WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (09-09-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

 

     My friend is always telling me how impossible it is to pry her kid away from his phone. He sits there all day and never takes his eyes off it. By comparison, if you see me staring at my phone for more than 15 minutes it means I forgot how to turn it on. But it's a serious issue: how do you keep your kids active and engaged with the world away from cyberspace? It's not like you can just tell your kids to go out and play in the street, who would do something like that? My parents. They encouraged me to play in the street all the time when I was a kid. Your parents too, probably, and why your parents would encourage ME play in the street is a mystery. And before you go saying that you would have done the same thing, I'll just tell you that they allowed all of my siblings to do that, not just me.

     We would play for hours outside, thinking up different games to play that coincided with the traffic patterns. We lived on a cul-de-sac, so cars would have to go out of their way to run us over, and most concluded that it wasn't worth the effort. We would be outside until 9 o'clock at night, which at the time was like 10:30, adjusted for inflation. We might make up our own games or play something traditional like "hide and seek." I was very good at hiding, but I was not often sought. 

     My Mom used to let us hang out at the playground. Who DOES that? I can't imagine what kids now would think of it. "Mom, get this: there's a contraption at the playground that spins around while you're actually on it and throws you off by centrifugal force." She says, "That's nice, Honey." "And there's a thing with two seats perched on a fulcrum, and I sat on one side, and a fat guy plopped down on the other and I was launched into the sandbox." She says, "We don't say 'fat' anymore Honey, we say 'doughnutically challenged.'" "And there's a giant jail cell with metal bars, and people were climbing on top of it, but you can get out any time you want." She says, "Well, you know I'm in favor of prison reform." "And there's a big metal pole with a ball attached to it on a string and when you hit it it comes around from the other side and pops you in the head." And she says, "All right Honey, let's just go through some concussion protocols, and then you can help me with your homework."

     When I was a kid I used to have a lizard as a pet, and I had a snake at one point, too. As I remember, the lizard escaped his terrarium and was never found. I don't think my Mom found out, or I would have tipped over the scales of justice. I know I'm not the first male to suffer from a reptile dysfunction, but I'm not sure today's moms are into exotic pets.

     As a teenager we used jump off the abandoned train trestle in Yorktown into the Croton Reservoir. Jumping 40 or so feet off anything into anything else is one of those things that is great fun if you're not the one doing it. It's like riding in a convertible, which looks great from the outside, and from the inside every single hair on my head has blown into my mouth and nose until we stop at a stoplight, at which time I'm broiling in the open sun like a baked potato.

     I don't know why I felt it necessary to tempt fate. Bad luck goes back a long way in my family, back to the days when my ancestors came to Ellis Island in New York to gain entry into the United States, and there was a sign that said, "Please Use Maine Entrance."

     It's a wonder I survived long enough to grow out of childhood. My aunt used to comment on my growth every time she saw me. She'd say, "Wow I remember you when you were 0, months before you were born. You've certainly grown since then." For the first year of my life I was laying down all the time, so my height was basically my width. I tripled my height in one day just by standing up. But looking back, now I see why they were so surprised, since most of the stuff we did back then would be illegal today, and probably was back then. And I haven't even told you about going to college in the in that active mine field known as the 1970s. But I made it out alive. Mom's, you can swaddle your kid in bubble wrap and lock him in the basement, or you can encourage engagement with the outside world. I know it seems dangerous out there, but children were designed to last a lifetime.