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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg 115/123

I ENTERTAIN MYSELF

I spent many of my days growing up having to find my own way of
entertaining myself. Many hours were spent pretending to operate a
timber business. Papa let me cut any of the blackpine on the place I
wanted to. Early in the 40’s Aunt Nita had given us a wood frame
wagon to play with, it had a stake body. After it had its life used
up in that capacity I recycled it as my log truck. With some old 2 x
4’s I built a frame, bolted the wheels and braces on, and made the
cross piece to hold the logs. With a part of another wagon I built a
trailer, and attached it to the "truck” with a bent metal bar nailed
to the tongue of the trailer. Presto, nifty "log-truck”. I cut many a
blackpine sapling and hauled to the woodpile for fire wood. The
wheels weren't very wide so if I had much weight on it, it was very
hard to pull. If I would have had wider wheels they would have not
buried in the sand and I would not have had to work so hard. Doing
most of this in the depth of summer created a big problem of getting
so hot "working" in the summer's sun. The pay wasn’t very good but
the exercise and entertainment was enormous. In 1952, when we moved I
figured I had outgrown this operation, so it was left behind for
someone to find and maybe continue using it as designed or maybe make
some other useful ’’toy." I never tried to do any turpentine
business, that seemed too much like work! As I got older even before
we moved I had to do more and more real farm work so I had less and
less time to spend just "playing."

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