Childhood giggles

Saturday's brief shower reminded me of hot summer days when friends and I would run out into the gentle rain. We would laugh as we ran around the backyard in our bathing suits as though the raindrops were just for us. Other times it would be giggles as we ran through the sprinkler. We figured out how to take the hose from the sprinkler and, using our thumb over the spout, squirt water at each other. Laughter was the result of planned attacks as the 'hoser' or the 'target' or mutual drenching with squirt guns. Games like Simon Says had kids of all ages in awkward positions on the front lawn or in the basement. 

My first backyard giggles were toddling barefoot in the grass toward grandma. Then my dad built a sandbox. He painted it grey and put a bench on each corner so my neighborhood friends and I could sit and wiggle our toes in the sand. Jamie, who was a year younger than me and lived across the street, liked to use our different sized pails to build cities of round houses and we would create elaborate roadways. Once our kingdoms were finished we would sit above those cities and make up stories about who lived there before we came crashing down and destroyed what we'd built. Sometimes both the stories and the destruction involved shared giggles.

Adults both smile and cringe when kids discover knock-knock jokes, for they know they are in for endless conversations of "who's there?" What cracks up a 6 old year can make a 60 year old groan. In junior high our chuckles included the fad of elephant jokes.

Q: How many elephants fit in a Mini?

A: Four. Two in the front and two in the back.

Q: How many giraffes fit in a Mini?

A. None. The Mini is full of elephants!

By then our neighborhood games had disappeared. The older kids were too cool to play with the few younger ones and my friends and I had discovered Nancy Drew and movie magazines. Girlfriends and I would giggle over movie stars and popular singers, and, of course, boys at school, although none of that for very long, even at slumber parties. We might moon through Teen Angel but then One-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater would come on and we'd shout along and laugh.

Giggles, chuckles, laughter and smiles were contagious in childhood and remain the same today. Just the other day I heard this one. What does the buffalo say to the calf heading off to school? Bison!