My brother and I were talking recently about the few years we lived on a dirt road on the outskirts of Columbus, Ga. He remembered camping out with two friends in the woods behind our house, near the creek. They didn’t have a tent, but made some kind of shelter from a large cardboard box, which slid down the hill and into the shallow creek sometime in the night! He also recalled that all the girls played hopscotch in the dusty road.

“We were lucky because we could play in the woods, wade in the creek and play in the middle of the road,” he said, with a laugh. Since he was four years my senior, he had more adventures than I did, but we had enough fond memories of those years on Anette Avenue to keep us talking for quite a while with “do you remembers?” from both of us.

He asked if I remembered the creek. He spent more time at the creek than I did because I was only supposed to go when he took me — something he tried to avoid at all costs. I do remember catching tadpoles, putting them in jars with the creek water and watching them grow legs. Mama always made us put them back before they became frogs.

I also reminded him of the time he and his friends dammed the creek in an attempt to make a swimming hole. Daddy insisted they remove all the junk they had spent a day dragging down the creek bank to make that dam. Before they took it down, Chella, her brothers, Joe and I all had a chance to wade in water that came up above our knees.

The dirt road was ideal for hopscotch and the neighborhood girls played almost every day during the summer. Our skill at hopping on one leg and picking up the rock improved almost daily. While we hopped, Joe and his pals were kneeling around a circle drawn in the dirt, playing marbles.

We rode tricycles and bicycles and pulled wagons up and down that dead end dirt road for three summers, before it was finally paved. After it was paved, we simply drew our hopscotch grids and marble circles with chalk and continued to use the street as the neighborhood playground. Once all the daddies left for work, traffic was negligible.

The blacktop made for smoother bike riding, a great place to jump rope and allowed us the additional thrill of learning to roller skate. We soon discovered that a paved road causes more abrasions than one of dirt. Our mothers must have gone through gallons of Iodine treating skinned knees and elbows!

Our childhood was a time when children were expected to play outdoors and to find their own amusements. But we were also expected to obey the rules and accept our punishment when we didn’t. We knew the rules and we knew the consequences of breaking those rules would involve physical pain from Mama’s switch on our bare legs or Daddy’s belt on our behinds — depending on the severity of the infraction. Mostly we obeyed the rules!

It was a time of simple pleasures. We got excited when we were allowed to put on our swimsuits and spray each other with the garden hose. Each day we were up and outside as quickly as possible to meet our friends and begin our day of play,

We learned many valuable lessons from those days of seemingly aimless play. Deciding what to play meant discussion and arguments and finally reaching a consensus. Should we play Tarzan or cowboys and Indians? When we made our stagecoach from Louis’ big wagon and a cardboard box, we couldn’t all be the diver or passenger, some of us had to be the horses. Even Louis took his turn as a horse and I don’t think it ever occurred to him to demand preferential treatment because it was his wagon.

We often argued and got into childish feuds among ourselves and if anybody had hurt feelings or was angry, we knew better than to go inside looking for sympathy. Our mothers would send us back out with the threat that if we didn’t solve the problem among ourselves and quit coming in to bother her, we could come inside and stay for the rest of the day. We soon got over our anger or hurt feelings and went about the business of playing.

Not long ago, I was reading on the Internet about how children need to have “stress” exercise to grow healthy, strong bones. The article said children should jump and run and climb and went on to discuss how those activities need to be introduced into the school physical education programs.

Our mothers didn’t realize they were making our bodies grow strong bones. It was just what children did. Sometimes we would jump off the steps and see who could jump further. Jumping rope (and learning verse after silly verse of jump rope rhymes); playing hop scotch and jumping off anything we could find to jump off, was just part of being a child.

We were lucky to have lived in a time and a place where we could spend our summers doing those things, while inside our houses, our mothers (who sent us out each day with admonitions to be careful) waited with the Iodine bottle close at hand because they knew we wouldn’t.

Barbara Grider is staff writer for The Independent. Contact her at bgrider@gulfcoastnewspapers.com.