| STREET GAMES |
| OK . . . I've included my own below slide show of some various street games from back in the day. I have also included two videos on the subject as well. I hope you find them all equally informative and entertaining. Folks, I am also a realist . . . I know damn well that we will never return to those times. I learned long ago that you cannot go back, nor should you try. All I'm suggesting is progress isn't always a good thing and sometimes what has been forgotten should be re-explored again as perhaps some of the answers we are seeking are within what we already had! What I mean by that is . . . today we are faced with the very real problem of child obesity. We sit in amazement, concern and sadness as our kids grow fatter and lazier with each passing year. We as a society have also seemingly lost the unique ability to interact socially with one another as we once did. In short, we don't play very well in the sandbox with each other anymore. We used to! All I'm suggesting is perhaps we should get our kids back outside again and engaging in real life physical sports as we once did. They would be exercising daily AND learning to socially interact together in real life with kids of all types. Fears of others different from us would start to erode as well. If you grow up playing and interacting with kids of all backgrounds you tend to come to understand them and not fear them later on as adults. |
| The below video is proof that this is not just some ancient nostalgic memory. Nope. Even to today many streets back east are used by the community for social gatherings on a constant basis and these same games are played. These folks have TV, computers and gaming consoles also. But they never forget that the most important thing they have is each other for a safer and more solid community. Now if a car has the nerve to come down the street and interrupt the game they get "booed" . . . in my day it was a bit more than that. But I won't go there . . . LOL. While you don't have to take over the street, people are very much out and about in their communities back there to this day. However, out here, people simply huddle in their homes. Kinda sad. |
| Below is my own Slide Show (with manual controls) of some images from days past. A lot changes in time. Clothes, styles, musical taste, cars, etc. But you know what never changes? People! We still have the same desires and needs as always. I was sadly told by someone whom I thought loved me that I live in a Leave it to Beaver world. No, I assure you I am very much in this world of today. However I do have the benefit of having grown up in a different era where I'm very proud to say we had a lot of things down right! Yes, a lot was not so good either. But people were bonded closer to each other then and they respected age and they respected traditions (Not just the one's you pick and chose to insist upon when it suits or benefits YOU). That won't make much sense to most of you reading this, but it will to a certain person. Enjoy the slide show! |
| Today we live in a vacuum. We live in our little boxes at home and only venture out of our caves for work and supplies when needed. ALL of us . . . kids and adults need to take back our streets, our communities and our lives. We need to turn off those damn TV's, Gaming Consoles and stop using these idiot boxes to raise and baby sit our adolescents. You say it's too dangerous outside these days? Well who let it get that way? We did! We need to take back our communities and make them safe for kids to play outside once again and for old folks to sit in our parks again without fear. I stress that we should do this . . . not the police department. There is a great line in the below video where a couple of guys correctly point out that back-in-the-day there were two sets of police in the neighborhood. One was the cops and the one everyone feared far more which were the parents, relatives and adults in the community who were actively engaging in watching their kids and their street and they didn't let those kids or anybody else get away with anything! Yes, this means parents and families once again spending time with those kids and not plopping them down in front of an idiot electronic box to baby sit them. I would bet if you took ten kids and put them outside together and just stood there you would see them staring at each other in bewilderment as to what to do with each other! Without an Xbox, PlayStation or Computer . . . they would be lost as to how to make up games in which to play with each other. |
| Kids today can watch sports on TV but they haven't a clue as to how to actually get out there and play on their own. Yes, there are exceptions and please don't write me about your little Johnny or Susie who routinely plays this or that . . . yawn. I'm talking about kids today on a whole . . . not the exceptions. Today, kids rely on games involving electricity or batteries. In our day we had no electronic or battery operated toys. We had to venture out and invent games and interact with each other. This sparked a unique sense of self-creativity and got us physically in shape. It also taught us about each other's cultures and how to interact socially with each other. We became adults and for the most part we didn't fear other cultures because we grew up with them. You will notice in both my slide show and in the video of NYC everything is cross racial and cross cultural. I don't mean to suggest it will totally eliminate racial issues . . . but it goes a long way in getting people to understand each other and work with each other if we start doing so as kids. Now I realize this ain't hardly NYC but I look at my own community and see very few kids outside, though I know they reside here. If they are outside they almost always are with others of their own ethnic background with very few exceptions. That doesn't make them bias at all . . . but there is a sadness in that. If parents don't seek out other cultures and ethnic backgrounds for their kids to start interacting with, how can we expect them to be able to do so as adults. Without real life exposure to others they are being thwarted in their social development. I call it . . . being cheated! |
| So in conclusion, I propose we take back our communities and stop hiding within our barricaded castles. Parents AND kids . . . turn off both your boxes and get outside and do stuff! I often sit outside and check out my community as I saw adults doing so long ago. People wonder what the hell I'm doing LOL! Some jackasses even think I'm spying on them. Oh, Please. Actually, I wonder why the hell they're not out here with me! I shoot pool in my garage with the garage door wide open. I sit out on my deck and check out the neighborhood while listening to music and having a drink. I very much want to feel connected to my street whenever possible. I like chatting with people who walk by and have met so many people that way. I know my community in a way the current Board Members of our complex will never come to know it. They can't figure me out. Well I can't figure them out. But enough of all that. I see a very sad trend here now of people erecting enormous walls and higher trellis additions on top of their fences as if the high wall itself ain't enough . . . LOL. Folks, with few exceptions these things are gaudy as sin. No one else may have told ya . . . I just did! They claim it's for privacy. Oh really now? Please! Your bedroom is for privacy. Your community is not for walling out . . . it's for getting out and enjoying! Silly me huh? |
| Anyway, I'd love to see the walls come down and people come out and get to know one another and the kids play with each other. I'm proud that my deck and garage are open and places for neighbors to come and have a drink and listen to music and chat. Some of you will understand where I'm coming from and most of you will continue to burrow further into your own self created fortresses. Enjoy the below video and slide show and at least give a little thought to what I have said. It shows people in a community out and about with each other regardless of age, color, language, etc.. The dummy who designed this complex intentionally failed to provide a community center or even a little playground for kids. There's no recreation facility of any kind. Sadly, the people who have been in charge of it for way too long have equally wanted to keep it an old run down aging colorless, drab place to live. It's hurt far more than our property values. It's hurt us. It's never too late to change! I say take it back. This should be more than just a series of connected "boxes" in which we dwell. This should be an alive and active community inside and out. Silly me huh? Click on the "HQ" button for high quality and then click on the button to the right of it to fill the screen. The last speaker on the first video says it all. When people no longer congregate with each other within their community . . . they lose their community. It's so true. Enjoy the videos. |