Playing in the Rain

September 26, 2019

Do kids play outside in the rain anymore? I bet they don’t. We did as kids. Not if there was a thunderstorm of course, but if it was just your garden variety, softly falling rain, we were often allowed to play outside.

I remember Johnny and I playing in the rain in the front of our apartment when we lived on Mann Avenue in Sandy Hill, when I was in grade two and he was in grade three at Saint Joseph School. It was the year before we moved to 10 Isabelle Street.

There was a kid in my class who we played with a lot. His name was Joseph Flannagan. I remember Joseph came calling on us quite often to go out to play. He was a really good friend and Johnny and I used to walk to school with him almost every day and back home again in the evening. Often, on a Saturday, Johnny and I played outside with Joseph and If it was raining it didn’t stop us. We weren’t pampered the way many kids are today. We had raincoats and rain boots which we put on over appropriate clothing and we were just fine.

One occasion I remember very clearly. I think it was in the fall because there were a lot of leaves on the ground. I remember jumping through puddles and looking for worms with Johnny and Joseph. I think Johnny and Joseph picked up worms but not me: yuk! Some of the other neighborhood kids joined in the fun. I don’t remember if we got very muddy but we probably did. I do remember watching the leaves flowing down the side of the street and we kids running after them as they flowed away.

When Johnny and I were alone, we usually played in the large backyard that belonged to the apartment building, but when there were other kids with us, we were allowed to play in the front. They were nice kids.

We only lived at Mann Avenue for a year and then we moved to the house that daddy built at 10 Isabelle Street in Hull. I missed Joseph when we moved. I think he was my best friend at that time (well after Johnny of course)

Isabelle Street was wonderful because we had our own private backyard where we could play: something the apartment didn’t have.

In the summer when it was hot, mommy occasionally would let us kids play in the backyard in the rain wearing just our bathing suits. I loved the squishy feeling of the mushy grass between my toes as we ran around the yard.

Sometimes it was just Johnny and me, and other times we were joined by Jimmy and Patty. I remember the giggling as we all played together. There was no fighting whatsoever when the four of us played “ring around the rosy" and other games in the rain.” It was noisy though. I don’t know what the neighbors thought of it all. These days you’d probably have someone calling the cops on you. I wonder if Jimmy and Patty remember playing in the rain with Johnny and me?

Mommy would give us plastic pails to enhance our fun and we all tried to catch as much rain as we could and then pour it over our heads.

There was a sandbox in our back yard which daddy made and it was really fun squishing your toes in the sand and then running around afterward to clean your feet off in the mushy grass or by pouring the rainwater from your pail over your legs and feet. Mommy wasn’t too fussy about the sandbox game though, because she didn’t want us to get sand in our hair. “no playing in the sandbox” mommy would say to us and then hose us off. We kids usually had a bath once a week on Saturday evening and we would wash our hair at that time too, so getting sand in your hair was not a good thing to happen. Actually, it was funny to see the hose going and the rain falling at the same time.

Yeah playing in the rain on warm days in our bathing suits was fun but playing in the rain wearing raincoats and galoshes on cooler days was fun too.

I sometimes do my gardening in the rain. It’s the best time for planting. To this day I still like walking in the rain.

Friday Nights at 10 Isabelle Street

I wasn’t a big fan of going to school when I was growing up and I really looked forward to Fridays. I could hardly wait to get home. It’s not that I didn’t do well at school; I studied very hard and usually my grades were good. It wasn’t that: it was because I was extremely shy. It almost crippled me. The worst thing was if I had to speak in class and to this day I still hate speaking in public.

Mommy and daddy always built us kids up and told us “you’re as good as the best and better than the rest” but it was very hard for me to overcome my shyness. My heart still races and I feel panicky when I get called upon to say a few words before a crowd. I guess it amounts to some kind of phobia.

There were some mean kids I remember who used to tease me. “Maureen Maloney full of baloney” I got a lot. I remember mommy told us “sticks and stones may break your bones but names will never hurt you” but they kind of did actually. I guess every school and every generation has its bullies.

Most of the kids were nice however. I had some really good friends that I felt comfortable with. I remember one of my friends, Cecilia lived across the street from my primary school, Our Lady of the Annunciation in Hull and sometimes I would go to her place at noon and eat my lunch with her instead of in the school cafeteria. Wendy was another good friend and oftentimes I would visit her on the way home from school for a short time. One of my best friends growing up was Kathleen who lived next door to us on Isabelle Street, but she didn’t go to the school I went to. I think she went to a French School .

Anyways I think all kids are happy when it’s Friday. I really did thank God it was Friday when the end of the school week came around. It was like two days of heaven on earth because I loved the weekends, being home with my family: it was just so comfortable. In fact walking home from school with Johnny on a Friday evening was the best feeling.

I remember watching Mighty Mouse at 5 o’clock and eating my supper on one of the TV trays that mommy kept in the corner of the living room. Mighty Mouse seemed to be always rescuing a "damsel in distress" who was tied to a train track. This was a recurring theme.

I still remember the Mighty Mouse Theme song like it was yesterday

Friday was the only time we were allowed to eat in front of the TV set. We often had macaroni and cheese. Mommy made the best macaroni and cheese in the world. Sometimes by the end of the week there wasn’t a lot of food left in the house so we might have cereal for supper. But I loved when we did that just as much as anything else.

Quite often when Johnny and I walked home from school during the winter mommy would have hot chocolate ready for us. Oh man I loved the hot chocolate that mommy made with real cocoa. And to make things even better, mommy said we could put our pyjamas on and get cozy. And if it was Friday evening we were allowed to wait till Saturday morning to do our homework: usually anyways.

We still had to go to bed  earlier than I would have liked on Fridays, but if there was a good late  movie on TV (a good movie usually meant a western) daddy would wake Johnny and me up and bring us downstairs to watch it. And on top of this, daddy made us “cheesies” for a snack. Daddy’s “cheesies” were awesome. He made them with slices of bread cut in two, topped with cheese whiz and partly cooked bacon and put in the oven for 10 minutes. We didn’t eat meat on Fridays growing up, but we had these special treats after midnight so we weren’t breaking any rules. Mom and dad were strict about not eating meat on Fridays.

Friday evening, around our house was perfect: hot chocolate, cozy jammies, TV supper, Mighty Mouse; movie after midnight and cheese and bacon things that daddy made in the oven.

And when I grew up and visited my parents in Kemptville, daddy still made these yummy cheesies for us to eat when we watched television in the evening.

Mommy and daddy I really miss you. 

Please Pray for all your kids, grandkids, great grand kids , great, great grand kids etc. etc. etc!!!

Playing on the farm

When Johnny and I visited the farm in Bath we were usually allowed to play in the front of the house by ourselves. I also remember playing down near the barn and in the fields behind the barn. I think we were only allowed to play near the barn if an adult was there.

We loved playing hide and seek and tag, and all those childhood games that were popular in the fifties and probably still are. If we were lucky, there would be a tire swing attached to a branch of one of the huge maple trees in the front yard. These trees served various functions; they provided shade for when you were having a picnic, you could attach a swing to one of them, or you could install a line between them for hanging clothes to dry.... Or you could just climb them, but Johnny and I weren't allowed to do that.

Wheelbarrow rides were fun. Sometimes if uncle Frank wasn’t busy he would push us kids, one at a time, up and down the gravel driveway. Uncle Frank was always so good to us, just like daddy. Daddy used to take us for wheelbarrow rides, wagon rides, sleigh rides, you name it, when we lived on Isabelle St. in Hull.

Anyways, back to the farm. Most of the time we made our own fun. Many of the childhood outdoor games we played had a catchy little jingle attached to it. Remember “London Bridge …. " and "Ring around the rosy...." Well all these little rhymes, which we knew by heart (and there were many of them) had actions attached to them: many of them were meant for a group and I remember playing them during recess when we were at school and at home with Patty and Johnny and Jimmy or with Kathleen and Diane, our friends who lived next door.

When Johnny and I used to play together on the farm, and because there was just the two of us we often played handclapping games like “Pat a cake, pat a cake bakers man, bake me a cake as fast as you can.” We would start off slowly and go faster and faster. Remember this one. "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old; Some like it hot, some like it cold, Some like it in the pot, nine days old." Usually Johnny was better at games than I was, but when it came to hand clapping ones I was better. I think girls played these games more than boys when I was a kid. These games were fun. You didn’t need any equipment or supplies: just your hands and a friend or a brother.

There was always a ball around and we would often play “catch” together. Sometimes we would throw it against one of walls of the barn; we weren’t allowed to throw the ball against the house. We found that out fast enough.

I remember playing  I spy something with my little eye…… and card games like Crazy Eights, Fish and War on rainy days in the room where the TV set was, off of grandma’s bedroom.



Anyways back to playing outside. Well OH MY GOSH. I remember one time playing down by the barn and oh boy, oh boy...….. Remember cow pies? Cow pies came to my mind yesterday when I was baking cookies for Michelle's wedding reception. I thought the cookies looked like miniature "cow pies" and that got me thinking of the farm again. Pat said I should write about my cow pie experience on the farm and include a picture of one of the cookies ha ha. I’m not sure what our uncles did with all the cow manure. I remember uncle Frank shovelling it into a bin so I’m guessing they would have used it as fertilizer for their crops. I’m speculating here.

Anyways the first time Johnny and I decided to play on the cow pies was our last. These big round pie shaped poos looked solid to us so we were going to make a game out of jumping from one to another. I went first and didn’t make it past the first one. The crust on the top was hard but it was deceiving because underneath was anything but.

Johnny laughed but it wasn’t very funny. I was covered in cow poo up to my knees, maybe even higher. Johnny felt badly that he laughed and told me he was sorry. “It just sort of slipped out” he said. Johnny would never say or do anything mean. He said it was like a reflex action that he laughed when he saw the poo squirt all over my legs. I think he was secretly glad it wasn't him though.

Uncle Frank heard the performance and came over because he was nearby: probably milking cows. He cleaned me off with a bucket of water and said “we won’t tell grandma about this ok?” Uncle Frank was so sweet: he never got angry at us kids for anything. I’m thinking maybe he tried the "cow pie jumping" game when he was a kid.

I don’t remember what happened to my shoes but I remember the water from the well that uncle Frank poured over my knees that ran down to my toes because it was so cold!

We never played "that" game again.