Read How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself Online

Authors: Robert Paul Smith

How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself (15 page)

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Stick the end of the match into the chewing gum and set the whole thing down on a table.

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After a little while the twisted rubber band will pull the match away from the chewing gum and the whole thing will pop up in the air. Of course, you never know how long it's going to take for the match to come loose. I'll guarantee only one thing; it won't ever let loose at the exact moment
you're expecting it. If you put it on the table next to your father when he's making out his income-tax return, it should produce some interesting results. He may tell you what he did to scare his father when he was a kid, and he may even show you what his father did to him when he scared him when he was a kid.

There are lots of other things you can do, all alone, by yourself, but these are about all I can think of right now that aren't specialized in some way.

I'm really serious about the library: that's the best place to learn more. We did lots of other things when we were kids, like collecting bugs, and wild flowers, and frogs, and snakes, and stonesâand in the library I promise you there will be a really expert book on each of these, and on many other subjects, written by people who've made a life study of those special things. There will be books about trees and radio sets and telescopes and badminton and Indian crafts and metal work, about how to make bows and arrows, how to swim, how toâoh, there's no end. There's even a book on how to find a how-to book.

Some silly grownup has even written a book on how to read a book.

But if you've gotten this far, I know you know how to read a book.

There's only one thing left to tell you: the name of this book is
How to Do Nothing with Nobody All Alone by Yourself
. I understand some people get worried about kids who spend a lot of time all alone, by themselves. I do a little worrying about that, but I worry about something else even more; about kids who don't know how to spend any time all alone, by themselves. It's something you're going to be doing a whole lot of, no matter what, for the rest of your lives. And I think it's a good thing to do; you get to know yourself, and I think that's the most important thing in the whole world.

Index

Acorns

eating

sling ammunition

Air, pressing on leather suckers

Airplanes, paper

Apple whipping

Arrows

throwing-stick

umbrella

Ash tray, clamshell

Balsa wood, boomerang

Bark, designs in

Baskets

burr

peach-pit

Ba-voom thing

Bees, pussy-willow

Blackjacks

Boat, paddle-wheel

Bolas

Boomerangs

Boy Scout knives

Bracelets, clamshell

Bugs Fish,

books about

Bull-roarers

Burrs

Busted Umbrellas

Button buzz saw

Case knife

Cats, pussy-willow

Checkering, pencils and branches

Cigar-box things

boat

fiddles

guitars

Clamshells

Cornstalk fiddle

Cross-boomerang

Dandelions

Darts

airplane

needle

Feathers, arrow

Fence, pussy-willow cats

Fiddles

cigar-box

cornstalk

Fish, peach-pit

Grass, squawker

Guitars, cigar-box

Gun, rubber-band

Hairpins, slingshot

Handbook for the Curious, Howes

Handkerchief blackjacks

Handkerchief parachutes

Handles, slingshot

Helicopter, paper

Horse chestnuts shining

Howes, Paul Griswold

Ice pick

Indoor boomerangs

Jewel weed

Jig saw

Jumping thing

Killers

Knives

Boy Scout

Leather

books about

David sling

slingshot

Leather sucker

Library

bee books

getting books from

Lollipop sticks, slingshot ammunition

Maple seeds

Matchbook, boomerang

Miniature slingshot

Mumbly-peg

how named

Munjigo-peg

Music, things that make

Needle dart

Nuts, slingshot ammunition

Oilstone

Orange-crate wood, boomerang

Paddle-wheel boat

Paper

airplanes

helicopter

pussy-willow bees

wings

Paste

Peach-pit things

Pencils

knife work on

names on

slingshot ammunition

spool tank

Penknife

Pin piano

Pistol, rubber-band

Pocketknives

Polly-noses

Pussy willows

Risk, mumbly-peg

Rubber bands

boomerang

gun

jumping thing

paddle-wheel boat

slingshot

spool slingshot

spool tank

Scout knives

Sharpening knives

Shoestring, horse chestnuts

Slice the Cheese, mumbly-peg and other

Slice the Ham

Slingshots

David kind

fork kind

old-fashioned kind

spool kind

Spool slingshot

Spool tank

Squawker

Suction cup

Teachers

airplanes

boomerangs

miniature slingshots

Trash cans, stuff from

Turtles, peach-pit

Umbrella bows and arrows

Walking sticks, making

Whipping apples

Whittling

Willow whistle

Wishbone, jumping thing

Wood-and-wire carrying handles

Wood fork, slingshot

Yo-yo

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due my wife, who drew the pictures, and my sons Dan and Joe, who helped me make all the things in the book for her to draw
.

The other night a friend of mine, who lived only six blocks away when we were kids, told me that he used to make the washers out of the paraffin that used to be on the top of jars of homemade jam.
Now
he tells me!

Now I'm sure I could do it right now, because I just did. I went out in the front yard and set it up just the way the picture goes and the third time I tried, I did it. I'm still not sure I could do it right
this
minute.

It has been brought to my attention that some kids don't know how to make paste any more, that they think paste is only something that you can buy. With us, it was the other way around. We knew how to make it, and later on found out it was possible to buy it. Well, I'm not going to draw any pictures or give any careful instructions here. You take flour and water and mix it until it's paste, and if you have some salt you can put it in, too. I don't know if the salt does any good, but we figured we had nothing to lose. It wasn't our salt.

I hear tell hairpins are pretty rare now. Maybe you can make them out of bobby-pins, but I don't know about this.

That stuff called silly putty works, too, but that costs money.

First published by W. W. Norton and Company 1958 Published by Tin House Books 2010

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact Tin House Books, 2601 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR 97210.

Parental Advisory: This book describes activities that may be dangerous if not done exactly as directed or that may be inappropriate for young children. All of these activities should be carried out under adult supervision only. The author's estate and the publisher expressly disclaim all liability for any injury or damages that may result from engaging in the activities contained in this book.

Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and New York, New York Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West, 1700 Fourth St., Berkeley, CA 94710,
www.pgw.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, Robert Paul.

How to do nothing with nobody all alone by yourself / by Robert Paul

Smith.âTin House Books ed.

p. cm.

Originally published: New York : Norton, 1958.

eISBN : 978-0-982-50484-0

1. Amusements. I. Title.

GV1203.S63 2010

793âdc22

2009037103