Play time

"The essence of childhood, of course, is play, which my friends and I did endlessly on streets that we reluctantly shared with traffic." - Bill Cosby

So I definitely am a fan of the Cosby quotes, in case no one noticed.  And I was asked how come I did not post anything this morning.  So for all of my loyal readers, here you go.  Actually, I only have one loyal reader and she's married to me.  Anyway, I think she only reads it to be nice.

There are a lot of differences today compared to when I was a child.  I remember being locked out of the house during the summer.  The first time I think I was tricked.  I am sure I was told to go outside and as soon as the door closed, it was locked.  Now that could be so that my parents could have a few moments of quiet, or it could have been done to let us learn how to play.  I could only imagine a parent doing that today.  The child goes outside and the door locks behind him.  The child realizes he has no electronics (iPods, etc) and begins to pound on the door begging to be let back in because he is lost and does not know what to do.  I have one thing to say to that child...use your imagination.

One house I lived in had a dirt back yard.  Yep, 75% of the yard was dirt.  I remember having Tonka trucks.  Now, I mean I had metal Tonka trucks.  I had the real deal.  With the dirt and several Tonka toys, I built a city.  It was complete with streets and intersections, buildings and houses.  Hours of fun was had.  I remember standing outside and looking at the dirt.  I thought of all the things I could do with...dirt. Building a city came to mind. 

So, the only times I was aloud back inside were to go to the bathroom and eat.  Even then, sometimes I could not even go in to go to the bathroom.  Then, it was back out into the world.  My friends and I could stay gone from morning to night.  I played in the streets, in the neighbor's yards, and basically anywhere else I wanted.

My grandparents at one time had a house in a cul-de-sac.  The other neighborhood kids, some of whom I went to school with, would play baseball in the street.  I joined in the game and remember playing endlessly.  We would hit, run, and slide in the street.  Yes, you read correctly, slide in the street.  I remember not even thinking about it while running to second base, which was a curb.  The throw was coming in from the outfield (a neighbor's driveway), and instinctively I hit the deck.  I was an all-out run and slid feet first into second.  If course, since I was on pavement, I only slid about a foot and a half.  And, I was safe!  I was so happy about safely reaching second on a sliding double that I didn't even think about the pain I was in...FROM SLIDING ON THE STREET!  What was I thinking?

I definitely was not worried about ruining clothes.  Oh, and that is another difference.  Play clothes for kids now fall apart after several good uses.  I can testify to that as a parent.  We wore the jeans from Sears that today could double as a bullet-proof vest.  They would stand up to anything.  And if you did tear them, mom just put a patch on it.  I had several pairs of those jeans with multiple off-colored patches.  We didn't care about fashion.  We wore functional clothes.  They don't have that today do they?  Kids go outside (if they even go out) dressed like they are going to a party.  And, what is the last thing parents say when the kid leaves the house?  "Don't ruin those clothes!"  Kids can't truly play under those circumstances.  Sent them out in some ratty clothes with permission to do what they could to tear them up.  As for my friends and I, we would see that as a challenge and do what we could to go home wearing shredded denim and cotton. 
 
Actually, we played like that for years.  We played outside free from all cares.  We did not have to worry about food, a parent would throw a sandwich to us as though they were feeding a pack of wild dogs.  We didn't care about being tired because we had endless energy.  Just watching us would exhaust kids today.

We didn't have the electronics kids have today.  We had Atari.  Well, some had it.  Those of us that did not made up games to play.  We had water gun fights.  Ohhh, that was the greatest.  It the dead of summer we ran around shooting each other with water guns.  I don't mean we had Super Soakers.  No, we had squirt guns.  One trigger pull equaled one squirt.  That was truly up close and personal combat.  Sometimes, we added extra artillery by throwing water balloons.  We climbed trees to attack from an elevated position and set up ambushes.  We were tactical giants, at least for a bunch of 9 year old kids.  We had our own style of urban warfare.

Well, my kids are almost to the age where I can kick them out of the house and into the backyard for the summer.  I could just throw Hannah and Cooper into some old clothes to destroy, give them some squirt guns and let them go at it.  If I was feeling brave I could give them water balloons, too.  No iPods, no Nintendos, just two $0.99 plastic squirt guns and an endless supply of water so they can learn how to truly play and explore.