Second Childhood?

Recently I saw a photo of an elderly woman standing on a Hopscotch  drawing. She appeared to be playing the childhood game, but I'm not sure her old bones would allow the hopping that such a game entails. It sparked a few memories of my own, of games and activities I took part in as a youngster. Some I could do today, if I tried, some I'm sure that I could not attempt!

Hopscotch was a game the girls in our neighborhood played. We'd draw the connected boxes on the asphalt with chalk, numbering each box. Sometimes the form was 2 boxes, with the next row being 1 box, the next 2, and so on. We'd each have a  'potsy'....a stone or some other flat item, maybe a hair clip or barrett that we'd throw into the 1st box, then hop with one foot to the box next to it, in order to pick up the potsy, and then hop back. If your foot hit the line between any of the boxes, you were 'out'.  The game went on like that until you went all the way to the end and back without getting called out.  We did the same type of thing with a huge drawing of a 'snail' with numbered boxes.

Chinese jump rope or even regular jump rope is out of the question these days!  So is the pogo stick, and I dare say that stilts would not work well for me, since I have enough trouble manuvering  with my feet flat on the terra firma!  Bad hips and backs do not a pogo stick champion make!

I'm sure there are several other games of youth that would best be left to the younger set.  Let's see, anything requiring running, jumping, skipping, hopping, dodging, wheels or skate blades beneath the soles of feet..... and perhaps anything relating to a ball!

But, I CAN still work a mean hula hoop, so long as the thing has been constructed with the correct weights inside. I can do pretty good chalk drawings, I can also build some pretty neat little rail  fences and log houses from sticks...just the way pioneers used to build real homes. (Well, maybe not quite as well, but they'll serve the purpose for grandchildren with little people and animals to house.)  I can still make some fun pictures for coloring or water coloring, and some fancy paper dolls ...or some pretty nice doll clothes.

I guess I'm still good for something, huh?