Kids These Days!

Growing up in the 70's and 80's, I had ample time to watch movies and read books about the cold war, spies, those Russians! Etc.

I played outside with my friends, climbed trees, rode my bike, and skinned my knees.

All things that normal kids should do and love!

We (kids) weren't slaves to pc games, or cell phone apps yet.

I could probably count on one hand the number of evenings I stayed inside to watch TV, or play with my Merlin (if you don't know what Merlin is, search Google for "Merlin old toy").

We were children of the neighborhood. We knew our neighborhood. We could ride our bikes down the street and know exactly where the break in the curb was to jump our bikes onto the boulevard, and then over to the sidewalk.

We weren't afraid of strangers. We followed them, in fact. We would keep our distance, and herd them like sheep (we thought we were herding them. More likely the strangers were just walking exactly where they wanted to go, but we were sheep herders in our minds).

Take candy from strangers?......Hell Ya!! It's candy!! And the strangers back in my day weren't going to abduct you and haul you off somewhere to kill you. They were just giving you some candy.

We even had a Candy Man, and a Cookie Lady on our block. Each would allow you to stop by once per day to collect said goodies. Our parents knew about these 2 houses, and were not scared in the least that we would be poisoned, or would swallow sewing needles hidden in the cookies.

I think in a way we (my generation) were probably very lucky to have grown up in what arguably would be the last childhood without electronics, video games, computers, or smart phones getting in the way of our overall human development.

I am not trying to imply that today's youth are not developing necessary skills. But I do think they may have some deficits in some areas of development.

I think in-person communication has been lacking in more recent years, mainly due to people going on-line for their relationships, rather than nurturing ones IRL.

Nowadays people have ideas and imagination fed to them through console games, pc games, and smart phone apps.

It's like we've handed over our intellectual keys to the almighty tech gods. They in return dole out portions of electronic entertainment in bite-sized chunks. After all, we also have developed attention deficit disorder, so we can't process entertainment in large doses, or over long periods of time.

So what is the point of this post then? What am I trying to get at?

I don't know. I started writing and this is what came out.

I must be getting old, because I do shake my head in disbelief sometimes at what some kids do these days.

I think I am young enough not be shocked by anything yet. Cool enough to appreciate things the kids find cool. And old enough to know better than to try and act like a kid.


Join me tomorrow for what possibly could be another rambling post. Maybe I'll even have a point to make. :P

Until then, here are some mind-numbing videos to enjoy for no particular reason whatsoever.








Some Home Town Pride.....


Laterz

Video Games!

I grew up the 70's and 80's.

In the 70's, my friends and I were outside a lot. We would play in the community park behind our house, ride our bikes, play hide-n-go-seek, have soccer games with all the kids in the neighborhood, etc.

Seldom was there an evening when we would be inside after supper.....unless it was to play Dungeons & Dragons of course. :P

But in 1982, my dad brought home something interesting.....an Intellivision!!!

WOW!!! My sister and I were blown away! A real video game system?! It was all of our dreams come true!

We had for a while been playing a little here and there on other friends' Atari systems, and thought they were amazing! Never did we think our dad would surprise us with an Intellivision!

Thus started my love of video games. We would play our Intellivision for hours in the evenings and on the weekends. My dad even got into the routine, and had a couple favorite games that he wasn't half bad at (Night Stalker was one I remember he particularly liked).

My progression through the video game system world did not progress as fast or as often as some of my other friends, however. Some would have a new system every 2 years (You could go from Atari, to Intellivision, to Colecovision, to Atari 2600, to Nintendo, to Sega Genesis etc.....all the way through the Playsation, Game Cube, and X-Box stages).

At some point it was computers which caught my eye, and remained my favorite over the game systems.

I do still own the original Intellivision we got back in 1982. I also have an original Atari system, and my Sega Genesis console which I bought 2nd hand in the mid-90's.

Today, I am pretty much a PC-Gamer. I bought a gaming laptop a few years ago, and it still stands up to the rigors of the new games coming out today.

If you would like to read about the history of game consoles, Wikipedia has a good page HERE.

And as you head out, here's a blast from the past!



I love these graphics!!!