Hammer Time and Imagination

Mjolnir. If you know what that name means, then this one is for you. Many are the times my dad dressed up for a parade. I remember when we lived in American Falls, he was fully Fred Flintstone . . . in character as he walked along in a life-sized replica of a foot-propelled car, saying “Yabba Dabba Doo.” And long before I was alive, he draped himself in a furry tunic, grabbed a long-handled hammer, and became Thor, god of thunder. That picture, taken in Kimberly, Idaho, has become one of my all-time favorites. The lesson is obvious. Never take yourself too seriously and life will be a lot more fun.

Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Symbol of his strength and the reach of his power. I had the Idaho equivalent of Mjolnir when I was living there as a youth. I think my Dad must have been out of his mind when he fashioned this weapon for me out of a power line’s crossarm—the wooden riser that holds an insulator (and electrical line) turned upside down and cut off short was the perfect “hammer.” He wrapped the handle with black electrical tape, and attached a leather wrist strap. Man did I have fun swinging that hefty chunk of wood-imagined-metal from one side of our backyard to the other. Somehow I never broke the basement windows with my superhuman accessory though I remember distinctly leaving healthy divots in the dirt on our hillside. Can you imagine arming a child with such a thing today? Madness.

I grew up in a home where we didn’t have a lot of store bought toys. Man am I glad. We spent hours with my brother, consulting on our houses in cities drawn in full color on a piece of poster board. We drove our Hot Wheels down two-lane streets, past fluffy green trees, dutifully came to a complete stop at intersections (where STOP was clearly labelled), and then parked our rides on paper driveways, in front of clean, shingled roof houses. Picture a GoogleMaps perspective but with black lines and bright colors.

We would play “guns,” a game of hide and seek but with moving human targets. Our fingers cocked and ready, we would hide behind the red rocker or at the bottom of a stairway, lying in wait for anyone whose heart rate, bladder, or boredom made it necessary to roam. Suddenly you would hear “BLAM!” and someone would drop to the floor, forced to count to a predetermined number before resurrecting and hunting once more.

Often we played football at the lawn at the Lutheran School across the street from our house in Buhl. While players came and went (the draft, free agency) it was usually my brother Justin versus my sister Jeanie and me. My brother Clair was the quarterback on both teams and would draw out the passing routes in his hand and we ran them with precision. We became whichever great player Clair esteemed at the time. I recall Jeanie was often Jim Brown, the phenomenal running back for the Cleveland Browns. Today I smile to think of a skinny white girl from Idaho catching passes out of the backfield, pretending to be a bruising black man from Georgia. We would play barefoot in snow or sun. Where the grass ended, there was an area topped with  gravel and stickers. When the ball went in there, we would walk in, grab it, walk out, pick the stickers out of our feet, then go back to the game. If the game got too physical or heated, I would run into the house, tears streaming, complaining to my parents that the game was unfair or too rough. I was informed that it was my choice whether or not to “play with the big kids.” It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was more fun to play and I’d go back out, where I was always welcomed back.

By the time we moved to American Falls, my head was filled with a hundred adventures and games. Those were days when I entertained myself by playing "basketball" with a tennis ball and a plastic ice cream bucket—bottom cut out, staple-gunned high on the wall of the shed. Or I strapped my sixgun (Ruger .22) to my leg and went out hunting lizard. My right hand hovering, ready just above my weapon, I'd turn a rock over with my left hand, step back, and, if a lizard scrambled out, practice my quick draw. "Wanna see it again?" I'd say in my best cowboy drawl. Or, if the weather were bad, I'd just read some Robert Heinlein, the Great Brain series, or a Louis L'Amour.

So back to Mjolnir. Ask a teen today and he will explain that it’s the name of Master Chief’s armor. You know, the soulless main character in the popular first person shooter video game Halo. Anyway, I often feel sad that the latest generation will hear the name of Thor's hammer and likely not know its history nor have the experience of personalizing myths by doing something imaginative and physical outside. For I was Thor, hurling his hammer. I was the Beast from the original X-Men, bounding around barefoot in the back yard.  (I did have unusually large hands and feet at one time . . .  I just happened to grow into them.) I was the avenging cowboy (my apologies to the horned lizard population). I was part of a rock band where I played a mean tennis racket and sang with my sister and brother. I was Kolchak the Night Stalker. For that one, Dad made me a lovely wooden cross/pointed stake just perfect for repelling or impaling vampires.

Today we have to throw ourselves in front of the TV and push our kids outdoors. They accuse of being mean but, in reality, we grew up entertaining ourselves and understand the  value of that process. We don't just want their eyes to get big . . . we want their brains to go there too.

I don't necessarily believe that imagination is dead. I just think it is less imaginative . . .  The storyline spoon-fed on a screen in front of your brain instead of being created and visualized inside of it. As with anything, I guess, it's about finding a balance. But I like the idea of leaving the screen every once in a while and going outside to play. I think I'll do that now.