Keeping Kids Busy

Playtime in the ’60s was pretty unstructured. Parents shooed their kids out the door and figured they’d find something to do until mealtime. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Richard, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.J. Drye, 1808 North Main Street, elected to protect the family garbage can from marauders. His bored expression makes it look like his backyard suffers from a dearth of marauders. His cap’s earflaps should protect him if an unexpected summer snowstorm sneaks up behind him.

Fun in the sprinklers

All of the photos but this one ran on the June 18, 1966, Missourian Youth Page to go along with a story about what made kids finishing the second grade at at Campus School happy about summertime. I try to do my posts from scanned negatives to get better quality, but I happened across these kid pictures in a box and decided to run them even if time and the elements has caused the prints to fade.

This boy’s picture didn’t run and there was no ID written on the back of the print, so he’ll have to stand in for all of us who ran barefoot through a backyard sprinkler.

 The ups and downs of playing at the park

Debbie Statler came up to Capaha Park from New Madrid for a school picnic. The microfiche copy was blurry, but Debbie’s parents looked like Mr. and Mrs. Delbert Statler. Going to Cape for a New Madrid child was probably like a Cape kid going to St. Louis.

Richard Harris was busy stealing souls

New Madrid youngster Ricky, son of Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Harris, is making sure he has a record of the day’s activities. I wonder if it was a passing fancy or if he was sucked into his soul-stealing machine like I was at about the same age. I hope he got a clear picture without his finger in front of the lens. His Kodak Duaflex II was carefully protected in what we photographers called a never-ready case. They might keep your camera clean and safe, but they also got in the way and kept you from being able to shoot quickly and to change film easily. I’ve got a bunch of them in the attic that never saw service.