Whatever happened to daydreaming? I mean real down to earth
daydreaming? Standards, requirements, expectations have all changed since I was
a kid. Many of the changes were changed out of a perceived need to make “life”
safer, to make kids smarter, to even out the playing field for those of little or
no means, and many other reasons. Here’s what I remember filling my “idle” time
with during my adolescence years.
Reality television didn’t exist, with the exception of shows
like the weekly National Geographic, and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.
Television was available in color, but we had an old black and white set,
complete with “rabbit ear” antenna, (cable, Dish, and Internet didn’t exist
either), with two twist channel selector switches, the second one was for UHF
channels, channels above 13. As a family,
we watched “Lassie”, “Adam 12”, “Emergency”, “Carole Burnett”, “Drag Net”, “Star
Trek”, “Outer Limits”, “Concentration”, and “Jeopardy”. Cartoons, Godzilla, Lewis/Martin, and Creature
Feature flicks were reserved for us kids on Saturday morning… before 8am, when
we, under our own power, headed outside to create some source of entertainment
for ourselves.
Cell phones were nonexistent, but my brother and I did get a
really cool Radio Shack two channel Walkie-Talkie for Christmas. I used to make no battery required, crystal
radios out of old wires, paper tubes, razor blades, safety pins, and an old ear
phone plug, and I know I could whip one out now. When I started working, I scraped up enough
money to buy a slightly used CB radio, increased the output, and made a
directional antenna that I could focus on the neighbor house and blank out their
TV when I keyed the microphone.
Video games did exist, but not until I was a teenager, and
only at the Pinball arcade at the mall, where we frequently dropped $5 to $10
dollars at 25 cents a game. The coolest thing was when my father brought a “Pong”
game home. My father, brothers, neighborhood
kids, and myself, played Pong well into the night, all summer long on the porch…
yep, on the porch!
My brothers and neighborhood kids used to lay on the grass
on clear, muggy, hot summer nights looking at the stars, while we listened to
the ABC Radio Mystery Theater, on a portable Am Radio/8 Track tape player. We even caught tons of fire flies in
spaghetti sauce jars, then we squished them, and made glow in the dark war
paint! It was pretty cool seeing a face
glowing!!!
I didn’t make rafts, or boats. I made ships, and every one
of them sunk! I learned how to swim in the ocean waves, save myself from rip
tides, sail with the Boy Scouts, sharpen knives and axes, shoot .22 cal rifles,
start fires without matches, skin squirrels, trap small animals, wear skunk
smell, fish, hike, climb big maple and oak trees, and a whole slew of other
stuff.
I broke both my arms, my right collar bone, my right ankle, separated
my left shoulder, destroyed my left knee, had a hernia, scratched both my
corneas, got stitches for deep gashes in my hands, head, feet, legs, and
arms. I’ve been knocked unconscious playing
soccer, baseball, football, running cross country (pretty tough to do… I know),
and while sailing. I can’t tell you what I’ve sprained and strained, but if it
moves, or moved, I’ve strained or sprained it.
I got my license the same week I turned 16. No driver’s education required!!! I backed into a telephone pole, 15 minutes
into my first solo drive, 30 minutes after getting my license. I’ve owned several $100 VW Beetles, and
learned how to keep them running on a nonexistent car budget.
I had a really nice girl friend. I was in love, no matter
what adults called it at that time. We went all over the place, and had some
really cool times. I broke her heart,
and broke my heart at the same time. I
lived through it. I repeated the same love
drama in college, and lived through it again.
I guess I had to learn something about myself from my failed attempts at
love.
Circling back to my initial statement about how things
change… Change is good. Invention is
good. Emotional strife is good. Loss is
good. Pain is good. Love is good. I think daydreaming is where I put it all back
together, in perspective to everything else I’ve done, experienced, and plan to
do. My daydreams now are more pleasant
than they used to be. I think that’s because as I age, my memories fade,
individual events are muted by other events, and I can pick and choose what I
want to spend my time concentrating on.
Kids need to daydream, take risk, create and invent, read,
play, relax, play, dork around, and experiment with many different things in
order to learn what they’re good at.
Controlling kids isn’t the answer either. I believe that the answer is to challenge
kids. Ask any kid… What did you make
today? What was the best part of your
day today? Did you meet anyone new today? Did you see anything cool today?
I think, you will be excited with their answers.
