Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the ‘nutrition’ needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.
“Grandpa, this park is really quiet and really nice!”
It’s amazing the feelings that come out of a 5-year-old.
For families with young children, the days of July and August are often ‘camp’ days. Sports camp, church camp, and when all else is used up – Grandma’s camp. Off they go to grandma’s for a week. Our grandson had done two sessions at sports camp, a week with the other grandparents in St. Thomas, and it was finally our turn for 5 days.
Have you noticed that 5-year-olds spend a lot of time on the floor? Puzzles, colouring, building blocks, mats with diagrams of roads for Dinky cars, plastic race tracks that look like roller coasters – all done on the floor. They’re down and busy, then jump up to rush away for something, then back down. On the floor!
After 73 years, and an accumulation of falling, tripping (some intentional by competitors), slashing, banging into things, and piling on of bodies from skiing, football, soccer, and hockey my knees and back are not happy about playing on the floor. Sitting on a short stool and leaning in, is not really “playing” I’m told. So down on the floor go my knees and back.
Am I ever thankful for playgrounds in local parks. This Grandpa can still climb up the ramps, stairs and ladders on the structures, and he’s a pro at keeping a swing moving rhythmically. The observation, “Grandpa, this park is really quiet and really nice!”, came out at the Petersburg Park, nestled into a shady bowl on Notre Dame Drive, as I pushed my grandson on a swing.
He asked me why there were no other kids at the park to play with. An adult’s observations that it was the middle of the week, the middle of the afternoon, maybe some kids had already been here but had left, maybe some were not here yet because they were doing other stuff right now didn’t convince him. But then a family with a young girl arrived. His eyes tracked her movements from structure to structure as she and her dad “played”. He finally got up enough nerve to move closer and try out the weather station device near where she was climbing. He’s like his grandpa, he played hard-to-get (aka shy) and it was she who took the initiative and asked him his name.
At that point, grandpa retreated to the picnic table where her dad soon joined me and we got into a pleasant conversation of our own while watching the kids. The family had driven out from a densely populated part of Kitchener to play. He was originally from the township and was enjoying an outing in a “really quiet and really nice” park.
The Petersburg Optimists had apparently cooperated with the Township in getting this playground project done. There are playgrounds sponsored by service clubs like the Optimists, Lions, Lioness, Masons, Rotary, denominational groups, etc. throughout this paper’s distribution area.
If you come across a sales table, a tent shelter, a smoking BBQ, a Bristol board sign on a pole with smiling faces behind it, then get in line for a burger, fries, or raffle ticket because it is this way that these volunteer folks raise the money that eventually completes a project – like a playground. Kudos to the service clubs!
If you’re a service group member who has a specific park project in this area to brag about, my grandson and I want to visit it. Send me directions at thisiswilmot@gmail.com. We’d both enjoy a new chance for some “rhythmic swinging”!
The characters in these tales are fictional, except for the first person singular.
You may send appropriate email comments to the writer at thisiswilmot@gmail.com