How did we entertain ourselves?

[bobbysmith]

barbara i dare not ask what you are doing with the smelly stuff,hope you are not smoking the resulting produce,ha ha

[barb (Fry)]

, Bobby sorry boet its pure gardeners delight.  As you know everyone is a gardener in the UK.  You can plant anything and it gorws here.  Never had such green fingers.  It's fantastic.

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

great site, many names that I remember and people I have thought about
was it just me or did anyone else climb onto the roof of the rec club to look in the window during the balls and dances.

All the parents dolled up and the glitterball twinkiling, I was to young to be invited to the teenage dance at the time.
we would run away from Joseph who was suppose to be kidsitting and often saw gemsbok on our way back.
almost peed my pants the first time.
amazingly we all just got used to it ...

I think most of us climbed on the roof of the rec. I remember i could  never get from the wall to the roof and always had to be pushed up by butt. The boys used to snigger much better because wow they could see down the dresses from up there......cleavage.

[Michael Alexander]

We used to live up on that roof on Saturday afternoons, whilst mom and dad were having a singsong in the sportsmans... there were a few good places to get up onto that roof, but the best was at the back of the Hexen Kessel in the loading yard..... For some reason I still remember those big double doors by the library side of the rec club hall and that noise they made on a saturday afternoon when you opened them..

:o

[Delia]

many of u have probably seen this as its been doing it's rounds by e-mail for a while now but to me it captures the essence of an o'mund childhood - puts it all into a nutshell: enjoy  :)

Close your eyes and go back in time...............
Before the Internet or the Apple Mac,    
Before semi-automatics and crack cocaine,
Before playstation or Cartoon Network
Way back..............

I'm talking about the time of hide & seek in the park... or dark,
The café down the road, hopscotch, donkey, skipping & handstands
Backyard cricket with a tomato box, Dandy & Beano annuals,
French skipping, charms & "arlies",
Jumping the river, living on the beach,
Building a swing from a piece of rope tied to a tree,
Tennis on the street or swingball in the backyard,
The smell of suntan lotion, hot tar and Oros
Wicks bubble gum for a cent,
An ice cream cone from the kombi that plays a tune......

Wait, can you still remember.......
When around the corner seemed far away
And going into town seemed like going somewhere....
And your mother made you "dress up" for the trip,
A million mozzie bites and peeling skin in summer
Sticky fingers and sand in and on everything,
Cops and robbers, rounders, stingers, foefie slides and climbing trees,
Walking or riding your bike to school – no matter what the weather,
Running till you were out of breath
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt,
Jumping on the bed, pillow fights
Spinning round and round getting dizzy and falling down,
Being tired from playing........ remember that? 

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team,
Paper water bombs and clay "lats" were the ultimate weapon,
A piece of cardboard in the spokes held by a peg transformed any bike into a ,

I'm not finished just yet.........
               
Can you still taste & smell....eating raw jelly from the box,
Ice lollies made from cooldrink from Tupperware holders in the freezer,
Making sherbet from sugar & Eno,
And boiling tins of condensed milk to make caramel – took hours!

Remember when, there were two types of takkies,
Tommie & the others & the only time you wore them at school, was for "PT",
It wasn't odd to have 2 or 3 "best friends",
Nobody owned a pedigree dog and 25 cents was decent pocket money,
When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for 5 cents and feel lucky,
When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got there

Remember when it was magic when dad would 'remove his thumb", or make 10 cents appear from behind your ear,
When it was considered a great privilege and very unusual to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant or in a proper hotel,
Or when on the rare occasion Dad stopped at a roadhouse or took you to a "drive in",
Remember when any parent could discipline any kid, or feed him or use him to carry groceries and nobody, not even the kid, thought anything of it

When being sent to the headmaster's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home,
Basically, we were in fear of our lives but it wasn't because of muggings, drugs, gangs, etc. – our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
Didn't that feel good...just to go back and say,
Yeah, I remember that

Remember when....
                                    
Decisions were made by going "eeny meeny miny mo"
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming "Nix"
"A race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest,
Money was handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly",      
The worse thing you could catch from the opposite sex was germs,
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a Bic pen pea ,
Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable vitamin C or milk of magnesia,
Ice cream was considered a basic food group,
Skills and courage were discovered because of a "dare"
Older sibling were the worse tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors

If you can remember all or most of the above, then you have LIVED!!!!

[Ann Gander (nee Greenway)]

That really sums up my childhood in Oranjemund!  I remember it all!  Won't be doing the rounds in the UK  :)

[Tessa Maritz]

I'll pay R50.00 for a truckload anyday!! Gheez on the other side of the river you like pay rent for the lorry and the diesel used etc.

[SandyB]

Entertain  ourselves  .  yes  lots  of  house parties ... Mike looking  at the  Mc Cullagh  photos  I  see a few  more of your  Mum ... as  I  said   about  her   before  " always in  her  moment"   is my  fond  memory  of  her ...   another  good  friend of your  Mum  was  Flo  Worth ( still  going strong  and  living  with   daughter Penny )  anyhow  the One night  we   all at  a braai  at  Sid  and  Flo  about circa 77  ,  there  was this big scare  in  the  town  with  Putsi  flies  ( apparently  they  would lay  eggs  in  your washing   which  could  if   brought  in  contact  with  skin  allow  it  to  burrow  into  skin , result  being  the  larvae  growing  under the  skin ... Uuugh ! )  instructions  were to  either  tumbledry  clothing  or  iron  well  as the  heat  would   kill off the eggs  ..  anyhow  one  of the  lady guests  at  the  braai  got  a  "bit  tired "  and  decided  to  take  a lay  down  on the  lawn   ...   Flo  and Vi  in  their  jolly  state  decide  that  this  is  bad  for    the  " tired  guest "  as  she  may  well  get Putsi flies  from  laying  on  the grass .. so  the two  of  like  naughty  schoolgirls  run  into  the  house  and  emerge  brandishing  an iron   ( cold  of  course )   and  declare  that  they  are  going to iron  her to " kill  off  the  Putsi fly  eggs "    What a  hoot  .. "tired " guest  is   shocked  awake   finding  herself  being  held  down  by  Vi and  being ironed  by  Flo   Much  screaming  and  laughing  by  all ...