I had an option each day during summer vacation. My grandma would ask: "Are you staying in or out today?" There wasn't running in and out of the house. If we - my brother and two boy cousins - ran in and out too many times letting out the "bought air" the storm door was locked and we had to knock to get inside. We'd knock for Gatorade or a Fla-Vor-Ice, then we'd run off to play again.
We'd stay gone for hours upon hours. No Amber Alerts. Our "Amber Alert" was my grandma standing on the front porch yelling for us. We'd stay gone all day and come in after dark, get asked if we were in for the night, only to respond "no" while waving a flashlight in our hands.
We rode in the back of the truck on rode trips. That's the truck bed. Not the plush seats of the SUV. We sat on the wheel humps and with every bump our heads would hit the "topper". Air conditioning was a luxury item we only got to see on the hottest of hot days after we broke the slip n' slide or the two foot high, plastic walls to the K-mart pool.
My Summer vacations for 5 years was a rotation of 2 weeks camping at Summersville Lake, one week home, then repeat. We had a trailer. My dad would pull it up and commute to our business daily. We showered in the bath house. I got chased by mean ass geese and skunks. Rode my bike down a hill for 40 yards - while missing the geese or there nasty droppings - before careening into the lake. Or just endo-ing once we hit the lip of the shore.
The four of us - me, my bro, and two cousins - got skateboards when Tony Hawk was buying his first house. We built our own ramps to jump our bikes or skateboards off of, no helmets, no pads. I still have scars from my most horrendous wreck on my bike. We were racing down a hill, BMX style, and at the first turn I got pushed into a telephone pole and flipped over the handle bars. My mom cleaned my wounds and sent me back out to play. Kids today get nursed for 3 weeks and carted off to the hospital to make sure the scarring won't be permanent.
I got chased by a green snake and my family just laughed at me. Today that snake would have pest control after it.
I just don't understand what has caused this. We had video games. The classics: Atari, Clecovision, Nintendo, Super NES, and Sega Genesis. So all of the blame cannot be laid upon video games. Maybe the computer and internet hold the answer or the cause. But what parents are that uninvolved not to push their kids to have fun? Why can't parents be parents?
What has happened in our society to make us so selfish and inconsiderate? And I say inconsiderate because that's what the kids are today. I hope I have the answer or the solution in my own life before I get married and have kids.
