No "Balls"

I know I said I wouldn't write any entries taking a stand on Politics, Religion or any other controversial subjects.I'm aware that I may  lose some of you here and it's pretty much a given that I'm going to gain my hateful anonymous messenger back(hope you had a nice vacation). That's just a risk I'm willing to take people! Even I can't hold my tongue anymore! Shocking I know, usually I'm a brick wall of silence when confronted with the controversial(why are you laughing?). However, I have finally been faced with a news story that I couldn't ignore. The headline alone practically begs for a reckoning"School Bans Balls." No, I'm not paraphrasing.  We have reached the point where someone in charge spent their afternoon taking every "hard ball" off of the play ground and replacing them with plush foam pads. "No helmets?! What if the balls hit them in the head? You insensitive monster!" This got me thinking about growing up in 80's-90's era of awesomeness! Lets take a little trip back in time and compare how much luckier we were than kids these days.(Can we even refer to them as "kids" anymore? It is a synonym for "joke" and we could be causing irreparable damage to their confidence level!) 

Playtime at school for us would be considered the gladiator arena of death these days. Plastic playgrounds? Foam balls? No tag like "rough games"?! We had solid metal jungle gyms with 15 ft. tall steel slides that reached surface of the sun like temperatures in the summer. If you fell off, you landed in dirt, got scratched up, put on a band-aid and kept on trucking. We figured out a way to turn every game into a "tackle version" (yes, even I being a girl, participated. We weren't raising any sissy lalas on the streets of E.C.) Yet, here we are. Mind blowing! I remember walking away from a game of red rover happy to still have two arms attached. When we had field day, the races were on asphalt and you were allowed to celebrate when you won. Hell, when you succeeded in actual sports, we even had a thing called trophies that you earned to show it. Scandalous! 

Now I grew up in a super small town and I loved every minute of it. As kids, we were tough, we were wild and most of all, we were outside. Playing night games, building huts, playing in creeks, getting muddy, and racing ATVs down dirt trails. (How did we ever survive?)We would pack some snacks, go for a walk in the cedars for hours at a time where there were snakes and other wild animals. Can you imagine? When you had an argument, you settled it and you were allowed to defend yourself against bullies without fear. All of this we did without constant adult supervision. Character building! It was the best of times, it was...yes, still the best of times.

The more and more I see these stories and these changes to the norms that were once considered rights you not only got to enjoy as kids you were expected and encouraged too, the more I know one fact to be inevitable. Soon you won't have to say "no balls allowed" there won't be a set to found.