# Making Your Own Fun

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [March 23, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676 "2002-03-23T05:22:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676/1 "2002-03-23T05:22:47Z")

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Sometimes it’s been better for kids to find homemade activities than spending a lot of money; well, for us it was, since when I was a kid our family never had any money: we couldn’t afford a lot of stuff kids have these days, or even the equivalent.  
Once my father gathered a bunch of magazines, like _Life, Look, Post, Good Housekeeping,_ and so on; he sat at the dinner table one evening with my brother and sister and me; we had a huge paste pot, our own pairs of scissors, and a stack of magazines to make collages with. My Dad melded a dog’s face with a human one, showing more skin than fur and he titled it, “Drat Those Fleas!”  
One of us took a woman’s face and added a man’s nose and mouth, with a cigarette in it, and got “A thinking witch’s flavor, a smoking witch’s taste.”  
In short, finding activities that cost little or no money. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Gorgon\_Heap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676/2 "2002-03-23T05:26:00Z")

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Yeah. And I’m really drunk, so I could only just barely make out the cncept of this thread. Let’s hear i t for alcohol!!!

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**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676/3 "2002-03-23T06:00:55Z")

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\*\* dougie\_monty, \*\* sounds like you had/have a nice, fun dad! I envy you. 🆒

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2002, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-your-own-fun/99676/4 "2002-03-23T06:13:09Z")

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I did, Violet; he was pretty much self-educated; he showed us how to make collages; he told us stories about his own childhood and his life on a ship in the Navy (he was a cook in the years before Pearl Harbor); he sang; he played the guitar; he taught us about languages, geography, religion, cars, and current events. (He and our Mom once held up a local newspaper with the headline, “NIKITA COMING HERE; IKE GOING TO RUSSIA.” We three kids–Gary was 10, I was 9, Janice was 7–knew who “Ike” and “Nikita” were.)  
He sometimes sang a Baptist hymn titled “In the Garden”; when I hear it now–he died in 1987, after leaving the family in 1961 under very unhappy circumstances–I break down and cry really hard. ☹