Growing Up in Savonburg in the Sixties, Part 5

I've written a series of articles reminiscing about my childhood in a small Kansas town. If you missed them, you can read the earlier installments by clicking on the links at the end of the article. In this final installment, I will tell you about playing outdoors in the summer.

As I mentioned before, Mom would lock us outside the house in the summer, so we were forced to entertain ourselves there. We had a large clover patch in the backyard and we quickly found that there were a couple of areas prone to make anomalous leaves - four- and five-leaf clovers were common and we even found a few with six or seven leaves! Of course, the clover attracted honeybees and we often went barefoot outdoors. This led to my younger brother getting stung several times, to the point that he was scared to go in the backyard. So, I made up some "magical" potion and rubbed it on his feet, claiming that it would keep the bees away from him. It actually worked; I think it was because he was no longer afraid and the bees were attacking him due to his fear.

Outdoor Toilet

When we were locked outside, we used the outdoor toilet if we needed it. This was attached to an old barn/garage building, to prevent pranksters from moving it on Halloween. Some townspeople did not have indoor bathrooms and the outdoor toilet was their only choice. If you went to the toilet at night and it had been moved a little farther away from the house, it left the "pit" exposed, with unpleasant results. So standalone toilets were a potential hazard. We also didn't use toilet paper outdoors; instead we used old catalogs or magazines. Newspaper was NOT a good idea, unless you liked newsprint on your seat!

Mowing the Lawn

My brother and I got a lot of exercise keeping our yard mowed in the summer. We had about an acre of grass and a push rotary mower, which was not only human-powered but didn't work well if the grass got very high. So if we didn't mow it soon enough or it strayed too wet while it grew too high, we were forced to use a hand scythe to cut the grass down to a height that could be mowed. And then, push the mower over the yard. What a luxury a power mower is!

Gardening and Canning, Hunting and Fishing

We had a large yard and a good part of it was planted in a vegetable garden in the summer. We also had a number of Concord grape vines, a large strawberry patch (perfect for catching box turtles!), and two Mulberry trees -- one black and one white. We not only ate the mulberries (the white are really sweet!), but we also ate some of the leaves as a garnish for desserts. We would also sometimes eat dandelion greens or Poke salad.

When we got more than we could eat from the garden, it was canning time! We used Ball or Mason canning jars by the case and filled our pantry with canned green beans, tomatoes, pickled beets and cucumbers, grape and strawberry jellies and whatever else we could find to can! We would find and pick wild berries and walnuts from bushes and trees along the country roads. My brother and I would go hunting and fishing with Granddad and shoot rabbits and squirrels and catch fish to supplement our meat supply. For several years, we lived on welfare until my youngest sister was in school and Mom went to work. Money was always in short supply, but we never went hungry.

Turtle Races

Every year, the town of Elsmore, which was three miles north, held a town festival. The main street in these small towns was four lanes wide, so that you could park on each side of the street and have two lanes of traffic passing through. This made a large area for the town festival each year; the main street was closed off (there wasn't a lot of traffic anyway) and the street would be the site of the festival. The stores would have specials to browse, there was beans and cornbread to eat food, and there was entertainment to watch and games to play. And there were turtle races!

I mentioned that the strawberry patch was perfect for catching box turtles. About a month or so before Elsmore Days, we would start catching box turtles and putting them into an old tire that we laid on the ground. This formed the turtle "pen". The male turtles have red eyes and the females have yellow; so we tried to get the males since they were more aggressive. Then we would have races in our backyard, to determine the best candidates for the "big" race.

For the race, a large circle was made on the street (maybe forty feet in diameter) and the crowd gathered around the perimeter. Each turtle entry had a number painted on their shell and then they were all placed into a big basket and carried to the center of the ring. When it was time to start the race, the basket of turtles was turned over and everyone cheered to see if their turtle would be the first to cross the perimeter. Some turtles might still be closed in their shell, on their backs, while others were crossing the finish line. That's why you needed an aggressive male turtle - to get a quick start and not be afraid of the crowd!

Our Pets

We always had a lot of pet cats, with several mothers having litters each year. Usually, the mother cats would hide the kittens until they were several weeks old and we would always try to find them as soon as we knew the mother was no longer pregnant. But one mother cat liked to sleep with my brother and I. One night, I woke up to strange sounds in the bed. I quickly realized that the mother was having her kittens IN OUR BED! This was an amazing experience and one I bet very few people have experienced!

There was an old man that lived down the road from us, about a block away (but only a couple of houses away). He had a young black and white shepherd dog that he used to walk by our house regularly. The dog wasn't on a leash and would often stop to play with us kids. Soon, the dog would get loose from his house and come visit us for extended periods of time. Eventually, the old man gave up and said the dog was ours. Since I was the oldest, I got to name him and I gave him the best name I could think of: Mike! He was our pet for several years and was always my favorite.

I hope you enjoyed traveling down memory lane with me as I shared these stories from my childhood in Savonburg! It was a special place, with out-dated technology and simple ways, but a place of heart, sharing, and good times for me and my family!

If you missed any of the installments, click on the links below:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7813060/growing_up_in_savonburg_in_the_sixties.html?cat=43

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7815314/growing_up_in_savonburg_in_the_sixties.html?cat=43

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7819548/growing_up_in_savonburg_in_the_sixties.html?cat=43

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7823054/growing_up_in_savonburg_in_the_sixties.html?cat=43