Back when I was a kid, I remember stories I would hear from all the older folks about how much harder it was for them. They talked about growing up in The Depression when even the most token things like an apple or an orange were special treats.
As I grew into my teens we used to make sport of all those great tales of woe they talked about endlessly. We would laugh and exaggerate their stories about how they “had to walk 10 miles to school every day, uphill, both ways in the driving snow in the summer.” Oh how we made fun of those stories.
Today, as a senior member of our society, I guess it’s my turn to tell the young folks about how much better they have it than I ever did. I have my stories ready and I am all set to tell them.
Back in my time things were rough for us. There were no cell phones, no computers, no cable TV with hundreds of channels, no video games and no Facebook or Twitter. As a young kid I can honestly lament that the only technology we had was a rotary telephone and a dial radio for AM only, not even FM. We didn’t have a TV and when we eventually did get one it was black and white.
If we were lucky enough to go anywhere by car we huddled for warmth in the backseat during the winter cold and in the summer heat we rolled the windows down for relief. Air conditioning was unheard of and power windows were the stuff of science fiction.
A toy was something you would receive at Christmas or on your birthday, if your parents had the money. It was not something you got with your Happy Meal at McDonald’s every single time you went there.
In my day, if you wanted to play with a friend, you went on the street to see who was out there and woe betide you if it was the bullies. There was no texting friends to arrange things and there were no “play dates” that your mom or dad or caregiver made on your behalf. Most kids in my old neighbourhood began the journey home when the street lights came on. Today kids get a call on the cell phone and an arrangement is made to pick them up by car.
I could go on but with all that said, the truth be told, I’m not sure if kids today really have it better than we did. We had things kids today can only dream of.
In my time there were empty fields and ravines behind almost every neighbourhood, even in the most densely populated area of town, including the downtown neighbourhoods of big cities like Toronto and Montreal. Kids went to these empty lots to play baseball and down the ravines to catch frogs. Along the way we got dirty as we slid into a roughed-out home plate and we got soaked and scraped as we slipped through the branches and trees by the creeks that ran through the ravines. We had the luxury of risk.
Today kids have technology that challenges them in ways that we wouldn’t even have dreamed of when we were young but if I could choose, I would give them what we had. I am sad that those things are gone. There aren’t any more empty fields and creeks in any towns, even in the suburbs of big cities. They are all gone. There aren’t even any frogs any more.
I am ready to tell you how much better kids have it today but I am not so sure they really do.
When I look at the vast swaths of land that surround our towns and villages I wonder if we should make our urban planners really get out and look at the empty fields and streams that they contain. When developers look over vacant land, do they even see the beauty of the area in its most raw and unspoiled state? I wonder if they can truly understand the greatest value these things have is not in potential buildings or shopping malls but in leaving them alone.
They could be the centerpiece of stories yet to be told.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected]
