Sitting in the swing mid-morning. Another beautiful day with a cloudless blue sky. Been cleaning the corners of the porch. Having some friends over next weekend for a small party. Aunt Margaret Shaffer use to call a little party a “titty tatty.” I always think of that when I have company. The house is still decked out in her Christmas finery but the porch corners are in leaf mode. Sweeping the leaves out I uncovered a pack of chewing gum with one piece. And no I did not chew it. Did I think about chewing it…maybe.

I’m eating a candy cane after I spent 30 minutes trying to get the wrapper off. Has to be a secret to getting the plastic off the candy canes. Still without chewing gum so maybe I’ve kicked the habit. No, I haven’t. Have to get dog food tomorrow so I have to get gum! Can’t let Penelope be without her Caesar filet mignon! And her mama needs some double-mint!

Anybody remember as a child making the potholders with those little looms. I loved to do that! Must have made zillions of them. Actually I still have two I made as a child in the drawer by the stove. Just saw an ad on the internet for a loom with cotton loops. Cost too much now — $44 for the loom. It comes with enough loops to make two potholders. Might be a fun project for me and my granddaughter next Christmas. Read the reviews and someone said it was hard to pull the loops through so I probably couldn’t even make one. I have the worst time with opening stuff. Can’t even get that little paper tab off the top of a gallon of milk. So frustrating!

Thinking about the looms, and the toys I loved playing with when I was young, made me think about paper dolls. Never played with baby dolls. Only loved Barbie for her collections of shoes but I loved paper dolls. I would be so careful cutting or punching them out from the pages in the books. And occasionally, I cut paper dolls from the Sears catalog. Looked forward to my mother’s McCall’s magazine so I could cut out the Betsy McCall paper doll and her clothes. I kept them in a little cardboard school folder.

My mother-in-law loved paper dolls, too. She and her favorite cousin would play for hours, always cutting their paper dolls from the Sears catalog. They would be happily playing and then her cousin’s sister would run in and yell, “Tornado!” Then she would blow on their paper dolls and scatter them around the room. Chief’s mother would still get mad when she’d tell me and Chief the story. Tickled me every time but I knew not to laugh! She was serious about her paper dolls.

I remember playing with a spirograph and a view master and kaleidoscopes. Loved Tinker toys and Lincoln Logs. And the Thingmaker, had little molds you poured plastic goo in to make bugs and creepy crawlers. Always had a handful of the bugs to play with in the bath tub. Youngest brother and I loved to play with those little green army men in our sandbox. You could get a whole bag of them for a dollar.

Before Christmas I was reading the Santa Claus letters from second graders in The Alexander City Outlook. Lots of the letter writers asked for iPhones and Xboxes and video games. One child asked for cash. Finally got depressed and quit reading the letters. No one, at least in the letters I read, wanted a baby doll or a GI Joe or a bike or a basketball or a book or puzzle or a board game.

Guess I’m just getting old. But I’m gonna keep playing!