Out In The Sandpile
"Out in the Sandpile" is a game, of sorts, that my siblings and I used to "play" often when we were growing up on the farm near Paradise, Kansas. Originally, it started because my brother and I had these toy cattle trailers, which we would play with in a sandbox that my dad had built. Us country bumpkins called it a sandpile, even though it was a real sandbox. One day we turned the toy trailers upside down and decided we had build a town. Our young imaginations soared and soon, we were scavenging all over the farm and going through our toyboxes, looking for things we could add to the burgeoning city. My first character was named Kitty Kiffany, after my cat named Kiffany, and I decided he was a "pioneer" and the founder of the town. I'm not sure if the town had a name at this point.
As time went on, the town spilled out of the sandpile and eventually took over what used to be an ice skating rink that my dad had built for us to use in the wintertime. He had dug a large area out of the ground, put down some black tarp, filled it with water and allowed it to freeze. We enjoyed skating for a couple winters or more, but eventually our skates got to small and our town too big. This particular town did have a name - Alannahville (after Thompson Twins' Allanah Currie). Somewhere I still have a "yearbook" from the Alannahville Animals - in actuality, just a snapshot taken of all the various dolls, little peoples, GI Joe's, army men, and assorted other figurines who made up the "school" - folded in half to resemble a book. I'll have to see if I can find it to scan in.
Alannahville had become quite the large town, with a shopping mall, hotel, and many houses. There were several streets and roads, and we had somehow divided up all the "land" in the area. The houses were made primarily by laying bricks on their sides to make the walls, and everything from carpet samples to cut-up towels to old pieces of glass from broken windows as flooring. All manner of toys were used to furnish the houses, and we even had our own currency. While it wasn't down to a formula, regular cash consisted of pieces of clear glass - not just any kind, it was a specific type of glass that came from the door of our old oven which had been shattered. Basically pieces of this glass were like dollars. A piece of Blue Glass was roughly equivilant to $100. For a time, I think we allowed the use of other colors of glass, value determined by seller. Ultimately, we agreed to use these little metal triangle that came off of a swather or bailer - some sort of farm implement - as the big money - roughly $1,000 or possibly $1,000,000; it was really all the same back in those naive days.
At one point, Allanahville also had several neighboring "towns" which included Lakeside (which was actually a small sinkhole cause by the installation of a septic tank about 100 feet east of our house) and King Bee, which was just behind our garage. King Bee was notable for having "hard dirt" so the houses there didn't have "basements" like most of the other towns had.
We had our house reshingled one summer, and so there was an abundance of old wooden shingles, which I figured out could be hammered into the ground vertically, thus making much thinner walls, which led to much more detailed floorplans and designs. I remember building one particularly complex home, which I named "The Rich House" because the people who lived there were "rich". It even had an indoor swimming pool, made from an old toy snare drum which I carefully laid in the ground.
There were many notable characters and citizens in the town, unfortunately most of their names and stories elude me now. I do remember one of my favorites was "Kendra" (oddly enough, this name would figure into my life years later as another imaginary doll persona) who had a small problem - she was a bald barbie doll. I don't know why she was bald, but she did luckily have barbie wigs for some reason. I think this doll, and her wigs, was inherited (read: handed down) from my cousins. Her baldness scared most of the men in town, even though she always went out completely styled in one of her wigs, but it was hard for her to get a date and she was often ridiculed.
It's important to note that I took this game very seriously. I would daydream at school about what I was going to do when I got home out in the sandpile; whether it was adding on to this house, building a new store here, or just re-arranging furniture. Often I could play by myself for hours on end, until the sun went down. Other times, I really needed other players to interact with, and I could get pretty militant in forcing my brother and sister to comply. Sometimes I would be so absorbed in my own little projects that I would suddenly notice it was very quiet. I would look up, and find my brother and sister very surruptitiously sneaking towards the house, hoping I wouldn't notice their absence until they were safely inside where my mom could protect them. Otherwise, I had been known to run after them with my fist curled up over my head, ready to beat them into submission for trying to leave. To this day, they make fun of me, holding their fists behind their right ear and making angry faces.
I'm not sure how old I was when I quit playing the game, but I suspect that it was right up until we moved off the farm, at which age I would have been 13... and really a little too old to be playing in the dirt.
Recently my siblings and I revisited our childhood home, and to my dismay (but not to my surprise) there was little left to show for our Monopoly-esque past time. I did find a few bricks here and there, obvious remnants of the houses we had built, but no trucks, dolls, or carpet scraps remained. Just like many real ghost towns.
As time went on, the town spilled out of the sandpile and eventually took over what used to be an ice skating rink that my dad had built for us to use in the wintertime. He had dug a large area out of the ground, put down some black tarp, filled it with water and allowed it to freeze. We enjoyed skating for a couple winters or more, but eventually our skates got to small and our town too big. This particular town did have a name - Alannahville (after Thompson Twins' Allanah Currie). Somewhere I still have a "yearbook" from the Alannahville Animals - in actuality, just a snapshot taken of all the various dolls, little peoples, GI Joe's, army men, and assorted other figurines who made up the "school" - folded in half to resemble a book. I'll have to see if I can find it to scan in.
Alannahville had become quite the large town, with a shopping mall, hotel, and many houses. There were several streets and roads, and we had somehow divided up all the "land" in the area. The houses were made primarily by laying bricks on their sides to make the walls, and everything from carpet samples to cut-up towels to old pieces of glass from broken windows as flooring. All manner of toys were used to furnish the houses, and we even had our own currency. While it wasn't down to a formula, regular cash consisted of pieces of clear glass - not just any kind, it was a specific type of glass that came from the door of our old oven which had been shattered. Basically pieces of this glass were like dollars. A piece of Blue Glass was roughly equivilant to $100. For a time, I think we allowed the use of other colors of glass, value determined by seller. Ultimately, we agreed to use these little metal triangle that came off of a swather or bailer - some sort of farm implement - as the big money - roughly $1,000 or possibly $1,000,000; it was really all the same back in those naive days.
At one point, Allanahville also had several neighboring "towns" which included Lakeside (which was actually a small sinkhole cause by the installation of a septic tank about 100 feet east of our house) and King Bee, which was just behind our garage. King Bee was notable for having "hard dirt" so the houses there didn't have "basements" like most of the other towns had.
We had our house reshingled one summer, and so there was an abundance of old wooden shingles, which I figured out could be hammered into the ground vertically, thus making much thinner walls, which led to much more detailed floorplans and designs. I remember building one particularly complex home, which I named "The Rich House" because the people who lived there were "rich". It even had an indoor swimming pool, made from an old toy snare drum which I carefully laid in the ground.
There were many notable characters and citizens in the town, unfortunately most of their names and stories elude me now. I do remember one of my favorites was "Kendra" (oddly enough, this name would figure into my life years later as another imaginary doll persona) who had a small problem - she was a bald barbie doll. I don't know why she was bald, but she did luckily have barbie wigs for some reason. I think this doll, and her wigs, was inherited (read: handed down) from my cousins. Her baldness scared most of the men in town, even though she always went out completely styled in one of her wigs, but it was hard for her to get a date and she was often ridiculed.
It's important to note that I took this game very seriously. I would daydream at school about what I was going to do when I got home out in the sandpile; whether it was adding on to this house, building a new store here, or just re-arranging furniture. Often I could play by myself for hours on end, until the sun went down. Other times, I really needed other players to interact with, and I could get pretty militant in forcing my brother and sister to comply. Sometimes I would be so absorbed in my own little projects that I would suddenly notice it was very quiet. I would look up, and find my brother and sister very surruptitiously sneaking towards the house, hoping I wouldn't notice their absence until they were safely inside where my mom could protect them. Otherwise, I had been known to run after them with my fist curled up over my head, ready to beat them into submission for trying to leave. To this day, they make fun of me, holding their fists behind their right ear and making angry faces.
I'm not sure how old I was when I quit playing the game, but I suspect that it was right up until we moved off the farm, at which age I would have been 13... and really a little too old to be playing in the dirt.
Recently my siblings and I revisited our childhood home, and to my dismay (but not to my surprise) there was little left to show for our Monopoly-esque past time. I did find a few bricks here and there, obvious remnants of the houses we had built, but no trucks, dolls, or carpet scraps remained. Just like many real ghost towns.
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