School days were still far away. I wanted them to come faster but, in the meantime, Easterwood Park was waiting for me. ‘Roz, let’s go. We can get the bean bags before Shirley gets there.’ And off we ran, hand in hand until I stumbled, skinned my knee, spit on my handkerchief to clean away the little blood and ran on.
Darn it. Ira got the bean bags before us but he let us play. When Shirley came we had 2 teams. Being first cousins and best friends, Roz and I were team One. Shirley and Ira, who lived next door to each other, were team Two. We lost.
The sliding board beckoned. My mother gave me a few sheets of waxed paper and I sat on it to go down. Everybody liked that because we could fly down it much faster without burning our tuches. The sand we landed in was cool. I was a fast runner and got to the water fountain first, filled my bucket that had an American flag on it, and ran back to the sand pile, poured the water in the hole
Natalie had made that was going to be the moat to a high, high castle. She took my bucket and ran to fill it while I and Roz did the building. We made windows, stuck a yellow dandelion on top of the castle. It looked grand...grand until my cousin Raymond made ugly faces at us and with his big feet stamped on our castle and smashed it flat. I hated him and tried to kick him but he pushed me in the sand and ran home.
A few swings were still empty. Before there were none left Roz and I each grabbed one and swung and swung. Both of us liked to break the rule and we would stand, bend, push ourselves higher, and higher, never falling off. That tired us out and we took a little rest under the big oak tree near Bentalou St. I looked up to the blue, blue sky and saw Santa Claus. In front of him was a big dragon spitting a while puffy cloud from its mouth, right before my eyes, it turned into a rabbit. I had no time to even point the rabbit out to Roz because it became a whale and the whale swam away. In its place was a devil with horns and a pitchfork. Chasing the devil was a big clown with a tall hat. Where did they come from? Where did they go? The wind began to whistle. The clouds got darker and darker. Thunder began to rumble loud enough I thought I felt the ground shake. Roz, Shirley and I ran as fast as we could into the little wooden supply house. Miss Glazer, the playground teacher, let us in, gave us crayons and paper to keep us busy until the storm passed. And when it had gone, the air smelled so clean, so good, we three girls decided to walk home rather than skip. It was such a good morning.
And the sky movies were free!
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