When I Was A Kid...

Yesterday, on my walk to my voice lesson, I had to walk past several construction sites.  At one such site, they had piled the scraps of wood along the fence.  As I looked at this pile of small pieces of 2x4, I could not help but think back to my childhood.

It seems today that kids have more toys then can ever play with. Not to mention cellphones, laptops, and video game consoles.  It use to be as soon as Saturday morning cartoons were over, kids were shuttled out the door with instructions not to come back until supper time.

Which brings me back to the scraps of 2x4.  Not long after we moved into my childhood neighbourhood, they started construction on the row of houses behind ours.  My friends and I would collect the scrap ends of wood and with a magic marker transform them.  One block became your radio, another your phaser, another became this, and yet another became that.

We created whatever we felt we were going to need on our daily adventures.  Kids today would think we were foolish or weird running around the neighbourhood with five or six pieces of wood stuffed in our pockets.  Actually, there are probably kids today who would think it weird to just be running around the neighbourhood at all.

Today, I am in my 40's.  Sure I have my cellphone, my laptop, and my video game console.   But I also have wonderful memories of playing in the dirt, climbing hills, and running around the neighbourhood, with my friends, with pieces of wood stuffed in my pockets.