Yard Games — Country Style

Even though Summer doesn’t officially start until late June, the month of May has always seemed to me to be when thoughts turn to the kind of activities that Summer brings. For one thing, it means that a lot of people will be spending time outdoors and taking part in picnics, cookouts, or just plain old goofing around in the back yard.

I ran across this picture the other day, and couldn’t help chuckling at its tongue-in-cheek message. But it also brought back memories from my childhood and Summers in the country.

I don’t remember ever having backyard picnics at our home in the city — at least not while I was a small boy — but we definitely had family gatherings at my grandparents’ rural home.

I can remember the ladies loading down makeshift tables in the backyard with everything from fried chicken to home-canned pickles, along with corn on the cob and fresh sliced tomatoes if it was far enough into the season.

I also remember how the men would load big steel washtubs with cracked ice and bottled drinks — soda pop for the kids and beer for the men. The latter came in handy when they got into long and lively games of horseshoes, which were also a regular part of the whole experience — but the game was played with real horseshoes, not toilet seats. The funny thing is that there weren’t even any toilet seats on the premises — the outhouse had a hole sawed in a board.

Blue Highway – “Horseshoe Bend”