Flashback Saturday ~ the sandbox

We had a sandbox in the side yard. It was not one of those silly manufactured ones they have now, it was made out of 2x6's. They were up on their sides, dug slightly into the ground, with triangle pieces on two of the corners to make little seats. It sat in the shade of two of the biggest trees I had ever seen.

Steven and I were not the shovel and pail types, we did not take Tonka trucks out and do the earth movers crap. Steven and I were architects, home builders, and we had families.

Everyday in the summer for as many summers as I can remember, we would walk out of the house, stopping at the raspberry bush to fill up the little pouches we made in our shirts, and head out to "work". The North end of the sandbox was always Steven's, and I had the South end. We used the little triangle seats for our raspberries, and our people.

Steven would check the sand, and if needed he would go back to the side of the house and get the hose. While he fetched that, it was my job to remove any leaves or sticks, any debris that had found it's way into the sand. After a quick splash, not too much, we could get to work.

We always started with a line down the middle. This is your half. This is my half.

On our knees in the mud created by the hose used to dampen the sand, we got filthy. Sand up to our elbows, in our hair and all over our faces, because inevitably, we would get a mosquito buzzing and have to slap at it, or, in my case, a stray hair out of the pony would tickle my neck and need to be tamed. But we were geniuses and could not be bothered by such trivial things.

We built homes, with inch-high walls. A sunken living room. A master bath. A library. A lovely stone deck. With the help of a straight-ish twig and a roughly flat piece of bark, we could create a loft space for a child's bedroom. We used acorn shells to create a sink or a toilet bowl, We used raspberry leaves and sprigs of greenery to create the shrubs and landscaping.

This process could take 2 or three days. That was alright, perfection takes time. We were patient, we had all summer. The raspberry bush would always have more to offer us, and the shade of those trees would protect us from the worst of the sunburns.

There was jealousy, of course, Steven had better home designs, in my opinion. He accused me of copying his plans. This could very well have been the case, I do not remember. He was just so smart, and had such an imagination.

After the building stage came the playing stage. Our reward for our hard work. We had families to move into these newly built homes. The line down the middle of the sandbox became the street on which they lived. Their front doors faced each other and were roughly 3 inches apart. Pretty tight quarters, but their houses were huge, so it was a trade off. We used every possible inch of our halves for the houses, trying to outdo each other, so if the view out the windows looked right into the home across the 'street', well, so be it.

The families that moved in consisted of Star Wars figures. Steven supplied these, so he got first pick. I find it funny now that he chose Princess Leia, and Han Solo, with a couple of Ewoks for kids. I was left to give my home to Luke Skywalker and Lando Calresian... Luke and Lando didn't have kids, just a very large upright dog named Chewie. Yeah, I got the gay couple, and Steven got the perfect picket fence family. Irony gang, gotta love it.

We never played long, whenever we finished building and moved them in, they got perhaps the rest of the day, or if it was late in the day when we finished, they got the next morning, too. Then we would remove the inhabitants, and like angry Gods, cause floods and destruction.

And the next day we would head out of the house, pausing at the raspberry bush to load up our shirt pouches and start all over again.