Is Long Island still fun? (Naples, Philadelphia: crimes, houses, high school)

[LilTownBlues]

Our parents did not "get" us, just as our kids believe we don't "get" them. Although, I do not think things were necessarily more fun or better in the past. Things change, and we're certainly different today. In some ways we (as a society) were more innocent and carefree in the past, yet a solid argument could be made that we were also very naive (dumb).

Some factors I see -
Today's kids have an overwhelming load of information (both productive and damaging) at their finger tips compared to the past. This information "overload" leads to kids that are generally smarter (in an academic sense), and certainly changes how they socialize and interact with each other.

A litigious adult world combined with working parents keeps kids in organized activities instead of free activity. If a bunch of kids want to get together to go play some ball at the park, they will likely be "chased away" from the ball field because they don't have a permit (insurance). They could come home and play on the street, but then they will likely run across someone who is concerned about the kids getting injured on their property. Parents who are not home will not likely push the issue with the neighbors, and the kids will just move on to something else. Do note that a direct result of this is that the parents have started so many more organized sports and activity leagues (well insured BTW) than we had in the past, so the kids have less need for "pick up games" anyway.

Fear is another factor, the adults like the kids have so much more information today. There are a ton of news channels on TV, radio and untold numbers of other electronic news sources all feeding endless streams of horrible stories. This has led to some adults who are generally scared out of their minds about letting kids do anything. Of course the kids are much better at hiding whatever it is they wish to hide.

Finally, there is an economic piece that should be considered as something that may tie everything together. Although we are currently in a huge recession, we have had a generally prosperous past few decades. This prosperity has financed more organized leagues, the equipment, the information technology, the entertainment technology and so on. A baseball bat today can cost $300.00, "sorry kid you're not taking that out to play around and hit rocks with", or "hey Pop, do you really think I'm gonna go out and play with a broom stick when I have an Easton Super Blammer ceramic, titanium, guaranteed home run stick?"

[rocafeller05]

No..criminals are terrible!!

Originally Posted by Jdawg8181

hunting? umm...guns are terrible, absolutely terrible.

[Crookhaven]

Originally Posted by dman72

Actually living in a rural area opens up a lot of opportunities for imaginative play that living in the suburbs doesn't.

Agreed.

Brookhaven was rural not long ago.

Im prety sure were urban now by density standards.

Crooks

[TeamExit]

is it fun? i dont think so. to many scumbags out there, nobody is allowed to do anything anywhere anymore(skateboard, go-kart, dirtbike, atv, etc.. even playing baseball in many parks/fields u will get chased away), and its expensive as hell to take a family out anywhere

[TeamExit]

Originally Posted by Jdawg8181

hunting? umm...guns are terrible, absolutely terrible.

why are guns terrible? guns dont kill people, or anything for that matter. people kill people.

[lialleycat]

And all these changes are affecting kid's health. Never before were there so many obese, out of shape kids as there are today. I shudder to think what health insurance costs are going to go up to because kids (and adults) don't play outside and get exercise anymore.

[Jdawg8181]

Originally Posted by TeamExit

why are guns terrible? guns dont kill people, or anything for that matter. people kill people.

people kill people WITH GUNS (generally)

[TeamExit]

Originally Posted by Jdawg8181

people kill people WITH GUNS (generally)

people also kill people with knives, bats, hammers, rope, cars, poison, hands, feet, screwdrivers, and anything else u could think of

[lialleycat]

Got this from someone today and it made me think of this thread, so I thought I'd share

OLDER THAN DIRT

Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'

'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.'

'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained.

'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it.

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 5. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza; it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 4. It was an old black Dodge.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.


Older Than Dirt Quiz - How many do you remember?
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Blackjack chewing gum
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
Candy cigarettes
Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
Newsreels before the movie
P.F. Flyers
Butch wax
TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels, if you were fortunate)
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
45 RPM records
S&H green stamps
Hi-fi's
Metal ice trays with lever
Mimeograph paper
Blue flashbulb
Roller skate keys
Cork popguns
Drive-ins

[jpg71]

Originally Posted by TeamExit

people also kill people with knives, bats, hammers, rope, cars, poison, hands, feet, screwdrivers, and anything else u could think of

But mostly cars. Come to think of it, cars are absolutely terrible...