Make Your Own Fun

When I was nine or ten years old and summer had arrived, I took my long face to the room where my mother was hard at work transcribing a book into Braille for blinded veterans. It was her way of trying to bring a light to those whose lives WW II had darkened.

“I’ve got nothing to do,” I moaned. It happened that every one of my small group of friends were off for the summer: at camps, the beach, on family vacations or visiting grandmothers. There was nobody around with whom to do any of our group things: catching salamanders or snakes in the nearby creek, playing baseball, smoking “borrowed” KOOLS under the railroad bridge, exploring the nearby woods or taking bike rides. “There isn’t anything to do,” I complained. ”All the guys are gone and so are all the fun things we did together.”

My mother continued clicking away on her brail machine, and without looking up said. “Charles, I guess you will have to make your own fun.” She probably meant reading a book, conquering the 50 spelling demons, or doing arithmetic problems. “Yuk! That’s no way to spend these great summer days.” I thought that what mother probably had in mind sounded like summer school or some sort of punishment.

A day or so later I got to thinking about what mother had said.”Make your own fun.” So I did. Among other things I designed a game replicating a baseball season for the eight American League teams, and played it right to the league championship. All I needed was a pad of blank paper, a pair of dice and a pencil. Of course the Philadelphia Athletics, my hometown team, finally won the pennant. Did I cheat? Maybe only a little.

I also invented an outdoor baseball game that involved throwing an old tennis ball against the back garden stairs, and charting how it bounced back. What fun! I could be pitcher, batter, fielders, umpire and a play-by-play radio announcer all at the same time. I also invented a couple of other single-player games. Making my own fun was OK.

So here we are and almost everything we had been in the habit of doing together has flown away on the wings of COVID-19.

While I have had success in making my own fun in these long solitary months, I know that many of my readers have also found ways to make their own fun. I am collecting these solitary inventions, and sometime in the next few weeks I’ll publish what I have received. So think about it, and e-mail me the results. It looks like we are in this isolation just a bit longer. Nobody knows who might find useful something you have come up with. It may not be a summer vacation when all our friends are out of reach, but still it may be a good time to make your own fun.