Matsui Supports Alzheimer’s Relief
Bill
58th Annual Armed Forces Day Makes ‘Salute to Service’
Around
Town:
Senior Happenings
Ted Ruhig: Modern China Can Look to Western Countries for Models on Elderly Care
Dutch
Treat
Old-Fashioned Fun Versus High-Priced Entertainment
By
Dennis "Dutch" Packard
Young girls
were giggling and
laughing just outside
the window of my
second story office.
Then I heard the
sound of something
hopping. Was it possible?
Were the children
really hopping?
Spring was definitely in the air, but I still had a hard time comprehending what
might be occurring only a stone’s throw from my office desk.
Pushing my reading glasses up on my head, I lifted my 72-year-old body from the
chair with an audible grunt and peeked out the window through the Venetian blinds.
I was pleasantly surprised to see two small 6-year-old neighborhood girls breathing
fresh air and playing hopscotch beneath the clear blue skies.
Little blonde pigtails were bouncing around, as were their thin little arms.
It was certainly something to consider: old-fashioned fun versus today’s
world of electronics and high-priced entertainment. The asphalt-covered streets
and those dark corners inside any home can bring the same amount of joy.
It did my heart good to hear them laugh.
• • •
Drawing
a wiggly circle in the dirt with a tree branch opened up a big game
every night after dinner in the spring of 1940. After slurping the
last of the cling peach juice directly from my bowl — or whatever
canned fruit my mom put on the table to balance out our food groups — I
would ask to be excused from the table.
Using shirtsleeves for napkins, I wiped my chin as I ran through the dining room
and foyer, often hopping lopsided with the weight of my marble bag in one pocket.
After scooting out the front porch and down the front steps, I intentionally
fell into the dusty, gray dirt between the house and the sidewalk where my buddies
were usually waiting for me.
As far as we were concerned — next to hide-and- seek and catching fireflies
to make glow-in-the-dark rings by ripping off their wings and smooshing them
together — marbles after dinner with the boys was sublime. We certainly
didn’t play with girls.
Even at 5 years of age, I possessed two cat eyes, one boulder, two peewees and
a dozen aggies in my leather pouch. Unfortunately, I shot like a girl.
It looks like hopscotch has survived, but I wonder about marbles. I miss my traditional
games. When was the last time you saw some young boys on their knees, shooting
marbles out of a circle?.
• • •
Cringing,
I picked up a small loaf of stone-ground bread for $4.65 while shopping
last week. I carefully placed the cellophane package inside my grocery
cart as if it was made of pure gold.
Then my heart skipped another beat when I saw the jump in price for a dozen eggs.
Are the hens on strike? Should I buy a couple of hens myself and let them roam
free on the streets of our condo community?
Now I’m getting ridiculous because I know for a fact that my wife Stacey
would not touch an egg that came from a chicken. She informed me years ago that
she only eats store eggs.
I made a grave mistake once, and with sheer delight I picked up some fresh farm
eggs in Orangevale. Stacey was appalled. Some of the eggs were not only warm
and dirty, but a couple were brown. She wouldn’t touch them with a six-foot
fork. There’s no doubt Stacey’s a city girl.
It looks like hopscotch has survived, but I wonder about marbles. I miss my traditional
games. When was the last time you saw some young boys on their knees, shooting
marbles out of a circle?.
• • •
Perhaps
I should shop around town for food bargains and use up the $4 a gallon
gasoline I put in my car last week. I suppose I shouldn’t be
so negative, though; my Social Security check went up $30 a month this
year due to a cost-of-living increase. That should buy me two loaves
of bread, a gallon of gas and one egg — sunny side up — per
week.
Looking over the original menu from a coffee shop I owned in 1961 is always good
for a laugh. But it’s all relative — I was working my tail off back
then, too, to make ends meet.
Some of the prices on that menu should bring a smile to your face. Coffee was
10 cents. A donut was 6 cents (Yes, truck drivers would sit and drink a pot of
coffee and eat a donut for 16 cents, then leave a dime for a tip.). We always
smiled and anxiously welcomed them back.
What about three hotcakes for 35 cents? Or two eggs with hash browns, toast and
jelly for 60 cents? A hot beef sandwich was 75 cents, and hamburgers were 45
cents.
And even in 1961 we pushed a “Low Calorie, High Protein Lunch!”
has survived, but I wonder about marbles. I miss my traditional
games. When was the last time you saw some young boys on their knees, shooting
marbles out of a circle?.
• • •
Gunpowder
smoke mingled with the smell of Scottish meat pies, and the odor of
spicy sausages filled the air as we walked through the gates. Bagpipes
could be heard from every corner of the fairgrounds along with the
enormous boom of cannon explosions and sharp gunshots every few minutes.
After 24 years in Sacramento, my wife Stacey and I — along with her sister
Tonja and husband Phil — decided to attend the 132nd Scottish Games Festival
at the Yolo County Fairgrounds in Woodland, California.
McKinley Park in Sacramento was the site of the first Highland Games held on
June 16, 1877, twelve years after the Civil War.
There was a section of the grounds reserved that displayed reenactments of Scottish
soldiers and their skirmishes with the English. The Scots were easy to recognize.
They were the men with visible argyle socks, knobby knees and plaid kilts.
Watching those large and muscular athletes compete in Scottish games interested
me more than anything else. For the first time in my life I saw caber turning
and hammer-throwing. A caber is a pole of any length that a man, kneeling — and
using significant strength and power — lifts, runs and throws into mid-air,
causing it to turn completely head- over-heels before it lands. The caber used
in the arena was 18 feet long and weighed 110 pounds. Twelve men tried, but only
one succeeded while we watched.
Lifting a quarter-pound sausage sandwich from my lap to my lips was the ultimate
feat of strength I exhibited that day.
I won no prize.
Quip for the Day: Why
not learn to enjoy the little things; there’s so many of them.
Chat
with me any time: packarddap@netzero.net.
Dennis “Dutch” Packard
is an artist (oil, ink
drawings, cartoons), author (two books) and columnist who was born
in 1935 in Racine,
Wisconsin. Dutch
was raised in Chicago and
spent most of his youth
involved in the grocery business. He opened
and managed restaurants in
Los Angeles, Carmel, Los
Gatos and Santa
Cruz. Dutch has been married
to Stacey for 31 years, and they have
two daughters, Cara and Maree.
The couple has resided in Citrus Heights
for
the last 25
years. You may visit him online at www.dutchtreatwebsite.com.
• • •
This page and its contents ©2006 Metropolitan News Company, Inc.
