Saturday, March 3, 2018

Japan Story

Pastimes and Games

How did a solitary kid amuse herself when there was no TV, computers or iPhones?

I had dolls of course.   There was a Nora Welling doll that I adored.  She had a beautiful face, sculpted from felt with painted features.Her long  velveteen dress was pink, with a bonnet to match.  (In the doll collection is a similar doll that I got through eBay recently, in miniature.  When I unpack the doll collection I will photograph it for the record.) 

I had as mentioned before, Setseko-San, the traditionally dressed Japanese doll. Also a Raggedy Ann doll, very popular in those days.  Has anyone heard of a Golliwog?  I had one of those too.  And Sammy Samuels the ventriloquist's puppet, though I could not make him talk as well as my father could.

I remember playing "Tiddly Winks" and "Snakes and Ladders", which is still popular.  Do you know how to play "Tiddly Winks?"   You have some colored plastic disks which you try to flip into a cup using another disk It requires  great skill.  The one who gets most in the cup wins.  

"Hide the Thimble" was another favorite.  After dinner we would play it in the living room.  Someone would hide a thimble in plain sight, but hard to find in its surroundings.  The others would search around the room, with the person who hid the thimble calling out,

"You're getting warmer (or colder)", as the seekers  came nearer or further away from the thimble.   The one who found it got to be the new "hider".

Then there was the memory game, from Rudyard Kipling, I believe.  My father would arrange about twelve items on a tray,  a pair of scissors, a match, a pencil - other small familiar objects.  I was required to study the objects for about a minute, then a cloth was flung over them. The task was to recall as many objects as possible.

I do not remember a musical instrument of any kind.  We had no piano, although my father was an accomplished pianist.  He was trained as a violinist and played professionally.  He had also taken a percussion class at one time with the rhythms set to words.  He would tap out, "Iddy, umpty, iddy, umpty" or " Go-to-bed-Tom, go-to-bed--Tom, Father and Mother and ev-er-ee one."

" Do it AGAIN, Daddy."