The Imaginary Front Porch

Mr. Peacock owned the Shell station where my dad always filled up.  l was so jealous of Mr. Peacock’s job because as a child I loved the smell of gasoline being pumped into the car and wished so much that I could get out and do it myself.  How was he so lucky to fill car after car all day long? Little did I know what life held in store for my adult years!  It is amazing that I don’t own a gas station rather than being a school administrator, but now the fun is gone.  Everyone pumps their own gas.  That means every couple of weeks I get to pretend I am Mr. Peacock.

One Christmas in my early elementary years I asked for a toy gas station I had seen advertised in a catalogue. It was such fun to look at every detail and imagine what it would be like to have it as my own. And yes, with great delight I had a hunch what was in the big wrapped package on Christmas morning. 

There were no bells and whistles on that toy.  Everything that was to happen happened because I moved the cars in and out or cranked the handle that made them go up the elevator to the parking on top…for of course for my gas station there had to be an unending line of cars!  I had to create the dialogue between the driver and me, decide whose car was next, tell people to wait in line for their car’s turn on the elevator. I played with that gas station for hours and was completely content minus any electronic capacity. 

So of course part of my daughter’s Fisher Price collection had to be a garage, along with the house, the schoolhouse, the camper, the village and the airplane, to name a few.  I loved those toys as much as she did.  We had over 40 little people and most everyone had a name.  Poor Sally dropped into the pachysandra at my parents’ home and was finally recovered after winter…we wondered where she had been; we missed her.  They lined up along the bathtub, sailed in boats, and made for hours of fun and special playtime on the floor with Abigail. It was so many years ago, yet seems as if it was yesterday.  

I know I am getting older and older and the age of electronic games, DVD’s and more things than I even know has come along since my childhood and that of my daughter.  There are some wonderful opportunities in all of those.  For me, however, the time spent immersed solely in my own imaginary world, creation of every aspect being left to me with the prompt of one simple prop (or none), taught me that there are many places to go, things to do, and people to meet, all from inside our own imaginations. I loved every minute of joining my daughter to do the same and often to overhear her by herself…but not by herself at all…rather, with all the company in the world.  

I hope that in a culture that has so many headphone pieces and screens that we will continue to allow children to have the experience and pleasure of  being the artists and inventors of scenarios of their own, of creating the scene, the music, the dialogue, and being the perfomer.  I have no doubt that they will have just as much fun as tuning in to what someone  has already thought of and perhaps be astounded when their own imaginations lead to the writing of a novel, composing a musical piece, or drawing the landscape or character they have invented.  I am sure many would tell me it is about balance.  What I know is that I desire for all children to know that they are the best creators of all.