Is This Necessary Anymore?

As I was driving down a familiar residential area today, I noticed this sign...


And I realized that I drive by this sign every day, yet I never once have seen a child. I HAVE been watching, but I can't find a one. I thought about all of the possible reasons why children are so hard to find. Maybe a convicted sex offender moved into the neighborhood. Maybe they are playing the greatest non-sports related game EVAR that we used to play as kids...We called it "Cars Can't See Us." It's pretty self-explanatory, but it was so awesome - throwing yourself in bushes, hiding under parked cars, jumping fences, stealing the neighborhood ginger's hiding spot. Or Maybe the sign was put up in 1979 and the children have just grown up and evolved into productive members of society. But then, wouldn't at least some of them have their own children playing?


The sad truth is...kids jus ta'int playing outside anymore. Between the intraweb, XBOX Live, Rockband, WoW, and 350 channels of television entertainment, the youth has shit to do inside...Rain or Shine. And that sucks. We had Nintendo, Genesis, and HBO, but we still played outside all day everyday. We played in the woods. We rode bikes. We played intense games of Wiffle Ball, and you better believe we kept stats. We broke windows with line drives off wiffle ball bats using tennis balls. We were Barry Sandersin' folks with NERF balls. Backyard football, football in the street, in the snow, it didn't matter. We played football games with three people called QB/Reciever/DB. We built forts and tree houses. We played tag, flashlight tag, hide n' seek in the dark. We played kickball. We made up games with rubber basketballs and wiffle ball bats and called it BoccieBall because we didn't care for the real Italian version. We played basketball in the rain, snow, cold, 100-degree heat, and under the lights at night - with good hoops, double rims, wooden goal posts, plastic backboards, crappy hoops, goals filled with sand and water. We played pick-up BBall at the park and gym - Horse, Around-the-World, and made up two-person games like "Splash." One-on-One, Two-on-Two, Three-on-Three, half court, full court. We shot each other with bee bee guns and paint balls. We squirted each first with lame-ass hand gun water guns, then with SuperSoakers. We went crazy on Slip-n-Slides and Crocodile Miles. We went swimming. We made up games to play in the pool. We played water polo. We played Marco Polo...



We went fishing. We went to the pond to catch turtles and frogs. We threw rocks and "dirtbombs" at each other. We played more kickball...a lot more. We played street and roller hockey. Someone took one for the team and strapped on the goalie pads and got abused. We got in fights...bloody ones. We skated on frozen ponds and played pick-up hockey games on ice. We ran in the skreets. We played "Smear the Queer" and fake-ass versions of rugby. We played catch and games we called "grounders" and "one hops" - first to miss three lost. We threw baseballs against cement walls. We played "Pickle." We climbed trees. We played wall ball and dodge ball. We built snow forts, had snowball fights, and went sledding. At night, we just ran around till we got tired. We went to the park and played on playgrounds, and swing sets, and the infamous monkey bars. Sometimes we just slept outside. And I'm talking about girls too.

But today, I'm not really sure what kids do. I'm sure they do some of these things, but all that I am saying is that I am done "watching for them" and even slowing down for them. If anything, I'm gonna speed up before they run inside and I miss my chance of seeing them. So if I run over a kid or two, I'm sorry. Don't punish me but rather, thank me for finding these rascals. I should get a prize - or something. A high-five, hand-job, buy one get one free coupon...Something.