Boomer's Journal - A great big sandbox

By Rachel Barduson of Alexandria

I remember one particular “first day of summer” when I had just finished the second or third grade. Of course, the first day of summer was the last day of school. On this particular day I remember that I had decided that it would be the summer that I would start digging a hole to China. You know, where all of the starving children were.

You see, any time I was stubborn about not cleaning my plate at the dinner table, mom or dad would remind me of the starving children in China. Well, this particular summer I would find them by digging, which in my mind, would be the only way I could get to the bottom of this issue. After all, they were on the other side of the world, so if I dug straight down, I’d eventually get to them.

I started digging on the path that led to the pasture. Wagon wheels and tractors had carved out the path. The dirt was dusty and as I painstakingly filled my spoon, the wind would blow it away. The process seemed slow. This was going to take a whole lot longer than I anticipated. It must have been a tedious, long few minutes (maybe 5 or 10?) before I realized that this could take longer than summertime. Dad had made it sound so easy.

I realized that my “summer sandbox” was a whole lot bigger than the path I chose to dig my way to China. There were other territories to discover. As I moved from my shallow “hole” on the tractor path, I joined dad in the machine shed and proceeded to pound nails in the dirt, as I often did. I was a daddy’s girl, so just being where he was would be good enough for me. I had important work to do, and at this very moment, it was pounding nails in the dirt.  Dad told me it was okay if I didn’t get all the way to China after all.

Pounding nails into the dirt was fun for about (realistically) 10 minutes. With dad’s encouragement, I realized there was a much bigger patch of land I could cover with all kinds of make-believe friends. This would be the summer of discovery and I was about to discover as much as I could. A child’s attention span isn’t that long and, thank God, we had so many options to choose from outdoors to keep our minds active. Imaginary friends and imaginary stories – I was one lucky little girl as I went from one spot to another in my giant sandbox on the farm.

My childhood “Winnie-the-Pooh” was Coco, my Teddy bear. I got him for Christmas in 1960 and he’s been with me ever since. Contributed photo

As I write about memories of my summer sandbox, I am reminded of Winnie the Pooh and the genius author A. A. Milne. Of course, Winnie the Pooh’s stories and quotes are all written by A. A. Milne. But to me, some things just make more sense coming from a stuffed bear rather than a human author. So, let’s just pretend that Winnie actually wrote his stories by himself, as our beloved stuffed bear, while he and his friend Christopher Robin and other friends, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore, Owl, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo and Backson, all got-about their days. My imaginary friends in my giant summer sandbox were like Winnie the Pooh and his friends.

I can relate better to Winnie, who said, “It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like, ‘What about lunch?.’” 

When I lost interest in digging my way to the starving children in China, I explored a vast prairie and woods and dirt and sand in other places. I took mom’s broom from the back porch and swept out spots in the woods, set up housekeeping by finding random sticks and boards (and took maybe a few nails from the machine shed), collected my play dishes and hosted an array of tea parties with my imaginary friends. Having a sister to play with and climb trees with was a bonus, yet I didn’t realize it at the time. Having a first cousin come over for a day of play in our giant forest was a bonus. Having an older sister by seven years, who came up with adventures beyond my imagination, sparked bravery my other sister and I didn’t know we had. Like, for instance, climbing the windmill to test our fear of heights. Now that I think about it, everything was a test when it came to doing things with her – you know, like jumping off a cliff. I didn’t know it until now, she was my Winnie the Pooh who said, “You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Those childhood summers in our great big sandbox on the farm provided a lot of fun and a lot of things to do – or not do. I guess I haven’t grown up after all and I’d bet many readers of this column would agree, you haven’t grown up either. After all, growing up is overrated, even though while we played in our great big sandbox we were (perhaps?) impatient to grow up.

“I can’t wait to be a teenager. I can’t wait to be 16,” said me, myself, and I. I am not sure, but I don’t think Pooh ever said that.

“What I like doing best is nothing,” Winnie the Pooh said.

“How do you do nothing,” asked Pooh after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, ‘What are you going to do, Christopher Robin?’ and you say, ‘Oh, nothing,’ and then you go and do it.”

“It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”

“Oh!” said Pooh.”

Winnie the Pooh has provided inspiration in just exactly what I want to do in my giant sandbox this summer. Nothing. Read the prior paragraph again. When people ask me what I’m going to do, I’m going to say, “Oh, nothing,” and then I’m going to go and do it.

And I’m going to do it in my great big sandbox.