Many of my readers have children and I’m sure all parents want their children to grow up to be strong, healthy and successful world beaters – even more successful than their loving, hard working parents. Of course, we all know that is only possible by feeding the little varmints large quantities of gooey, flaccid, bleached Wonder bread.  At least that’s what I remember from stupid TV commercials when I was young.  Never liked that crap.

But I’ve noticed over recent years that the playgrounds are empty.  Or at least partially empty, save for some circuit training adults who shouldn’t be in tights, attempting to do pull ups or swinging from those parallel ladder things midway through their running, I mean jogging workout.  Where are the kids?  Inside playing computer games or Play Station or whatever they do electronically now?

Where is the cacophony of clattering bikes with baseball cards clothes – pinned to their bicycle spokes while they ride behind the fog produced by the anti – mosquito DDT trucks?  Damn those were the good old days.

Ok, I admit that some parents would say I am out of touch with what is going on with kids today; they are active in organized sports such as soccer, baseball, football, cheerleading etc.  Fine then. I’ll have you know I used to know about kids too because I used to have some and worried about what was the best balance between work, play and safety in their lives too.

I still say the playgrounds are empty and bikes are replaced by cars and car pools and kids are the same of course, but much different now. And although they are smarter than we were with all this technology, I’m sure, they’re also less fit in general.  Just ask some of the military basic training drill sergeants.

I remember my mother telling me, “Carson, get out of the house and go play in the street.”  So I did.  And I climbed onto roofs.  In fact, there were only a couple of us neighborhood kids who were athletic enough to climb up the 25 foot pole just next to the corner on the other side of the gymnasium of Knapp Elementary School.  Or maybe I should exaggerate and say it was 100 foot pole we shimmied, I’ve forgotten after all these glorious years, but it was a tall pole for us. The other kids watched us in awe after we climbed up on top of the gravel roof of the Elementary school and played baseball with sticks we had previously hurled up on the roof and the gravel rocks we would hit down to the playground below. Each hit from the roof was a home run of course, because the rock went out of site, “over the fence.” And we said, “Hey Ernie, let’s play two!” Then I think the others ran home and told their parents on us.  Not sure if my parents ever knew, but I always came home for dinner.

Funny thing about roofs when I was young.  Guess it was some type of primordial attraction I had for climbing trees and of course, that leads to climbing more roofs. Yeah, I know, it’s the monkey in me coming out, but heck, you know, without monkeys there wouldn’t have been a space program!

Seems the other roof that I enjoyed climbing up on was Grandpa’s garage roof.  It was a rickety old wooden garage, you know, the type that creak with the slightest wind and exudes that old musty smell.  Thankfully, there was a gnarly old tree next to it, and I surely would climb it and straddle the triangle the gable made and talk to the workers smoking below on break by the restaurant grease pit on the other side of the fence below. Now I was the king of the roof back then!  Seems no one could get me up there, not that I was paranoid or anything.

Sometimes, Johnny, the boy in Gramp’s neighborhood, would be successful in coaxing me down from the roof, mostly because he had lots of gum, and always had seven sticks of gum in his mouth at time, “one for each year I is.”  I thought Johnny was cool, but it blew my mind thinking how much gum would be exploding his chipmunk cheeks when he was 18!  So, of course, we ran down to the railroad tracks and put some dimes on the rails, stood back and watched the train come by, then picked up our enlarged and flattened dimes, now triple in size!

I know, that’s enough of that reminiscing.  But in the end, I must admit that it was a good childhood, full of independence and hope, mixed with danger and adventure. But at the same time, we accepted the realization that if you didn’t work hard, you wouldn’t succeed, and nothing would be handed to you.  If you failed, it was your fault, and there’s no one else to blame.

SRC