"Let's pretend..."

Dear Diary,

How I use to love playing shadow puppets as a little girl!  Learning to make various characters with you hands was challenging and fun.  In this case, just one hand since I needed the other to hold the camera and take the picture - not easy!

We had to learn to entertain ourselves back in the day.  Television was only for special treats, besides, there wasn't much on in the early days anyway.  We rose with the sun, did our chores, and then went out to play for the day only coming back to eat. 

We made up lots of games.  One of my favorites was trying to sneak into the hen house that my brother was "guarding".  He would walk around it slowly and my friend and I would try to get in before he returned.  We got an egg and then had to get out and deliver it to the kitchen before he caught up with us.  Kept us busy for hours!

At family gatherings, my father would pay us 10 cents to corral any hens that escaped their enclose yard.  That would happen, much to our delight, at least 5 or 6 time during the day.  The cry, "The hens are out!" would be raised and off we would go to rescue them. Much later I learned that my father would let loose a hen or two from time to time just to keep us busy! 

Make believe was an important part of growing up for me and I credit those long hours of pretending for honing my imagination.  My favorite phrase was, "Let's pretend...."  Nothing was needed except our imagination.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Albert Einstein