Childhood Memories

When I was a kid, most kids spent more time playing outside than kids do nowadays. Though we had TV, there were no DVDs or VHS tapes, nor were there any video games, as the first video game, Pong, didn't come along until I was nearly out of high school. As for TV, all we had to watch were the 3 major networks, plus a couple of UHF channels, usually only one of which came in clearly. We also had no computers, ipods, etc......we had record players that would play either a large LP record on 33 rpm or a 45 rpm record. The 45s had a huge hole in the middle that required a special attachment to play on one's record player and had a single song on either side.

So, most kids spent a lot of time outdoors. As well as getting to exercise our imaginations and our bodies, being outside had the added bonus of taking us away from the ever watchful eyes of our parents.

When I was about five or six, I wanted to be the Sheriff like Andy Griffith, so my mother got me a Sheriff's badge and a hat like Andy's, which I had a lot of fun with. I also had a leather headband, a fringed vest, and moccasins for when I'd troop through the woods, pretending that I was an Indian back in the pioneer days. As I got a bit older, some of us kids played World War II, with toy helmets and guns. I sometimes even wore my father's old sailor shirt from the war during these games.

I remember being about seven or eight and we built our own treehouse, with the help of some kids a few years older than us. One kid's parents provided a bunch of old boards and a box of nails, so we went to town with it. The tree house was a completely enclosed room with a little door on hinges and a porch out front. It had a little window, covered with a mosquito netting screen. We had a ladder to get up to the tree house, but all of us could get up there without the ladder if necessary. I can remember scrambling up into the treehouse and pulling the ladder up behind me, so some younger kids couldn't follow us up there.

We also spent a good bit of time riding our bikes around the huge subdivision I lived in. Every summer, the "bug truck" used to ride through our neighborhood every couple of weeks or so, spraying pesticides to keep the mosquito population down. Whoever spotted the bug truck first would yell, "BUG TRUCK!!" and we'd all follow it down the street, riding in and out of the noxious plume of pesticides it spewed out the back. It's a wonder no kid ever passed out from it.

And there were the games we played, usually organized on the spur of the moment, depending on how many kids were available: baseball, basketball, football, kick the can, etc.

I could go on, but you get the picture. I'm happy to have grown up when I did, and I think we had a better time as kids than kids do nowadays, despite our lack of technological gadgets.

Thoughts?