The games of yesteryear

Once upon a time, the boys lived as in one family, in the street, in the woods, without differences, perhaps organized by small clans, distinguished by character affinity and had very few toys bought at fairs but On the other hand, they had learned from the older ones and also from the elderly a whole artisan aptitude to make traditional toys themselves and also bring some innovations to them.
In addition to wooden rifles made by carving small logs, tanks were built, the frezze, the slingshots, the tow trucks with the roads and the bulldozers, the sleds, the wheelchairs, the wheelbarrows, the skis, the cableways and the carbide bombs.
Then there was the great desire for cars in all of them, sometimes a wooden circle was enough to imitate a steering wheel to spend whole days running along the paths and doing brum-brum maneuvers.
Some of the games most used by young people were:

• The tanks: were made with wooden spools from mothers ‘and grandmothers’ thread, two ends of an elastic were inserted into the hole, wrapped and stopped, on one side, to encircle a wooden stick and, on the other side to a longer stick, to act as a lever. Before being knotted on the second stick, the elastic passed through a wax rod, with a hole in the center, placed in adherence to the side face of the spool. Turning the longer stick caused a screwing in the elastic which was charged with energy and tended, like a spring, to unwind. Resting the mechanism on the ground, the energy discharged its charge on the wooden reel which began to roll slowly because the wax, pressed on the side face of the reel, slowed it, without the wax the rotation would have been much faster and there would have been no the forward motion of the rudimentary machine. To overcome obstacles to the tank, the two extreme parts of the spool were carved, which had a larger diameter than the central part where the wire was rolled. Grappas were thus formed which allowed the tank to overcome the roughness of the route.

• The frezze: a small wooden fork was taken from a branch, and tied to it by knotting two strips of bicycle inner tube of equal length. A piece of leather was tied to the other garments and the frezza was beautiful and ready. The ammunition consisted of simple pebbles which, in truth, were thrown with dangerous power.

• The slings: were made of ropes wrapped around a stone that was thrown with force when rotated.

• Trailer trucks with roads and bulldozers: the comings and goings of trucks loaded with wood that continually passed, stimulated the imagination of the children who using the cans of sardines and similar tied with string ‘one after the other (truck with trailer), they made them slide along real tracks or miniature roads, carved into the ground and opened with metal sheets nailed to pieces of wood (bulldozers). This game was very creative and socializing, as it stimulated the imagination, created imaginary work relationships, got used to building miniature things.

• Wheelchairs and wheelbarrows: as in all countries, the boys used all objects similar to the wheel to try to build even the most distant imitation of the car, motorcycle or only of the cycle. The desire to imitate the “sciofferro” and to have a round steering wheel in your hands was so strong that if you were able to get into the cockpit of a vehicle, even parked, you would stay there for hours or whole days dreaming of travel and maneuvers. . There were many creations in imitation wood of pedal cars and carts with the use of ball bearings, wooden wheels, other pieces and scrap similar to wheel etc. The wheelchairs were then used to tow or in the descents. With just two wheels, we were limited to building an imitation bicycle with step-by-step traction. The wheelbarrows were made with the use of a single wheel, in imitation of the carts of the workers.

• Skis and sleds: with the advent of heavy snow, skis and wooden sleds were made by bending boards using water and heat. The wooden stairs were also stolen to simulate sledges in the snow.

• Carbide bowler hats: from the old acetylene lamps or from the blacksmith’s workshops it was possible to remedy a few grains of carbide and then one improvised bomb disposal. You took a jar, pierced the bottom, placed it upside down on a wet carbide grain, waited a bit, keeping the hole occluded with a finger, to allow the formation of the explosive mixture inside, and just removed the finger approached a flame that, igniting the acetylene, made everything explode sending the jar upwards. In addition to the taste of the bang, they competed on the height reached by the jar.