Day 1 Clover, Wild Onions, and Sandspurs…
No one had great lawns back when I was growing up, so our yard was filled with clover more than grass, but that made for great Clover Necklaces. If you don’t know what I mean, you are really missing out.
We would pick the white buds that would bloom from the cover with a long green stem, make a slit with our fingernails, and thread another one through the hole. Here is a sample.
The only problem is…where there is clover there are honeybees and as I said yesterday, bare feet and honeybees don’t mix.
Summers were hot and sticky in Greenville, but if it got too hot, Mama would let us play under the hose which also served as our water fountain all day long. Of course, you have to let the hot water run out first and not care about the “plastic hose” taste, but it was cold and felt good when we would stick our heads under it.
Three blocks away was our Elementary School with a huge playground where some great wild onions grew. They were about 12 inches high with big purple heads (back then they didn’t cut the grass much, especially if the school wasn’t in session). We would pick the onion, double the stem around one end, and when you pulled it really fast the onion hand would pop off and you could have an onion fight.
We also had Sand Spur fights. If you have never been in one, then you are probably NOT from the South. When they are dry and hard, we could reach down low and pick the stem leaving you with a long stem and a Sand Spur on the top which you would throw at your target. You did have to be careful about your target, or else some kid would run home and tell his/her Mama and we would be in trouble.
If you don’t know what a Sand Spur is, here is a picture of the nasty little devils.
Some people might consider what I’ve just said barbaric, but remember, we had very little else to do but invent our own games and make do with what we had…and that’s what we did.
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