Getting Back to Being Human

2015-02-04 - Wednesday - 10:35 PM PST - Facebook Post

And we would play sports actually outside with our arms and legs, not too much inside with only our fingers on video games. And there were these things called board games. Also, cartoons was something only watched on Saturdays. We had video games, but it was way down on the list of importance, below climbing trees, playing basketball, football, baseball, pogoball, big wheels, biking, cops and robbers, camping in the backyard, getting into trouble like lighting things on fire, walking the railroad tracks.

And we still read these big things called books, that also worked as a great bug smasher. Oh, yeah, we could figure out 12 times 12 in our heads, without using a calculator. Go figure. The favorite gift i ever got was a pair of teenage mutant ninja turtle roller skates. My sister and i would skate in the carport jamming to Paula Abdul. We wold also climb on the roof. Pictures were something you didn't waste, and took a week to get back to see if anything turned out. Phones were things attached to the wall with a 6 feet cord. If you wrote a note to someone on the other side of the world, you had to wait a month to hear back from them. If you went to the store, you had to remember what to get or write a list. Life was more one of patience and experience. We played with bugs. There was no world wide web to instantly know what was going on in other countries, but we knew a lot more of what as happening down the block and in our own neighborhoods and actually knew some of our neighbors.

And we could write in complete sentences, by hand. Lmao. I know archaic. I'm pretty sure our vocabularies were a lot more expansive too. But it is what it is. If i had children, i would not give them a cell phone at 7 or even 13, or a car at 16. That's like giving a gallon of gasoline and a match to a 5 year old. Things are appreciated more when you earn them yourself. But that's not how it is these days, sadly. I think its a whole lot safer for kids to hurt themselves throwing rocks at each other outside then it is seeing a lot of things on the internet. Its a dangerous world wide web out there.