Scheming and Daydreaming

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.  

Campy Out!