I remember my father’s stories about his childhood, which he mostly spent outside playing with children in the neighbourhood. It’s hard for me to imagine what his life was like then. From his stories it seems ages ago, yet we’re only a generation apart. I’m sure upon reading one of his stories you’ll be as astounded as I was. 

On how to resurrect a fly: fact or myth? 
Try to remember a time before the Internet. Before we could Google stuff, before we could quickly update our general knowledge through Wikipedia, and before we could find tutorials on… well on anything really, on YouTube. Image a young boy in the 1970s in a peripheral city in Iran. A story was spreading amongst the kids in town: you can resurrect flies from their death! This claim usually followed by instructions: First drown the fly in water. After the fly stops showing any sign of life, pull it out of the water and place it on a dry surface. Grab some salt and pour it over the tiny cadaver, covering its entire body. After a few moments the fly will come alive. My father wondered, was it a myth? Was it true? There was only one way of finding out (no Internet, remember?): Catch a fly and experiment. So that’s what this young boy did. He managed to catch a fly, tie a string to its paw, and drown it in a glass of water. After carefully following the rest of the instructions, there was only one thing left: wait. At this point the boy started to feel nervous. This was never going to work! He had just drowned an innocent fly! He waited for some time, which felt like ages he recalls. After about two minutes the fly slowly awoke from his death, as if he was only taking a nap, and slowly started moving about. 

I imagine your reaction to be the same as mine at the time: this can’t be true. Fortunately we nowadays do have ways of finding out, without hurting any innocent flies. See here the proof on YouTube:

What I learned from my father’s childhood stories is that playing in his time was about adventures, about discovery and about learning things - specifically learning by doing. There was no information source other than the analogical written word or other people’s narrations, but why consult them if you can make your own story?