And the painted ponies go up and down

The little students bring me the Chinese checkers board. They are attracted to all the colorful pegs in the star points. Will I show them how to play? If they will give me a minute to remember, I will be glad to help them.

A minute is not enough. I remember the game shelf behind the kitchen door at Grandma's house, with the Chinese checkers board and the marbles in the cottage cheese carton next to the cardboard can of Tinker Toys.

There are dust motes in the sunbeams playing on the dark curved legs of the buffet. A German clock ticks. African violets and baby's breath grow in little glazed pots on the shelves my dad built for his mother's dining room window. Real people, possibly related to me, crocheted the tablecloth. I pray that I'm never the one to drip brown gravy on the tablecloth.

We play Chinese checkers near the violets sitting on the itchy rug. Sometimes we play in the pink bedroom under the tall brass bed. That's our hideout. We can sit on the cool wood floor down there and peek out under the edge of the chenille bedspread. The windows are open to the sounds of mourning doves or afternoon locusts. It is 1967. Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell sing on the transistor radio. Pete Seeger. The Byrds, too.


There's a circle inside the heavy glass jar of gum drops.

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star ...

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.



To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late!

And a time to make sure you turned off the burner.



According to the Kansas State Historical Society, Chinese checkers was a craze in the 1930s:

Chinese checkers was not a new game; it was a simplified variation of a European board game called Halma, which was developed around 1880 and had its own run of popularity in America during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Like Halma, from two to six players could play Star Checkers. The first player to move all of his ten marbles from one point of the star to the point directly opposite by means of checkers-like jumps was the winner.


How strange to find this information. My grandma's name was Halma!