we played like adults there for hours, under a thick canopy of green.
3. i played jax, a lot.
4. i sewed with my friend kim - but mostly because she liked to sew.
5. we played ollie-ollie-apple-tree on summer nights and "the crawling game" on winter nights in the neighbors' basement - where you turn out all the lights and someone's IT and everyone else scatters and hides, while IT crawls around trying to find someone. Lots of speechless scurrying (makes me tense thinking about it!?)
6. i loved going to manzolillo's house - they had a pool with a SLIDE! often my dad & i went alone. i know now he was stressed out and trying to get some time away from the eight kids and overwhelmed wife. i was just stoked it was him and me.
7. i climbed trees. i love trees.
8. we chased lightning bugs around the yard and kept them in jars watching their glow fade with the days. makes me really sad now! damn!
... i gotta go to work. i'll keep thinking. how fun!! you are magic.
These lists are amazing--keep 'em coming gals!
ah, the seventies....all of this totally takes me back.
Ok, I'm inspired by the lists. Outside of what I already confessed to, here are my top memories:
1. He-Man. Lots of hours watching this show and then playing our own version in the front yard.
2. Hide and Seek with all of the neighbor kids (and my stepdad) at dusk
3. My Strawberry Shortcake record player could keep me dancing for hours
4. Riding bikes down to the corner store, no adults, to buy penny candy. Something I can't imagine letting my kids do now...how sad.
5. The swingset in the backyard that never stayed in the ground. I can still feel the way it clunk back and forth when you got the swing going really high.
Oh, Summer this is awesome...so nostalgic. It makes me think of my wild imagination as a child uninhibited by adult fears and worries.
I'm going to think on this one and come up with some goodies. If I do it on my blog, I'll link this post.
Thanks again for the nostalgia trip! Great photo, too!
10 Things I Was Into Before Age 10
Writing stories and plays, usually involving magic
Watching Walt Disney movies, the Pippi movies (and books), anything with Jodie Foster (Bugsy Malone, Freaky Friday, Candleshoe), Yellow Submarine, Harold and Maude, and ABC after school specials
Richard Scary’s Best Rainy Day Book Ever
Marvy markers
The Barbie Camper
Those plastic 45s you’d get in kids’ cereal boxes (Jackson Five, the Osmonds)
Cracker Jacks
Terrific shirts (maybe a San Francisco thing) and rugby shirts
Another San Francisco thing: store on 24th Street in Noe Valley called East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which carried scented lotions and shampoos and funky multicolored boxes in millions of different sizes (we put Vaseline in the tiniest one) and unique toys and trinkets
Bellbottom corduroy Levis
Toughskins (jeans)
Earth Shoes and Wallabes
KC and the Sunshine Band
Jacks and Hopscotch
Swimming at a place in Sonoma County called Agua Caliente—the kiddie pool there was always wonderfully warm—now I understand why
The Santa Cruz Boardwalk amusement park—I forget what the roller coaster there was called, but it was the only one I ever went on as a child. I also loved the miniature golf course there.
All books by Judy Blume, Norma Klein, and Paul Zindel; also, The Phantom Tollbooth
Baskin Robbins mint chocolate chip and Jamoca Almond Fudge
Two greyhound dogs, Seymour and Ishtar, the only dogs I wasn’t afraid of as a child, who would sleep with me in my bed when their owner, a friend of my parents, came to visit from LA
Wow, I truly was sheltered as a child. Some of these things were neat, but I had such a different childhood than the one my daughter is having….
A note from a Santa Cruz native for Erica: the roller coaster is called the Giant Dipper.
1. Treeforts. The oak tree where ours perched was named "Annie". It had a rope ladder made out of broomsticks and carpeting salvaged from dumpsters. The musty sweet smell of oak trees still sends me back in time.
2. Mainstream radio. I was a child of hippies and was always wondering why all the bands my family listened to were all broken up and the singers were dead. Then came rides in my neighbor's car where I heard top 40 radio for the first time and was entranced by the racy songs, "Papa don't preach" and one called "Black Velvet" are two I remember. I was a prude as a kid.
3.Mexican Barbies. I wasn't allowed to have real Barbies, and therefore, they were like forbidden fruit. I managed to beg a Barbie ripoff from my mom at the flea market. I think her name was "Rosa". Her hair stuck straight up in the air.
4. Elfquest. I became obsessed with a 70's comic book about hot buxom elves and their struggle for a homeland. I got the first book as a gift from family friends, but my mom took it away and hid it and told me that it was lost. She thought it had too much sex in it. (she was right!)
This connects to....
5. Wanting to be an elf. Why wasn't I born an elf in a land where there was magic and unicorns?? Why why why!? (I would cry and wander around in the forest).
6. Sitting in trees reading Nancy Drew. I would get up early in the morning and go sit in a tree and read before breakfast. I would roll up my pant legs and never wear shoes so to be more elfin. The shoeless thing was rather painful, as we lived in the mountains.
7. Keeping a secret notebook like Harriet the Spy.
8. Paul Simon-"Graceland", Talking Heads-"Little Creatures", The Police-"Synchronicity". My three favorite albums.
9. My mom and dad sang to me when I was falling asleep. My dad sang Beach Boys and The Incredible String Band. My mom sang traditional lullabies.
10. The summers never ended.
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