Glasgow Daily Times, Glasgow, KY

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February 26, 2010

Homemade is not always best

By CAROL PERKINS For the Daily Times

GLASGOW — “Mama, you’ve got to see this,” my grown daughter led me to a colorful booth at a craft fair in Nashville.

Right before my eyes were dozens of teepees. Not real ones made of hide, but ones made of fabric wrapped around five or six wooden poles. “Aren’t they adorable?” She could see her four-year-old sitting inside, wearing his Toy Story cowboy hat and boots.

Not wanting to burst her enthusiasm, I wooed over them too and almost swooned over the $79 price tag. Other young parents were pushing their way to the teepee booth, led by their children. Kids crawled in and out and begged.

“What has happened to the imagination?” I pondered. A teepee is supposed to be made with quilts. Tie together six or seven tobacco sticks, wrap a couple of quilts around them and pin the sides together and viola … a teepee.

“JC (I call him Joseph) would love it!” she insisted.

“Really.” It wasn’t a question.

I circled the teepee. “I could make this for ten dollars.”

She gave me a look as if to say, “I don’t think it would be the same.”

“If you really think he would want it, I could get it for his birthday.” She knew I really wasn’t overwhelmed with this idea.

We left without the teepee.

Not long afterwards, Carla called me on her way to a teepee store. Her network of mothers twittered or facebooked or texted informing one another that the only teepee site in town was going out of business! (I wasn’t surprised!) I knew she would not leave that location without a teepee in the back of her SUV.

Ahhh, I was right!

The next time I visited, I eyed a teepee. (By the way, I have seen the time I would have relished going over to the Wigwams in Cave City and spending the weekend.) I circled it again.

“Does he play in there very much?” I don’t know when to leave things alone.

“Actually, he does. Sometimes he goes in and sits with his flashlight and plays with his cars,”

A quilt and tobacco sticks would have sufficed, but it wasn’t my $79.

Then I thought back to my teepee days and those tobacco sticks. No matter how we thought we had the weight shifted on each one to keep it steady, once it was covered and more than one kid crawled inside, it would bow to the left or right and fall over on us. This “store bought” one probably came with stabilizers.

Does a child even know what a teepee is? My cousins and I grew up playing cowboys and Indians. Most little kids would not ride on stick horse and chase each other with toy guns or a bow and arrow because they have no reference for it. Toy guns are taboo in some homes and playing Indians would be politically incorrect. They don’t have Roy or Gene or The Lone Ranger in their lives.

So, Joseph has his wigwam, Carla is happy he has his wigwam and who am I to criticize? Why did that $79 concern me when I bought the boy a full set of drums (used) before he was four when I noticed his timing and rhythm as he played on his uncle’s old drum set in the basement. What is a wigwam compared to a set of drums complete enough for the celebrated Fred Young?

Sometimes parents are too frivolous when it comes to buying for their children, but none of them can compare to the complete ridiculous and preposterous behavior of grandparents.

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