Skelly, junk and Junkyard Sports - an endorsement from a clownly healer

Reading Bernie DeKoven's book Junkyard Sports brought back fond memories of childhood games. My two favorites consisted of things which adults would normally discard and my friends and I would get hours, sometimes even days or weeks, of enjoyment out of them. One was the bottle caps from soda pop. The other was old cardboard shoeboxes.

The game we played with the soda pop caps was, as I recall, named "Skelley." I never figured out why, but that was its name. We would draw a chalk diagram on the sidewalk consisting of a series of numbers. Using our thumb and forefinger, we would then proceed to shoot the bottle tops from one number to another. Sometimes we would fill the caps with candle wax to make it heavier and supposedly easier to get into the numbered boxes, but I was never convinced this helped.

In the springtime, the other game became a major event in my neighbor. In fact, you could tell when spring had arrived because half of the kids lined the edge of the sidewalk with their shoeboxes cut with progressively smaller holes. And the other half, were across the street rolling their marbles in the gutter hoping it would enter the smallest hole in the shoe box and get the biggest reward.

Fast forward fifty years, or so -

I now teach humor workshops. One of the components of the longer programs is about how play can help us solve problems, be more creative, and have more fun.

In one exercise, I ask members of the audience to get into small groups and agree upon something that stresses the group out. I then give each group a bag of what might be considered "junkyard" stuff— a clothespin, the front half of a greeting card, a post-office label, an old comb, a piece of a ribbon, etc. Then I instruct them to write a story using the props in the bag.

What they come up with amazes me. It is original, it is playful and it frequently is laugh provoking. In a simple, fun way, using household "junk," they reframe their stress and laugh about it.

So, over the years, I have known the value of play. But it wasn't until I encountered the work and writings of Bernie DeKoven did I realize how simple and how marvelous it can be.

I think DeKoven is a modern day alchemist. In this book, he magically shows readers how to turn a junkyard into gold mine. What a joyful world this would be if we all read this book and followed his advice.

Allen Klein,
author of The Healing Power of Humor
and The Courage to Laugh.