Simpler times.

[lucyanna girl]

I climbed trees - really big trees as a little girl, jumped out of them too. Anyone else climb way up high to the thinner, more bendable limbs and ride them down to the ground? China-berry trees were great, you could grab on and float down until your feet were on the ground, let go and watch them snap back into the air.

Daddy let me turn an old shed into my very own playhouse. I hauled old boards and buckets in and made shelves and cabinets - my very own kitchen. Heaven only knows how many mud-pies I made! Had to get daddy to come kill a stump-tailed moccasin every once in a while, they were mean snakes and would try to bite you instead of running away.

I loved it when Daddy would ride back in the pasture or cotton field and let me ride on the tailgate of his truck. He drove really slow and I would ride along and sing - if you ever heard me sing you would know that was the best place to do it!

My bicycle was my trusty stead. I used clothes pins to fasten playing cards to the spokes so when I rode they clicked. The faster I rode the faster they clicked. My best friend lived about two miles down the road one way and my Nanny lived about a mile the other way, I could spend hours just ridding back and forth.

When the wind would come up before a rain I remember racing wildly across the yard trying to beat the wind, either that or run and jump high enough to take flight.

Every two weeks in summer the book mobile would come. I would gather up all my returns and wait in the cane patch close to the road watching for them. When they arrived I would spend as much time as they would allow searching for the very best books - most anything I had not already read. When my husband took me years later to meet his mother can you imagine how thrilled I was when I found out his mother was the book mobile lady?

We all played together, all the kids on the place. It didn't matter what color your skin was or whose Daddy wrote the pay checks. It did matter that you were kind to each other and played fair, any daddy was free to correct those who broke the rules. They did it with kindness but you knew you better listen or your Daddy would be the next one correcting you and that might involve a switch he made you break off the bush and bring to him!

I don't remember anyone getting hurt too much. Maybe a skinned knee from falling down on the gravel in the driveway or a cut hand from "washing dishes" in the playhouse - mud-pies make really hard to see through "dish-water".

Can you tell I was a "Daddy's Girl"?

Penny

 

[manning]

I climbed trees - really big trees as a little girl, jumped out of them too. Anyone else climb way up high to the thinner, more bendable limbs and ride them down to the ground? China-berry trees were great, you could grab on and float down until your feet were on the ground, let go and watch them snap back into the air.

Daddy let me turn an old shed into my very own playhouse. I hauled old boards and buckets in and made shelves and cabinets - my very own kitchen. Heaven only knows how many mud-pies I made! Had to get daddy to come kill a stump-tailed moccasin every once in a while, they were mean snakes and would try to bite you instead of running away.

I loved it when Daddy would ride back in the pasture or cotton field and let me ride on the tailgate of his truck. He drove really slow and I would ride along and sing - if you ever heard me sing you would know that was the best place to do it!

My bicycle was my trusty stead. I used clothes pins to fasten playing cards to the spokes so when I rode they clicked. The faster I rode the faster they clicked. My best friend lived about two miles down the road one way and my Nanny lived about a mile the other way, I could spend hours just ridding back and forth.

When the wind would come up before a rain I remember racing wildly across the yard trying to beat the wind, either that or run and jump high enough to take flight.

Every two weeks in summer the book mobile would come. I would gather up all my returns and wait in the cane patch close to the road watching for them. When they arrived I would spend as much time as they would allow searching for the very best books - most anything I had not already read. When my husband took me years later to meet his mother can you imagine how thrilled I was when I found out his mother was the book mobile lady?

We all played together, all the kids on the place. It didn't matter what color your skin was or whose Daddy wrote the pay checks. It did matter that you were kind to each other and played fair, any daddy was free to correct those who broke the rules. They did it with kindness but you knew you better listen or your Daddy would be the next one correcting you and that might involve a switch he made you break off the bush and bring to him!

I don't remember anyone getting hurt too much. Maybe a skinned knee from falling down on the gravel in the driveway or a cut hand from "washing dishes" in the playhouse - mud-pies make really hard to see through "dish-water".

Can you tell I was a "Daddy's Girl"?

Penny

A self sufficient woman!!! We need more of you

 

[NotUrsula]

I climbed trees - really big trees as a little girl, jumped out of them too. Anyone else climb way up high to the thinner, more bendable limbs and ride them down to the ground? China-berry trees were great, you could grab on and float down until your feet were on the ground, let go and watch them snap back into the air.

Daddy let me turn an old shed into my very own playhouse. I hauled old boards and buckets in and made shelves and cabinets - my very own kitchen. Heaven only knows how many mud-pies I made! Had to get daddy to come kill a stump-tailed moccasin every once in a while, they were mean snakes and would try to bite you instead of running away.

....

I grew up a ways South of you, which was part of what made guns such a part of our lives. The most common danger I faced when playing out in the woods was reptilian. We girls tended to stay a bit closer to home, so if we needed to get someone to kill a snake it was maybe a ten-minute run home, but the boys wandered a lot further afield, so the oldest usually took at least one gun with them just in case. (An adult might kill a snake with a shovel, but we kids were discouraged from trying that unless there was no choice; it takes a good long reach and lot of brute strength to do it effectively without missing and getting bitten by a teed-off snake.)

Gators were usually not quite as much of a danger as snakes. Gators in the wild absolutely reek, so we could always smell them a mile off and detour to avoid them.

 

[Colleen27]

When ds was bullied, after trying everything else, we told him to stand and fight. He did, the bullying stop.

Dd came along and we told her the same thing. Try everything else first. And when all else fails, stand and fight.

Honestly, regardless of changes, standing your ground is the best way to back a bully down.

I agree it is the most effective, but maybe not the best any more because zero tolerance and police involvement in high school fights impose the same penalties on the person defending himself as on the aggressor. That's one thing that has changed since I was a kid and I think it has given bullies undue power because they so seldom face reprisal now.

My son's such a big kid that he's never been bullied himself but we've had a hell of a time trying to impress on him that if one of his friends is being bullied the only thing he can do is go to an adult. Twice he's been suspended for coming to a friend's defense and on one of those occasions he didn't even throw a punch. He just pulled the bully off his friend, who was lying on the ground not even trying to fight back, and held him in a headlock until the recess supervisor got there. Got a nasty bite for his trouble, and a five day suspension (same as the bully and the boy who was on the ground being pummeled).

 

[luvsJack]

I agree it is the most effective, but maybe not the best any more because zero tolerance and police involvement in high school fights impose the same penalties on the person defending himself as on the aggressor. That's one thing that has changed since I was a kid and I think it has given bullies undue power because they so seldom face reprisal now.

My son's such a big kid that he's never been bullied himself but we've had a hell of a time trying to impress on him that if one of his friends is being bullied the only thing he can do is go to an adult. Twice he's been suspended for coming to a friend's defense and on one of those occasions he didn't even throw a punch. He just pulled the bully off his friend, who was lying on the ground not even trying to fight back, and held him in a headlock until the recess supervisor got there. Got a nasty bite for his trouble, and a five day suspension (same as the bully and the boy who was on the ground being pummeled).

I guess that is why I love the common sense that our administration uses in these situations.

If two people just get into a fight--no background, no bullying, just suddenly tie up and fight; they receive the same punishment depending on whether either of them have other offenses on their record. So two kids could fight but one has never been in trouble and the other has been in two other fights. Kid #1 might get 1-3 days OSS or ISS and Kid #2 gets a week suspension or even a week in alternative school.

If a student is harassed, bullied, backed into a corner, threatened, jumped by more than one person or anything that shows they were defending themselves, then punishment can be from nothing to some detention.

And if a student is bullied and goes to the administration or to a teacher about it, there is something done immediately. They do not take it lightly. And of course they prefer that the student comes to them and will tell the students that. But, I have heard the principal say more than once that he will not punish a kid for defending himself. Sometimes there is just no other way out.

 

[FINFAN]

Here's the video... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ksWKOy665o

Thanks! Loved it

 

[Colleen27]

I guess that is why I love the common sense that our administration uses in these situations.

If two people just get into a fight--no background, no bullying, just suddenly tie up and fight; they receive the same punishment depending on whether either of them have other offenses on their record. So two kids could fight but one has never been in trouble and the other has been in two other fights. Kid #1 might get 1-3 days OSS or ISS and Kid #2 gets a week suspension or even a week in alternative school.

If a student is harassed, bullied, backed into a corner, threatened, jumped by more than one person or anything that shows they were defending themselves, then punishment can be from nothing to some detention.

And if a student is bullied and goes to the administration or to a teacher about it, there is something done immediately. They do not take it lightly. And of course they prefer that the student comes to them and will tell the students that. But, I have heard the principal say more than once that he will not punish a kid for defending himself. Sometimes there is just no other way out.

I despise the administration at our middle school. Fortunately it is out of character for the district as a whole and the high school, where DS is now, is much better. In a wave of cost-cutting they put a central office person who has the right credentials but no classroom experience in the principal position at the MS and then transferred the very common-sense vice principal who used to handle discipline and didn't replace him. The approach now is all very "I'm okay, you're okay" hippie nonsense - if a student reports bullying, the first "solution" is a sit down chat with the bully, the principal, and the reporter... which of course paints a big ol' target on the back of anyone who speaks up, and discourages kids from reporting bullying as either victim or witness. And underlying the whole policy is the premise that there is absolutely never any excuse for physical violence, not even self-defense.

 

[luvsJack]

I despise the administration at our middle school. Fortunately it is out of character for the district as a whole and the high school, where DS is now, is much better. In a wave of cost-cutting they put a central office person who has the right credentials but no classroom experience in the principal position at the MS and then transferred the very common-sense vice principal who used to handle discipline and didn't replace him. The approach now is all very "I'm okay, you're okay" hippie nonsense - if a student reports bullying, the first "solution" is a sit down chat with the bully, the principal, and the reporter... which of course paints a big ol' target on the back of anyone who speaks up, and discourages kids from reporting bullying as either victim or witness. And underlying the whole policy is the premise that there is absolutely never any excuse for physical violence, not even self-defense.

yeah, it used to be that way at our MS. HATED it. They solved nothing. Parents finally started going over the principals head to the superintendent and school board and things started changing. They will still punish anyone for fighting no matter the circumstances, but they will take action on bullying.