Home-grown family projects

Teaching Pre K-8, Mar 2001 by Raymond, Allen

"... while others get their exercise by jogging or taking walks, our neighbors flash by on their scooters."

Neighbors of ours own five of the fancy new scooters we're beginning to see everywhere. As a result, while others get their exercise by jogging or taking walks, our neighbors flash by on their scooters... Mom, Dad and the three kids. Togetherness on wheels.

When I was a kid we made our own scooters. All it took was a long plank, an old wooden orange crate and a short two-by-four. Oh, yes, and a pair of roller skates. (Roller skates in those days had metal wheels and we strapped the skates to our shoes.)

In order to make the scooters, we'd nail one roller skate to each end of the plank. Then, at one end of the other side of the plank, we'd nail the orange crate, standing on its end. That orange crate would serve as the front of our scooter. Across the top of the crate we nailed the two-by-four, which served as our handlebars. Often we'd add a bell.

Somehow, and I can't remember the technique, it was possible to create a hinge where the skates were fastened to the plank. Thus, when we went around corners we could tilt the plank but the skate wheels stayed on the ground. We didn't use the word "cool" in those days, but it was pretty cool.

We raced around the sidewalks and streets on our scooters, pumping like mad We decorated our scooters. We used them to jump curbs, we challenged each other to races and, with genuine pride, we showed off our scraped elbows and knees to our parents.

In the winter we'd substitute two Flexible Flyer sleds for the skate wheels and careen down hills with the abandon all kids share because they know they'll never get hurt.

One of my older cousins, with the help of my father and his father, took this a step farther. First came a long, wide plank, perhaps 10 feet long and the width of the sleds. It was fastened to the sleds and became the foundation for the family bobsled of that era.

A narrower plank, sitting on the top of two orange crates (on their sides this time), one at each end of the wide plank, became a long seat. The center of gravity was rather high, but that was part of the fun.

Five or six of us would get on that bobsled. The person in front steered the sled with his feet while the person bringing up the rear did the same. Those in the middle hung on for dear life.

It was a wild contraption, very heavy and very fast. Soon, bobsled runs were being built on the hills in the neighborhood and the bobsleds were being refined to look sleeker and go faster.

These were, of necessity, make-do family projects. Everyone participated and it was wondrous fun.

Well, that's a tiny peek at a slice of my childhood, which I remember with fondness. We're talking about the late 1920's and early 30's. A reasonable annual salary was $3,000, there was no television but life was good.

It's different today Salaries have gone through the roof and old fashioned family projects have almost disappeared. We can't change that - perhaps we don't want to change it - but family projects are important

So, maybe today's kids could be challenged to create their own home-grown projects? Teachers do it in their classrooms all the time, so the children already have good role models to follow.

Family projects could be fun, the children would have fond memories to share - and, after all, not every family can afford five fancy scooters.