August 30, 2005 - 9:06 p.m.
I got some good ol' day syndrome this morning on my way to work.
I was waiting at a stop light, looking over the side of the road near my house. It was pretty heavily wooded and I was thinking that if I were a 10 year old boy, I'd definitely ride my bike over here to check it out. But I can't do that now...and I know my nephews never would.
When I was young, our world extended as far as we could pedal our bikes before becoming exhausted. And since we were young, that was a long way. We used to play at construction sites (stealing wood and nails for a clubhouse/treehouse), city dumps (looking for neat stuff someone threw away), office buildings (riding the elevators and racing up and down the stairs.) We never went home, never ate, pee'd behind buildings, and scraped and skinned every part of our body...every day.
These days, no kid leaves the house...or the at most front of the house. Everyone has Playstation, Tivo, poker chips, iPods, internet, overprotective moms, scooters (that can't handle the terrain a bike can), swimming pools, and no imagination.
There was what I thought was a huge forest behind our house. We'd walk in one side and tentatively walk inward, until the traffic sound got lighter and the ground got darker. I used to think we were in the wilderness and we might stumble across people camping or living in a log cabin. We built forts, created trails, left markers on trees to help us find our way out. We dug traps, climbed trees and invented imaginary friends.
Then I grew up.
I went by that lot later. Wanna know how big my "forest" was? About 100 yards square.
I was able to be entertained for several years by a group of trees I could now walk through in about 45 seconds.
I miss being small and stupid.
