My South: The pull of the toy box

Under the ancient glider on our screen porch is a plastic tub of toys. We never had children, but we’ve served as baby sitters for working family members through the years. Any experienced baby sitter knows the value of a good toy box. I measure the quality of a toy box by the hours of peace I get when the kids are at play with the things inside it. 

Our toy box doesn’t have any electronic gadgets or expensive pieces. The things in the box are sale items we’ve picked up at Fred’s, Dollar General or other discount stores. My wife Jilda found a set of wooden blocks. These aren’t the familiar “ABC” blocks, but simple colored cubes, rectangles, triangles and cylinders. There are also tiny action figures, small metal cars, trucks, tractors and trains in the box. Rounding out the bunch are cans of Play-Doh, bottles of bubbles, crayons and watercolors.

Last year when we celebrated the Fourth of July, a few of our friends and family came over. We had 11 adults and six kids. Most of the kids brought their electronic toys, and sat in the living room playing until the batteries died. After that, they started getting fidgety. 

Our house is a “tiny house” by today’s standards. When filled with family, friends and pets, it gets cozy — especially with restless young’uns.

Jilda has baby-sitting radar. Once she realized a potential kid meltdown, she herded them to the screen porch, pulled out the toy box and let imagination do the rest.

Now and then an adult would step out of the conversation long enough to check on the kids. When it was my turn, I moved to the entryway, leaned on the doorjamb and watched the action from a distance. Even though the kids ranged in age from 5 to 15, they immersed themselves in play with the old toys.

As dusk drew near, the company said their goodbyes and headed off in different directions. Jilda and I tag-teamed to do the after-party cleanup. We knocked out the kitchen and set the dishwasher to humming before tackling the screen porch.

Once on the porch, there was a tower of wooden blocks that almost reached the ceiling fan. Each block was stacked precariously on the one below. How it was still standing, I do not know, but when I tried to disassemble the stack, it fell. I could hear wooden blocks rattling to all corners of the porch. I’m not sure if this was planned by the kids or not, but locating the blocks was like an Easter egg hunt. I looked under ferns, statues and behind wooden screens.

It also took a while to scrape the Play-Doh from between the cracks of our tiled table. Once the porch was back in order and the toys placed inside the box, I sat on the glider and looked at the toys for a while. The kid in me said, “I think I could build a fort with these pieces.”

Rick Watson is a columnist and author. His latest book, “Life Goes On,” is available on amazon.com. Email him at rick@rickwatson-writer.com.