Feeling Nostalgic Day 5: Let Kids Be Kids!

It makes me smile when I see children playing outside these days. Yes, it annoys me in the summer when they’re outside yelling and screaming and my vampire lifestyle makes me sleep during the day with the windows open and it keeps me awake, but I would rather they be outside than indoors glued to the television and computer or their handheld computer of a smartphone. I did write a blog awhile back about a similar issue. 

Dude, when we were kids, we were ALWAYS outside. I loved being outside, even if it were just sitting at the picnic table watching the traffic go by. We lived in a small town where we knew pretty much everyone; so well that Mom usually knew what I had done before I’d gotten home. We’d ride our bikes and rollerblade all over town, climb trees, play in puddles, have water wars, come home muddy, and just be kids.

I smile now when I see kids being kids because there is too much pressure on kids from the fearful adults who are raising them. Parents are too afraid to let their children out of their sight out of fear they will get hurt or abducted or shot or something. Yes, that’s always a possibility, but I don’t think keeping our kids locked up all summer is the answer. Let them go outside and run around and get hurt and learn from it. That’s how we grew up. 

 

I miss seeing kids be kids and playing outside, getting dirty, ripping holes in the knees of their jeans, hearing the joyful shrieks from a game of hide-n-seek or chasing one another with water balloons. The freedom of riding our bikes all over and popping in our friends to see if they were home to play. If they weren’t, knocking on another’s door was the norm. You didn’t have to “make plans” to meet up with your friends because if there were any events in town, you knew you could find everyone there. You couldn’t text your friends to see where they were; you had to figure out whose house they were at by all the bikes out front or the noises coming from the backyard. 

And the neighbors did not call the cops for something because they would come over and ask if everything was okay prior to doing so, and if you were throwing a party no one called the police because all your neighbors were at the party! But you had better be home at the time Mom told you to be because this was prior to the days of cell phones and if your folks had to come hunt you down, it was brutal. 

But we were still outside. And as I mentioned in an earlier post about the declining enjoyment of the natural beauty of the Dells, I don’t think it’s just there. The Dells is just more commercialized to detract from it. All I know is that kids spend too much time indoors today. Whether they’re glued to their computer or video games or just have parents that are too afraid to let them out of captivity, gone are the days where children learn to appreciate the small things in life by being amused by an insect or lying on the grass to point out what the cloud shapes appear to look like upon a blue sky. Don’t grow up too quick, kids. Learn to appreciate the small things in life by appreciating the beauty of the natural environment. Slow down. Quit being in such a hurry all the time. Don’t overwhelm yourself with so many activities that you stress yourself out and don’t have time for anything. There’s no fun in that. 

Maybe it is just a personal thing with me, but I would always get upset when someone told me they did not have the time to do something. I always interpreted that as they didn’t want to make the time. And if you really do not have the time, then you’ve probably taken on too much because if you really want to do something, you would find the time to make it happen. A little off topic here, but not much, because this could be the underlying reason we do not see children outside playing anymore… parents have them rushing from school to band practice to a soccer game to evening church activities then home to dinner and homework then bed. Then parents turn around and blame the teachers for the amount of homework they give kids nowadays. We didn’t have any of these issues when I was a kid. Not that I was aware of anyway… we had plenty of things to keep us busy and if we told Mom we were bored, we wouldn't be bored long after that because that darned bathroom floor always needed to be scrubbed with a toothbrush. Ha! I wonder why she never suggested the kitchen floor...

All I’m saying is… I’m happy when I see kids outside these days. 

Feeling Nostalgic Day 4: Before Reality TV

What were some of your favorite television shows as a kid? 

Today it is mostly all “reality tv” and most of it is boring or sickening and aligns with my thoughts about the degradation of society… for another time. 

TV time was limited in our home when I was a child. After school I watched Full House and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? Sometimes Reading Rainbow, then the news. 

Tuesday evenings we watched Rescue 911. Man that show kind of freaked me out sometimes.

Fridays was TGIF on ABC… good shows such as Boy Meets World, Full House, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step, Two of a Kind, So Little Time, and that’s all I remember at the moment.

Boy Meets World has reruns on nowadays on MTV2, and they are also making a sequel called Girl Meets World which is supposed to be Cory and Topanga’s teenagers as the main roles. 

Step by Step and ALF have reruns on the Hub and Full House is on Nick at Nite every weeknight. Now you know you feel old when shows you enjoyed as a child end up on Nick at Nite. Even though I own all 8 seasons of Full House on DVD, I still watch it in the evenings sometimes when there is nothing else on… which is most of the time.    

Another show I own all seasons of on DVD but still watch when it is on is 7^th Heaven. Why did I never hear of this show until I was like… 17????

Saturday nights we would watch shows such as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, Early Edition, and Walker, Texas Ranger. 

Another television show I greatly enjoyed that I wish they (who’s they?) would put on DVD is Promised Land, one of my favorite television shows ever. About ten years ago there were reruns on a local station but I have not heard or seen anything of it since. If I’m lucky I may have a couple of fuzzy recorded episodes on a VHS tape buried in a bin in my garage. And yes, I still own a VCR that works and many VHS tapes. Slowly I have been attempting to upgrade all the VHS tapes to DVD but some are impossible to find or so rare they cost too much on Amazon. 

Yes, I’m still old school. I still prefer the classic video games. My Super Nintendo died so for Zach’s birthday I bought one of those FS Twin consoles that plays both 8 bit Nintendo games and 16 bit Super Nintendo games. All the games on the newer systems are too complicated with too many buttons. Even when I got a Wii, I downloaded some of the games I couldn’t find in cartridge form such as Dr. Mario. I even still own a Game Boy Color even though I have not played it in forever. Zach has a PS3 and most of the games he rents to try are so complicated just to set up, let alone figure out how to play. I just want to play the game, not spend two hours choosing the color of my player’s pants. 

Here is the link to my Pinterest board of stuff I may have forgotten to talk about here: http://www.pinterest.com/hollyswaney/movies-and-tv-shows/