Post by david on Mar 17, 2009 23:17:01 GMT -8
Mr. and Mrs. Skunk were the parents of twins named In and Out.
Late one afternoon In was out and Out was in.
“Go, Out,” said Mother Skunk. “And bring your brother, In.
So Out went out in search of In; he returned after just a minute with his brother in tow.
“How did you find In so quickly?” asked Mr. Skunk.
“That was fast,” added his wife. “How did you know where to look?”
Out smiled at his parents and replied, “Instinct!”
Late one afternoon In was out and Out was in.
“Go, Out,” said Mother Skunk. “And bring your brother, In.
So Out went out in search of In; he returned after just a minute with his brother in tow.
“How did you find In so quickly?” asked Mr. Skunk.
“That was fast,” added his wife. “How did you know where to look?”
Out smiled at his parents and replied, “Instinct!”
Before the x-box and Nintendo; before the gameboy, walkman, i-pod and hand-held video games; before massively multiplayer online role-playing games; before Facebook, MySpace, Second Life and Twitter; before 24-hour cable television, podcasts, videotape, CDs and TIVO; before cell phones, Palm Pilots, i-phones and Blackberries; and before Lexis-Nexis, Yahoo, Google, Amazon and E-Bay there was “out.”
Out as in “out and about.” Out as in, “Where are you going?” – “I’m going out.” Out as in, “Can David come out and play.” Out as in, “While you were out...” And out as in, “You should get out more.”
I don’t go back to before television – that technology was introduced to the masses at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City, but its adoption was delayed by the war. So commercial television really didn’t gain a foothold until the early ‘50s – just in time to make me part of the first generation raised during the television era.
Fortunately, they call us Baby Boomers instead of Boob Tubers.
It was slim pickings at first, most Americans had just three or fewer channels to choose from and there was no such thing as late-night: each day began with a test pattern at six or seven in the morning, followed by, “We now begin another broadcast day” and the National Anthem. About 15 hours later it was: “We’ve come to the end of another broadcast day” – and another rendition of the anthem.
Not much on television those days – and much of what was on didn’t appeal to children. But things have changed; when was the last time you heard someone say: “There’s nothing on?”
But “nothing’s on” was a common occurrence when I was a kid – and when there was nothing on, we went “out.”
We didn’t need any technology outside, either. A rusty tin can was enough to equip any number of kids for a game of Kick the Can. In fact, any object or location could be designated as “home” for a game of Hide and Go Seek.
Though we were lacking in technology, we had a language of our own; a language that had developed over centuries, including rhymes and catchwords:
“Ready or not…here I come;” “One two three on Billy;” “Ollie Ollie Oxen, Free Free Free;” “Ashes, ashes, we all fall down” “Red Rover, Red Rover let Sue come over;” “What’s your trade? Lemonade!” “Mother, may I?” “Red light…green light” and “Tag! You’re it!”
During recess at school, we would drag two or three bats, a ball and some bases out of a box in the cloakroom and set up a baseball field on the playground. Back in the neighborhood, the field was only as wide as the street and bases were oil spots or cracks in the curb or a spare mitt or jacket or bit of cardboard or anything available.
Without Barney or Hannah Montana or HR Puffenstuff to do all of the work, we had to develop our own fantasies. “You be the bad guy and I’ll be the sheriff.” “Let’s pretend we’re in a submarine” or an airplane, or a castle, or in the Land of Oz, or in a spaceship or on the moon.
Most of us played house and played school, many of us played doctor. We all played something and many of these activities began with two magic words: “Let’s pretend…”
Imagination was a valuable commodity. Those with the best imagination ruled the fantasy worlds we spent hours and hours inhabiting. We practiced being police and firefighters and pilots and teachers and detectives and cowboys and secret agents and parents.
Today’s children and teens, despite all of the gadgets and gizmos, despite the color televisions, videos, personal computers, portable audio players, electronic games and dozens of other battery-powered toys and devices often complain that they’re bored.
I don’t remember being bored. A sharp stick was all I needed to keep myself occupied, a rotting log, an anthill, a piece of glass, a bug, a rock – anything that I could dig up, push around, throw, break, pile up or tear down, hide, collect, transform or just examine sufficed and could capture my attention for a few minutes or a whole summer.
It wasn’t until children’s lives became filled with scheduled activities, commercial products and excess that “out” became insufficient. Today, kids are on overload. If they’re not multitasking, they suffer from sensory deprivation.
She has her i-pod plugged into one ear and a cell phone against the other over which she’s conversing with two friends in a three-way call with a fourth party on call-waiting. All this while walking through the mall and window-shopping with three other friends.
And when she gets home and her mother asks, “What have you been doing?” she says, “Nothing. It was the most boring day of my life.”
I wonder if any of today’s kids have even heard of “kick the can.” Despite all of the stuff they have, stuff I would have certainly wanted if it were available in my day, I’m not sure they’re better off for having so much.
I’m not advocating a return to simpler times; but it does seem possible that they’re not better off with all of that stuff than I was with…out.”