Grandma used to play outdoor games like red rover, hide-and-seek, and tv tag, in the evenings when she was small. All sorts of games. One time, her and her siblings somehow acquired a small ball that glowed when it was held up to light. They only had it a few nights before Pa eliminated it on them. They were bugging him, running in and out of the house to recharge it, letting the rampant mosquitoes in.
They would collect lightening bugs in a jar, and one night opened the jar in bed, letting all the bugs out. The kids in an uproarious laughter, until Pa came in and gave them all a smack and told them to go to bed. Grandma remembers it as a funny time, laughing as she tells the tale.
Pa liked to play in the snow and so did the uncle. They would build an every growing snowman in the yard until it fell over, Grandma remembers, fondly. Mom and Pa would come home from the bar bringing people back to party, the kids running to their beds pretending to sleep. The rock and roll would be blaring. The girls’ bedroom faced the living room, and they would lean out of their beds and peek around the door to see Pa limboing. They often brought back a cover singing group named after the Platters, her mom’s favourite band. Grandma remarks how odd this was because her mom was kind of racist, and both bands were Black.
All the kids were running around outside while their non stood on the porch smoking a cigarette one evening. She flicked the half-smoked cigarette on the porch and went walking on down the road. Grandma’s brother Don picked up the smoke and took a puff. That night, he taught a 4 or 5 year old Grandma and her siblings how to smoke. She remembers choking on the smoke, after Don told her to take a puff, laughing as she tells it.
Grandma and her siblings and cousins would be left alone a lot, with Grandma’s oldest sister Suds left in charge while their mother and aunt would go out drinking, or go to the States for the Monster Bingo. Suds, who was sadistic like their mom, started babysitting them regularly around age eleven. Maybe she was much worse, Grandma muses.
One time, all the kids went deep into the bush and took off hiding on Grandma, watching and laughing as she walked the wrong direction all damn day. Watched as she ran into a red, thorny bush and got trapped in it for a time. It wasn’t until 8 or 9 pm when she finally freed herself from the woods and found a clearing near her aunt and uncle’s house on the other side of the Island. It took her another two hours to get home, only to find herself getting in shit for being out late.
The kids used to scale the roof against permission by climbing up the aerial alongside the house that was for the tv. They would hang out up there until they’d hear the sound of their parents’ car in the distance and they’d scramble down in an instant.
Grandma’s older sister used to convince them to play hospital to get them to lay down and sleep. Pa would scream, “Don’t turn the house upside-down,” which the older sister took very seriously. She would always throw buckets of water onto the floors to wash them, stripping the kids down to their underwear and letting them slide on the soapy floor, music blaring as they did. Sometimes, she’d kick all the kids out and sometimes she’d get them to help.
On weekends the parents were drinking, which was often, Pa would buy at least 3 to 4 cases of beer. He never seemed to notice or care whether Suds would swipe a whole case. Mom and Pa had bought Suds a stereo that was like a cabinet, and Suds would lead dance competitions, sitting on top of the stereo, beer in hand. She would use masking tape or painters tape as a badge, the length indicating your score. “Half of the Island could hear the music,” Grandma says, “nobody cared”.
One time, while having a dance competition, her three cousins were sitting in their mom’s swivel chair, twirling around super fast, and they broke the chair. Suds fixed it so it looked like it was ok. Mom and Pa came home, and the kids pretended they were sleeping. Pa went straight to sleep. Mom was having her favourite soup, Campbell’s vegetable soup made with milk instead of water. She made herself a cup, and flopped down in the chair, spilling the soup everywhere, falling over backwards. The kids could not contain themselves, busting out laughing. Mom was too drunk to do anything about it.
The older sister got into booze fairly early, around 11, giving her younger siblings a taste now and then, too. Whether Pa noticed or not, he did nothing about it. Suds would concoct random drinks for the kids to drink, which would include strange ingredients like eggs, milk, salt, pepper, spices, and force the kids drink it. Threatening to hit them if they didn’t.
They played yard games during the day, too, often with the boys next door. They never went in each other’s houses, but played on the street regularly. One of the boys, Ben, they called “the Monk”, Grandma forgets why. They used to listen to an album called “Rubber Ducky” blaring from the stereo inside, the windows and doors open wide while the kids played outside, regularly. It had all different kinds of children’s songs on it. The one song:
🎶 “The Monk. The Monk. The Monk. He sat on the elephant’s trunk. The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees and that was the end of the Monk. The Monk.” 🎵
They’d sing to tease the boy. They knew he’d chase them and catch them and give them a bit of a shake. They would run around squealing, trying to escape him, having a blast.
Their older cousin was around the same age as Suds, so sometimes, they’d hang out at their Auntie’s house drinking beer around the kitchen table, teaching the younger kids strip poker. Grandma was probably around 6 when it started. Even though everyone else was nude, they would poke and prod at her, so she wasn’t enjoying herself. Knowing it was wrong. It didn’t feel right, anyway. She doesn’t remember the details of the poking and prodding, but she remembers crying.
When playing hide and seek, the older sister would hog tie, blindfold, and sexually assault Grandma. When she got really vile, the sister would gag Grandma. Grandma would be reluctant to play when the other kids wanted to. She was so little, she didn’t even know enough to hide in new spots every time. Sometimes Suds would make Grandma do things to her little brother and just watch.
In Grandma’s opinion the kids were left alone too much. In her words, it got pretty brutal sometimes. A time when the other kids were running around being free, Grandma was not having so much fun.
Grandma and Suds reconnected on Facebook in their later years, occasionally chatting on the phone. Acting all nicey nicey, as Grandma puts it, asking Grandma to come visit her in Windsor, not realizing Grandma was waiting on an apology. Suds wouldn’t give it. One day on Facebook, Grandma decided she had had enough. She said something in Suds’ inbox. Asked her why she even thought of doing the things she did to her.
“Aw. Let’s not be mad now.” The sister responded, filling Grandma with rage. Grandma thought of a little brown lie, and told her sister she had an audio book of her life in the works. That scared Suds off for a time. Making her nervous. She passed away a year or two after without contact. Grandma attended the funeral to go see her cousins, nieces, and nephews. “It was a relief she passed,” Grandma says.
What games did you play as a kid that you still remember today?
If this story made you think about the complicated ways childhood shapes us, restack it or share it with someone who might connect with Grandma’s story.
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