Play Time

Paula received the usual gifts for a girl, a Barbie doll, fabric to make doll clothes, games and toy kitchen cooking stuff. John received a belt tooling kit, games of which he was especially fond and books about math and music, along with socks. To encourage my creative tendencies, I received a heavy package that contained an Erector set. Inside were pieces of structural metal, bolts, axels, gears and a motor that could be configured in countless ways. This aggregation of building components would facilitate many projects. I also received a seed planting kit, socks and many how to draw and paint books.

Crayons, paints and sketch books were abundant in our home as creativity was encouraged by our parents. Even though she had dolls and girl stuff, Paula liked boy stuff too. All in all, the foundation for happiness was alive and well in our home and the relentless creativity coming from our loving parents couldn’t help but be contagious.

During our frequent one-on-one, Mother taught me to pause and review something special from the recently viewed movie, event or story I had read. She then invited me to select and share with her my favorite part. Little did I know at the time that I was being groomed to become a seeker of goodness, pursuer of positivity, and appreciator of what the original artist or author intended.

As children, we had an ambition to play outside with toy trucks. Our father cleared out an ivy bed next to the garage so my sister and I had some dirt to play in. A short retaining wall separated the terraced back yards and made a perfect highway for our vehicles to travel upon. As our village in the dirt took form, made from accumulated findings, Paula assumed being in charge of paving the roads that threaded through our town. By heaping up dirt and smoothing out the top with a slurry coat of mud, Paula perfected the process of paving the roads that threaded through our miniature town. Paula earned the nick-name “mudder” at the same time! As we grew, the pattern of conjoined creativity expanded to include a variety of productions, the first of which was a backyard circus.