The opportunities seemed endless, from waging war on gophers to a brisk game of Fox and Goose in newly fallen snow
At recess time, many of our teachers just turned us loose to the elements.
On warm autumn days there was the excitement of drowning out gophers on the school yard, their burrows flooded by dozens of pails of water conveyed by a bucket brigade from the nearby ditch. The gopher population may have been depleted a little, but most of the varmints just took up residence in the adjoining field, chased there time and again by screaming mobs of schoolboys all brandishing willows.
Since the field was off limits to students, the gophers felt smugly secure there, popping up and down to whistle at their tormentors, while the boys tried pelting them with clods, to no avail.
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When the warm days gave way to cold fall rains, we huddled in the shelter of the wood pile, shivering in threadbare jackets and envying the teacher on playground duty, peering out at us from the warm security of the schoolhouse. Her image was distorted by the raindrops pelting against the windowpane, and somehow it distorted our respect for her as well.
By November we were hoping for a good cold snap, one that would eliminate the rain and turn the puddles to sheets of ice. Skidding and sliding would at least keep us warm while we waited for the bell to ring.
Taking advantage of the first blanket of snow for playing the game of Fox and Goose, we tramped single file in a big circle and then several times across its diameter until it looked like a huge wheel with spokes. The fox would then try to tag the geese, the goal being to corner them all in the centre of the circle. The geese were not supposed to wander from the predetermined paths, even while being chased, but in all the excitement, a young group of goslings would invariably forget the rules and scatter every which way, obliterating the wheel.
At this point the boys took up the soccer ball and the girls played Red Line and Prisoner’s Base. Without such games, the winter recesses proved interminably long and boring.
Sometimes a huge dump of wet snow in March inspired the girls to make snowmen, and some of us prevailed upon the caretaker for pieces of coal for their eyes while others raided the lost and found box for scarves.
Soon a whole family of jolly snow people waved back at us from the playground, their mittens stuck on the ends of sharp twigs impaled in their ribs. Caught in a crossfire of snowballs that the boys were hurling at enemy forts, snowman casualties soon mounted, reason enough for us girls to wage an ongoing snowball fight against the boys.
By April, the sun had melted all our ammunition and we had to call a truce.
We girls brought our sponge rubber balls to school and played Sevens while still wearing mittens. As soon as the bare ground on the south side of the school was the least bit thawed, we used sharp sticks to scratch hopscotch squares on it. The lines were never too definitive and many a heated argument took place.
Come a warm day in May, the teacher appeared on the back steps with a catcher’s mitt and a new ball and bat. Instead of choosing captains, she’d tell us to race to the back catcher’s net and the first two there were the lucky ones. I never could run far without getting winded so I never got a chance at being captain.
But I was shortstop once.
And then one of the bigger girls introduced us to skipping.
There was something exhilarating about the rhythmic hum of skipping ropes whirling through the air, the bright colours arching over the flushed faces of the laughing girls. Their feet kept bobbing up and down in time to silly little rhymes until tangled tongues could no longer master the speed. Then somebody shouted “pepper” and the countdown began. It was girl against rope and the rope always won, leaving the vanquished girl with bulging eyeballs and holes in the bottom of her runners.
The day came when they handed me a rope.
I turned into a veritable octopus. My arms flailed in opposite directions to my feet, the rope went awry and I hobbled to the sidelines, defeated.
At the same time, I still wanted to skip.
I never did learn how, but I kept trying.
Using two ropes at a time swung in opposite directions was like being shoved into a giant eggbeater. No matter how carefully I tried to time my entrance, I couldn’t slip between the ropes and keep on skipping. A half a turn was my limit, at which time one rope tangled in my hair and the other was firmly secured to the gravel by feet as heavy as lead. I came to regard a pile of skipping ropes with the same enthusiasm I reserved for a den of snakes. I sidestepped them very gingerly.
When I opened my report card at the end of the year, I was surprised to learn I’d passed something called Physical Education.
For the life of me I couldn’t remember writing the exam.
