These are the best of days...

 

Lately, I find myself thinking back to a childhood that seems idyllic looking in the rearview mirror.  Being a kid back then was very different than it is today. Not better, just different.  Things that I did back then, I would never think of allowing my kids do when they were kids.

My summer routine from the time I was 9 or 10 was to leave the house on my bicycle, ride into town, where most of my friends lived, and fill my day with fun and adventures. I lived about a mile away from downtown and thought nothing of that bike ride.

Today, there are bike teams and developmental programs. And roads that just don’t seem safe anymore. But a talented cyclist today can go places and do things we never knew existed.

There wasn’t a public pool in my hometown so if we wanted to go swimming, we jumped in the nearest body of water. All of us could swim and never gave a thought to any dangers.

These days, it’s 4 AM wakeup calls to get to swimming practice.  And, for those serious enough, a second practice that afternoon.

Coach Ratledge, the high school football coach, provided a program called Summer Recreation, downtown at the only ballpark in town.  Some days we would do crafts but most days we would divide up into teams and play baseball, with Coach Ratledge as the only umpire.

These days, it’s Little League and private coaches. And travel teams for everything.  I once joined my son and his daughter on an excursion that included soccer games in Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Don’t get me wrong—it was an awesome trip and we really made the best of it, but that’s a 1400 mile road trip for two games.

It seems like we were always throwing something. Chucking rocks at a road sign, keeping score on who hit it the most times. And skipping rocks across a pond, counting the number of skips. 

I see kids today that have reached puberty and have never thrown anything.  They have to learn the throwing motion from scratch, learning something that just came naturally to us.

And tennis. We had borrowed balls and borrowed rackets for the longest time, and no public courts to play on, but we played all the time. It’s a bit different today.

But before you assume that it was good back then and bad today, let me tell you that both were and are wonderful. Kids today have lots more opportunities. We had football and basketball.  If girls didn’t play basketball, they didn’t have anything to play.

Kids are better today.  More athletic. Bigger, stronger, faster. As good as my high school football team might have been, we would have struggled against a good team today.  And there probably wouldn’t have been much place for a 190 pound right tackle (me).

Fewer kids played sports back then because there just wasn’t much opportunity for them. These days, there’s something for everybody. Things we had never heard of back then are common today. Soccer. Lacrosse. Martial arts. Even things like volleyball, softball, and flag football for girls.

No, yesterday was not perfect, yet it was the best of times, and the worst of times. Just like today.