Go outside and play
Go outside and play. It was my mother’s solution for all my childhood grumbling.
Bored? You’ve been cooped up in the house too long — Go outside and play. A little stomach ache? You need some fresh air — Go outside and play. Can’t get the Tinker Toys to cooperate, so you’re methodically chucking them at your older brother? Perfectly understandable. Also unacceptable — Go outside and play.
Looking back, I realize her motive may have been survival. We were four high-voltage kids in one small farmhouse. We played indoor games like Olympic Sofa Vault and Tricycle Kitchen Derby. How she clung to her sanity is a mystery.
After she ushered me outside, I was on my own. Boredom in the great outdoors is still tedious, but it does present more options. I bounced tennis balls off the side of the garage and caught them in my brother’s baseball mitt. I played hide-and-seek with the dog, even though he found me every time and he was terrible at hiding.
On windy days, I wore leather gloves and tried to fly by simultaneously jumping and holding aloft a sheet of aluminum siding twice my height. I never claimed to be smart.
I floated homemade boats in the tank and sang all the songs I knew. “Ring of Fire” and “Streets of Laredo” factored heavily in my repertoire. In the winter I stomped trails through the snow or rode an inner tube down the drifts north of our barn. Slowly, I came to realize that going outside to play was the best use of my time.
It still is. What if the solution to all our adult grumbling is the same advice my mom gave me? You’ve been cooped up in the house too long. You need some fresh air. Harassing those you love isn’t the answer. Go outside and play.
In a community like mine, many people work outside. They bless or curse the weather as it helps or harms their cause, but most wouldn’t trade their days under the sky for a career behind an office door.
And while it’s refreshing to come inside to a thermostat-controlled environment at the end of a hard day, many people who work outside also choose to play outside, when they have the time.
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