Friday, Jul. 09, 2004 - 4:24 P.M.

People, people, people. The state of today�s youth vexes and befuddles me. Let me explain.

As a kid, summers were a glorious time meant for roller skating in the street, wiffle ball games, hide-and-seek, badminton games (all the while giggling incessantly about the fact that the thing you hit is called a �shuttlecock�), playing in sprinklers and, occasionally, a stolen smoke behind your best friend�s house (maybe that was just me). Oh, those wondrous days when daylight lasted until 9:00 p.m. and those hours were spent stomping through creeks catching crawdads, sitting on covered porches sipping Coke floats and lemonade and making frozen popsicles from Kool-Aid poured into ice-cube trays. When it got dark you came inside, but never before. Maybe after dark you hung around on your front porch talking to cute neighborhood boys until midnight and then ordered a Domino�s pizza (just me?).

At a recent visit to a friend�s house it became stunningly clear that those days are long gone. My friend has two boys, ages 10 and 8. While she and I were trying to have a nice visit complete with Legends of the Fall, General Foods International Coffee�s Kahlua Caf� and some smackin� pastries, her boys kept running in and out of the room bemoaning how bored they were. �There�s nothing to dooooooo,� they would say, or, �Mommmmm, let�s go somewhere.� The interruptions weren�t as rude as this makes them sound, they�re good kids though they are spoiled and clearly misguided about what qualifies as entertainment and who should be responsible for that entertainment.

My brother is 7 years older than me. I could never get him to do anything with me beyond use me as a practice dummy for his wrestling moves or as a target for his many weapons (BB guns, various slingshots and homemade Chinese Throwing Stars [again, just me?]). It would seem to me that a couple of young boys who are only 2 years apart should have no trouble playing together and getting into all sorts of messes. That is, boys who are not of this day and time. Those boys play video games. And that�s about the extent of their play. When their mother told them to go outside, they looked at her as if she had been drowning kittens and said, with extreme horror, �Outside!� And, thus, my point.

Drive down any neighborhood street and, particularly now in these summer months when it should be practically crawling with kids riding bikes, making ramps, climbing trees, playing basketball, running through sprinklers or better yet, using a Slip n� Slide (hello? how fun were those?), you can find nary a kid in sight. Today�s kids are handed their entertainment, yesterday�s kids had to make their own. And we were good at it. And, frankly, I�d like to think we�re better for it. In fact, I know we are.

The government is currently spending $90 million to discover what I would have told them for about $100,000, a lifetime supply of Diet Cherry Coke, their promise that Tom Green would take a long walk off a short pier and a mandate that Johnny Depp take a short flight back to the U.S. The study is based on this question--Are video games bad for kids health? Well, hell yes.

Okay, alright, more harmful than having Chinese Stars thrown at you or riding bikes in the street, blowing up your Barbie with an m-80 or sneaking smokes?

Maybe not, but less fun? Oh, yes. Most definitely.

P.S. Head on over to sock-girlie�s site for even more reasons today�s youth are spoiled.

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Ebert And Roeper? Watch Your Backs. - Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2005
Coffee? Tea? Map? - Monday, Nov. 07, 2005

� Purplecigar

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