Forbidden Things

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19887, 16 May 1936, Page 15 (Supplement)

Forbidden Things

I RECALL VERY WELL the pain of being dragged, protesting, past a railed enclosure in an adjacent park. For nothing to my mind was more desirable than permission to enter this pleasaunce with its sand-pit, swings, seasaws and giant-strides, the gift of a kindly council to children whose gardenless parents paid the rates for their back-street homes. Illogically came the explanation to accompany continual refusal this place was the pleasure-ground of illmannered little boys and girls. It was strange, 1 felt, that to such, it was permitted to frolic 111 this wonderland of ingenious joys. Who, indeed, would not be one of them, rather than have a spacious and lonely- garden for such scanty consolation as it afforded? But life was chiefly a matter of forbidden things, each veto seeming less sane and understandable than the last. Even such appliances as the garden contained to make it in any way comparable to the public playground were labelled. “Thou Shalt Not.” There might have been no helter-skelter, roundabout and giant-stride; but there were at least the mowing machine, the shears, the scythe and the roller. And it always appeared just that such aids to a happy garden should be mine—although, with some sense of acknowledgment for authority, I can recall !lie agonies and Ihe recriminations which followed upon my falling face downward upon the forbidden mowing machine. There did, then, appear to be a certain. If rather reebic, reason for tills veto, but for <• 1 tiers there seemed none. It was difficult, nav impossible, to convince dull-minded i'one S and a bought r from C an Cn ItaUan in tho sired was preferable lo ice cream, no matte: how expensive, eaten from a plate in a n’siauranl. But patronage of the icccream carl Willi ils lidded wells ami golden scrolls was another forbidden thing, and no mdhnd-"iisrd by Ihe Italians could make 111 nr or slider Any Less Fascinating. Circumspection, above all tilings, app.wn d 1.. l.c III" adult prescription for happy cliihll Yet were not loose stones sel in one's pal.l for Ihe. kicking, and were not drifi.'.l .iuluinn leaves so heaped and piled :,]„„|| the world that one might shuffle I h rough them with an agreeable sound like No. 1 The lips of one’s shoes, it appeared, mere affected by Ihe first pleasure, the soles of them by Ihe lasi; and yet the sensible alternative of wearing in summer no ..il vi ne n I'n rh irlrl p n thins- nf flip

Their Lure and Fascination. (C.G.G. in Christian Science Monitor).

highest order. Not that barefoot stone kicking or leaf-shuffling was desirable —it was simply an engaging Idea, that of emulating the fortunate who could feel grass and soil beneath* the naked soles. There were so many delightful things to be done in life, so many dull ones to be endured. Endurance, moreover, appeared then to be the answer to sensible living. You endured the semolina for the sake of the post-luncheon candy—one piece, no more. You endured those afternoon walks, which It was forbidden to enliven with the intriguing pursuit of rattling with a stick along the palings of such fences as you passed; and this, Indeed, would seem to ha-ve been an inoffensive joy, objection to which was quite incomprehensible. And why w'as It forbidden to pick with your finger nails at paint blisters, whenever they appeared? "What are you doing at the front door?” Clearly can I recall that question, unexpectedly falling from an upper window, and clearly can I recall my panic-stricken reply of: “Not Picking tho Paint Bubbles.” I recall, too, the fascination of metal things and the substitution for them of similar articles in wood. Those fine iron hoops, for instance, which the boys in the street bowled along with such a bravte clang and clash, stopping them at will with their hooked wires. Forbidden. In the place of these noisy, well-controlled marvels. let there be a wooden hoop and wooden stick furnished with a foolish and useless blob. The metal spades with which certain fortunates delved so cleanly and efficient!: in the seaside sands. Forbidden. Instead a wooden spade. Muni, thick and ineffectual.' an irritating tool which became frayed anJ sodden along its edge. And did they, could they never understand the urge to possess such a metal hoop, such a metal spade, such knives In leather sheaths? Forbidden things. The Joy it was to scrape one’s knife between the prongs of one’s fork, extracting thereby the best and sweetest of the plateful: the pleasure it was to spread syrup upon cake; to eat when visiting the kitchen the leathery “kitchen toast”; the delight it was to spend not mere minutes, but hours and hours in that kitchen where the impeifing of Ccfok at her work was such a subtle delight; the haven that the coal-shed was, the Enchantment of Digging up Worms. Looking back, it would that never then was there one moment of freedom or of happiness, never a real desire whose fulfilment was allowed. And yet—forbidden things are with us yet: still may we not shuffle wantonly in life’s leaves or rattle our sticks alons the palings.