QotD: When I Was a Kid

What did you do for fun when you were a kid? How is it different from what you see kids doing now?
Submitted by jaklumen.

Good Question!

The big difference was play time was unscheduled. And of course no computers etc.  The radio was IT. I played with the neighbor kids, with my dogs, spent a lot of time in the stream in the woods in my father's waders looking for creatures.  We kids used to lie on flat rocks and drop strings with bread attached (I forgot how) into the water and try to catch crawfish. Not too successful :))  I also spent a huge amount of time reading, drawing, playing old 78's with my fingernail (yes, it works...the cactus needle was missing).  One friend and I used to mix up potions from the remains of bottles in the trash (good college prep, yes?)  Lying on the grass looking up at the sky and clouds was good.  And actually I spent considerable amount of time as a younger child, jumping off rocks and waving my arms trying to fly.  Never worked :((        And then, there was Kick the Can on a Summer Evening with all age neighbor kids involved.

    Like most families then we only had one car. Mostly my Dad used it to go to work.  We lived in the country (now suburb) and  I used my bicycle for both transportation and fun a lot.  Just an old blue and white Roadmaster.

   I feel badly for overscheduled kids today....and organized sports, especially these traveling teams, have just eliminated free time to spend with siblings and parents.  Family dinners were taken for granted when I was a kid.  It wasn't necessary for there to be a magazine article recommending the practice.  It must be very hard for parents to go against all this activity.  But eating in the car all the time on the way to somewhere is really tough. My children were more scheduled that I was as a youngster.  But they still had a lot of free time; most dinners were at home.

   Everything changes.  I keep relearning that every day it seems.