To live with nature, understand nature, play with nature gave us a very happy youth. All our games were good for both boys and girls. We climbed trees. We plaid skip rope. We bounced a ball for hours either to each other or, if playing alone, against a wall. We admired baby frogs, picked up little snakes with no fear, watched bats hanging from trees up side down. I remember when I was about 6 there was a hawk flying over the little chickens. Mamma hen rounded them up and the old rooster rolled on the ground as if he had a broken wing. I asked grand daddy "Why is the rooster acting so funny?" Grand daddy explained me that the rooster wa doing that to attract the attention of the hawk and give the hen and chicks time to hide. Even in the animal world the male protects the female and the little ones endangering themselves. Ours were lessons of real life. As young girls we dreamed of a man that would take care of us and protect us like the rooster did. We always walked to school. We knocked at each other's doors early in the morning and we all walked to school together talking about our dreams, about the stars, the days of the week that took their names from planets and idle Gods. We sat under trees examining clouds and making pictures in our minds using the cloud's shapes. We saw dogs, cats, ice cream cones. Everything was in the clouds, all we had to do was just look and find it. We all pretend to have a motor in our bikes, so to imitate the noise of a motor we used a stiff postcard that would hit the spokes and make noises as we pedaled. We dreamed and pretended to have the real thing with our overflowing imagination. At times us girls would play dress up or make us a doll with old rags. We used hay straws for hair and drew their eyes, nose and mouth with crayons. Our days were full of discoveries, we were never bored. We sang, we wistled, we plaied ring around the roses. We were full of life, helped each other. We cried, we laughed. When we got hurt we did not go to the doctor, we were just warned to be more carful. If we had the sniffles or sneezed nobody paid attention. We wiped our noses with our sleeves and kept playing. Today when a child sneezes goes to the doctor to be checked for allergies. We did not even know the word allergy existed.
