“I’m tired of playing video games and computer stuff, Grandpa. Did you ever get bored with video games when you were a kid?” said Sonny.

“Believe it or not I was once a kid, but I never got tired of playin’ video games. There were no such things then,” I said.

“Then what did you have to play with?” Sonny asked.

“Not very much,” I said. “I used to be excited when the Sears Roebuck fall and winter catalog came in the mail. I loved to open it to the toy section and plan what to ask Santa Claus to bring me.”

“What did you ask for?” 

“I saw a toy truck, the kind I could ride in, and make go with pedals.”

“Did he bring you one?”

“He brought me a truck, but not one I could ride. It was about a foot long and made of cast iron. Oh well, I didn’t really have a place to ride it; no sidewalks.”

“But you played with it didn’t you?”

“Oh yes. We lived close to my grandma’s house. Her yard had a section that sloped upward from the main part of the yard with some big lilacs on the slope. There was bare ground under the lilacs where I thought it would be neat to build a road for my truck. Grandma let me build a road there. It was great fun to play in real dirt.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun. I never had a place like that to play in the dirt; can’t mess up the lawn.”

“When I got a little older an uncle showed me some tricks with wood that I could get for free.”

“What kind of tricks?”

“Playthings. There was a paw-paw patch and some elderberry bushes nearby where Uncle took me to gather the wood he needed. He took a length of a thumb-sized branch about six inches long and trimmed one end at an angle of about 45 degrees, then cut a notch in the bark. Next he bruised the bark and slipped it off the wood. He whittled away about half the wood over a three-inch length starting at the point of the notch. He cut out a small flat sliver in the tapered end to make an air passage to the notch in the bark, then replaced the cylinder of bark; voila a whistle.” 

“Neat-o, Grandpa. If you lost it you could make another one.”

“Uncle showed me how to make a pop gun usin’ the elderberry wood. Elderberry wood has a pithy center. We had a stalk about an inch diameter. Uncle burned out the pith from a piece about a foot long with a red-hot poker. All we needed to complete the project was a plunger a little shorter than the hollow elderberry and we would have our popgun. Of course we needed some ammunition. I just chewed a piece of paper and rammed a wad down the tube. I inserted another wad and pushed it rapidly into the tube with the plunger. The first wad flew out with a pop, almost as loud as a cap pistol. I found that I could even hit a target close by.”

“I hope Uncle didn’t burn himself with the poker.”

“He was careful. We had a nice forked piece of wood left. It looked just right for makin’ a slingshot. We needed only a strip of rubber from an inner tube, some twine and perhaps a small piece of leather, and we’d be in business. Now days it may be hard to find an old inner tube, but it’s possible. You want to be careful using a slingshot; windows break easily and it hurts to get hit by a flyin’ pebble.”

“Did you make a sling shot?”

“ Oh Yeah. We made all those things and more. The fun of makin’ em’ was more fun than playin’ with ‘em. Besides, you learn to use your hands and a knife.”

“Gee, it sounds like a lot of fun. I’d like to try it some time.”

“I know where there’s a paw-paw patch. Let’s go check it out.”