Last night, I watched my seven year old son finish reading an actual chapter book that only took him two days to read(yes I'm bragging, don't judge me). This is a kid that lives and breathes for the App Store, so to see him use his hands to turn pages instead of slide them and read me lines from this "awesome" story instead of filling me in on every move he has made in the last five minutes of Angry birds was like spotting Big Foot in person! Rare to say the least! It's just not as common anymore to see kids carrying books around and spending quiet time lost in a literary world of wonder instead of a virtual one. Once again I found myself thinking about how different his childhood is from the one that I got to live. There's no comparison! I feel sorry for the kid(thought that was going somewhere else didn't you).Growing up in the 80's and 90's dream decades was an experience I wouldn't trade for all the MP3s, USBs or PS3s(I'm aware that's out of date, but it rhymes) in the modern world. There are so many things we did back then that he'll probably never do.
We used to start a new club every week! We would think of some awesome name like like "The kids of Carson Avenue" or "Barbie Doll Players"(super creative I know) and start organizing what was sure to be the most sought after group to belong to in all of the three mile radius! You had to find members (you and your best friend) and pick a head quarters. Ours was usually my Dads hat room in the basement (the man has like 3,000 hats). It was close enough to my parents candy cupboard to keep the snacks stocked aplenty and far enough away from prying ears to be able to talk about "secret stuff". Very important in the life of an 7-11 year old kid.
What about night games! There wasn't an evening that if it was warm enough when those street lights went on, we weren't out living it up small town style! You knew every kid and which ones you wanted on your team for which games. Capture the flag called for those with speed and cat like agility to keep from getting caught, while hide and seek or sardines were more suited for the ones who knew how to go over a minute without talking(not my strong suit). Everybody played until enough moms had stood on their porches calling the players home.
You sat down and watched shows as a family, mainly because most households had only one television instead of 3 or more. Whether it was the lineup you waited for all week on TGIF(Family Matters, Full House, Americas Funniest home Videos) or waking up the next morning for Saturday morning cartoons(Looney Tunes, Scooby Doo, DuckTales, etc.), you watched them together without a thought that one day you would see these same shows duplicated a million times over and be able to skip the commercials on your private DVR. Now we have 5 T.V.s in our house and at any given time, at least three of them are on. There's only four of us living here!
These kids will never wake up on their birthday to a shiny new Sony Walkman waiting for them and spend all day rollerblading around town wearing said Walkman and listening to a Nirvana tape(never understanding a single thing they're talking about). Those two things were a constant part of my wardrobe for at least 5 years of my life and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still wish I had kept both. Although my niece did get a pair of rollerblades last Christmas, so all is not lost for our future generation....still waiting for tapes to make a comeback though.
The movies that were made during that time are eternally entertaining! I have yet to see anything come close to touching the cinematic icons like ET, the Karate Kid, Goonies, Big, Indiana Jones or the Great Outdoors. Yes today's special effects make theirs look like a playtime puppet show, but we didn't care! One word: Ghostbusters. Top that, any movie, ever made, anytime!
Those were simpler times spent doodling MASH games in our Trapper Keepers planning our future. You ran home in time to see that crazy Zack Morris get in and out of another pickle in all of 22 minutes and then called your friends on a land line number you had memorized(I couldn't call home without my cell now)! When I tell these things to my son now, I get that same look that I'm sure I gave my parents and I'm sure we're both thinking the same thing at the same time....poor kids don't know what they're missing.
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