One big difference.

It has come to my attention that my children have NEVER knocked on a friends house’s door and asked if they could come out and play. It’s all done via text, and scheduled, and monitored by one, or both parents. I couldn’t imagine my childhood without wandering town knocking on doors, asking, and either having another kid join me on my rounds, or moving on by myself, or at the very least with one of my brothers. My kids however, they would be too scared to approach a house, talk to an adult or older sibling of their friend. Possibly face rejection (for various reasons) and have to move on like that was just one of the many possible outcomes you’d get. Sometimes no one came to the door. Or an elderly foreign grand parent came forth whom didn’t speak any english. Or an angered sibling answered and shooed us away. It was anybodies game those days. What a life. Would I walk the rounds for an hour unsuccessfully looking for a friend to play with, or would eleven of us disappear into the woodlot for eight hours, and run home muddy, bloodied, and hungry/thirsty. It was a gamble each and every time. Oh life in the 80’s. No cell phones. Answering machines were for the well to do. Spending $279,000.00 on a house meant you had more money than sense, and people talked about how frivolous you were with money – money bags McGee over here! Weird times. The house was clean because we weren’t allowed to stay inside it on weekends, or evenings, or any time it wasn’t convenient really.

Today is the first PA Day of the new school year, and back in my day (I don’t really remember PA Days, and don’t know what we did with ourselves), the street would be full of kids and we’d be ushered outdoors to find one of the random assortment of roaming child groups to go play with. Pray the teens weren’t also out looking to pick on someone, or your group as a whole. It was the wild west! Positively chaotic. Barbaric even.

If someone had a toothpick bat, and atleast one tennis ball we had a choice of games to play. Baseball, horse, handball, four squares, mini soccer (could be done with a crunched up can too, but that always led to shin cuts). The list of games was nearly endless. Rocket the ball up towards the sky and fight to see whom could catch it bare handed. Practice ground balls. Monkey in the middle. Oh my. We got inventive back then. You had to. We all had to kill eight or so hours outside of the house. Might as well make it fun. Some games ended in brawls. We were kids, that was always going to happen. Some kids made their fun pushing your buttons and scraping. It was after all the eighties. We called each other horrible, terrible things. Sometimes in jest, other times to wound. Not maliciously, or so I believe. But if you had an off day you might say something a bit extra, that just bit deep, and really hurt someone. Again – stupid kids. You could usually tell who was looking for a brawl. Tended to be the same kids usually. Now that I’m older you start to realize why that was. Oblivious kids we were.

I’ve had no calls for play dates for today, so we’re going to run the dog at the farm for a bit. Watch a movie, grab some lunch, and call it a day. I really can not for the life of me remember what we would have done on PA Days (as I have no recollection of a specific one, I can only guess based on what we always did). I’m guessing my two eldest brothers were tasked with watching us. Or at least being near home while we were turfed out into the streets en masse to roam, play, occupy ourselves sans chaperone/adult involvement. It wasn’t until I was twelve or so that day camps were nolonger a thing, and we could plop down in front of the tv to occupy ourselves. That summer when we moved to the large house on Cherrydale Court is the first I can remember just watching Mash, Leave it to Beaver, things of that ilk,  and Mighty Morphing Power Rangers. We played the original Baldur’s Gate on the Atari 1600 that whole summer. Sat on the floor cross legged, dungeon crawling in our basement, with no visible sunlight. It was awesome. That devolved into a few kick boxing fights too. Spent that summer wearing a shirt the whole time as my closest brother in age had turned my left shoulder black, yellow, green, purple and red. So rather than show my mum and get in trouble I kept a shirt on for months until all the bruising was gone. It was a hot summer too. But I digress.

I hope my kids get the chance to knock on doors and ask their friends if they can come out and play. It was a fantastic part of my childhood. Offered me some personal freedom to go and make choices, friendships and bonds with my fellow children. Any who – Ciao Bella!