F Minus by Tony Carrillo for March 31, 2021

That meant doing whatever—acting like a buffoon because it was fun and frankly there wasn’t much else to do.

It meant “Get out of the house and give me a minute of peace”

It was much like playing inside except for the blood, sweat, tears and dirt. Great times.

It was pretty much whatever you came up with that was entertaining to you.

It means you ticked off your mom.

usually it involved a magnifying glass and focusing the sun’s rays…

I remember when I was 6, Tessie wanted to play nurse so she could find out what made boys different. Tessie was 8.

It meant playing outside with friends, but then we weren’t expected to stay 6 feet apart.

We were pretty much outside all day everyday. Usually had to be in by dark.

I can remember it involved trees, bugs and digging usually.

Life, unscripted. Dog, it was fun, great, intense and boring.

Do as I say, not as I do…

It meant finding creative ways to get into trouble.

It is a sad commentary on our present society that playing outdoors is a foreign concept to kids who spend most or all of their free time indoors on their smartphones or other electronic devices. When I was a kid, I could count the fat kids I knew on one hand with fingers to spare in contrast to these days when childhood obesity is rampant. We were healthy back then because we spent almost all of our free time during the day outdoors. Nowadays it is called it cardio exercise; we called it playing. In particular, every kid in those days had a bike and rode it EVERYWHERE without their parents worrying that some horrible thing would happen to them. Nowadays, I almost never see a kid riding a bike. Yep, their parents are protecting them….. right into an early grave.

My folks had to BEG me to come in! PLaying ball, bikes, sidewalk chalk, leaves, running, swimming. There was SO much to do!

My mother would tell us to go outside and play. But she may have had second thoughts the day we decided to make bows. We each had enough money for a bow string and one arrow. We then found good springy green sticks to make our bows. Of course we had to determine who made the best bow. To do that we had a contest to see who could shot their arrow the highest into the air. Now you must understand that to reach the optimum height you have to shoot the arrow straight up into the air. Anything less than 90 degrees would not achieve the desired results! When she came out to admonish us one of us said; “But mom, if we don’t shoot straight up the arrows might go into the neighbor’s yard. And that would be dangerous.” ;-)

Sometimes I remember the treehouse or the submarine. Makes me break out in a cold sweat.

When you had the whole outside it meant you were never bored.

It meant roaming the rolling, forested hillside of a nearby green belt, climbing trees, racing through bracken, napping on the ground and trying not to hear your mother calling.

Now it means walking to a store for more batteries.

Yup – the old guy has definitely lost his marbles (“Hook” reference)

Best times in my life……

I tried taking my kids out to play but found out that every place I used to play has been fenced in with “no trespassing” signs around them. People too afraid of lawsuits. I took my grandkids to places that were made for that but they were not within walking distances of any homes. “Go outside and play” is not as easy as it was when I was a kid 50 years ago.

it means if you are gonna play with your phone or your handheld, do it somewhere else where a car won’t run over you

We were warned, as we bolted out the door, “If you kill yourself, don’t come crying to me.”

That’s just sad…