It is time once again for Friday Fictioneers. That is the place where about 100 authors gather to share about 100 stories containing about 100 words all from 1 picture shared by our hostess Rochelle.
Here is this week’s photo prompt:
photo by J. Hardy Carroll
My Playground
by JE Lillie
Everyone in town called it the WPA project. Then they’d sneer. I didn’t know what WPA was or why those letters made people so unhappy. It was just an old cellar hole but to me it was a magical place, a fairy vale, where I could escape from the violence of my father, the impotence of my mother, and the bullying which had become the norm for the smallest kid in school.
I made friends with the trees growing from the basement floor, and carved my initials in the walls.
I cried for weeks after the bulldozers took my world away.
Info on the WPA can be found HERE.
In my home town there was an abandoned cellar hole that was part of an unfinished WPA project. The police were forever chasing kids out of that cellar hole.
Read the other stories in the FF collection by clicking the underlined link at the top of this post.
Lillie-Put 
My dad worked for the WPA for a short time during the great depression, buying supplies to build roads and buildings in the poorest, most desolate areas. Not a fond memory, but I think he learned alot. Your story made good use of it. Well done!
Thank you! for the compliment.
I went to school in a rural area. Roads and the school itself had been constructed by WPA and CCC workers fronm the generation before me.
I remember stories told. I remember the feeling of sorrow when out school was closed. Some of the road work remains.
Our WPA schools have been turned into Senior and Veterans centers and the unfinished cellar hole has been filled in.
Kids always seem to find these places to hide away, from bullying, from parents. Very moving story.
Thank you.
You made this very real to me.
That is a high compliment Dawn. Thank you!
Fascinating slice of history enmeshed into a fictional tale. Nicely done.
Thank you so much.
My Dad used to tell a joke about a WPA project. They sent 12 men out to mow a yard for an elderly widow. They also brought along a portable outhouse. According to Dad, there were three men coming, three going, three crapping, and three mowing.
another manifestation of effective bureaucracy then?
We are so blessed to have even basic provisions, and so much to be thankful for.. including your great story, thank you for sharing..