Tag: chidren

Childhood: You blink and you miss it

Childhood goes by so fast. Kids today are missing a lot, including not only in-person learning, but also playgrounds and family fun.

This is Just Vote No editor sharing random thoughts on a place in Northern California that exemplifies fun for all families: Casa de Fruta. For the more well off, yes, bring your wallet since there is lots to buy. For the less well off, enjoy the grounds without an entrance fee and a reasonably priced lunch.

At present, the grounds feature a store filled with food and wine, restaurant, pond, water wheel, and playground. Additionally, there are real old-time farm equipment on display. How many children know about a hand-operated water pump? [This writer’s family once had a hand-operated water pump in the back yard. The family took turns pumping water to drink, cook, and wash.]

But the children’s highlights are closed until the County says it is OK to re-open.

Visit Casa de Fruta – Store Hours

For how long? How many little ones will miss out? Is the lockdown worth it?

Childhood comes but once. You blink and you miss it. You shut down schools, playgrounds, and carrousels and childhood pays the price. Children whose families earn minimum wage – or nowadays no wage at all, pay the highest price. The legacy of the Covid-19 lockdowns will reverberate for a long time to come.

October 25, 2020

In Those Days There Was Magic

Everybody says that in the old days there was magic. Not delusion, but wonder. Kids did not feel there was any reason to question that fact.

An Editor’s Note About the Old Days:

There is a difference between magic and delusion. In the old days, we kids experienced magic, wonder. There was no TV, laptops, no IPhones, no video games. So, we had time to explore the world. Those lucky enough to have bikes rode them to where someone said there was a huge ant hill or some birds’ eggs in the grass. Those without bikes played tag or hide & seek, or jumped rope.

When I was about six or seven, my parents and I lived in a neighborhood filled with huge old houses. It was a changing place. Some houses were still occupied by the original families. Some were converted into apartments or rooming houses. Some were empty. The once opulent but still well off mingled every Sunday at the farmers’ market with the poor working families. You had to mingle if you wanted to hear, and even discuss, the news of the neighborhood.

One day, one of the kids breathlessly brought the news that the front door of one of the big houses up on the hill was wide open and inside, on one of the walls of the huge front room was a movie screen alive with a Laurel and Hardy movie. Without thinking twice, we all dashed up the hill and made ourselves at home, sitting on the clean polished wood floor watching the movie.  There was no furniture or other obstructions. But soon it was time to go home. The rule was immutable for all of us: home in time for dinner.

There was no schedule or rhyme or reason. We just knew that once in a while the front door of the big house was open, the floor was shinny and spotless, and the Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy movies were playing. Some of us told our parents about it. The response was always, “Oh, that old house is empty. Nobody lives there.”

Since nobody stayed past time for dinner, nobody ever knew when the movies stopped. We just knew they must have stopped at some time because the door was closed the next day.

No one questioned the strangeness of the situation. No one feared or investigated. For all everyone knew, it was magic, and that was that.

Little girls jumping rope

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