Where are all the kids?

I don’t have cable. In fact, my husband and I have only one TV. Not one in every room. Not one in the bedroom. Just in the loft, or TV room or living room or whatever you want to call it.

I don’t have an iPod. I bought a little one for my husband a couple of years ago for Christmas. He uses it when he goes running, which is about every two weeks because of his work schedule. Most of the time it sits in a drawer in a table in the foyer of our modest townhouse. Yes, a townhouse. Not a McMansion that takes up the entire professionally landscaped yard. We don’t really have a yard, but if we did, we’d use it all the time. To play baseball or catch or croquet. That’s what we used to do when we were little (little being children, up to age 13 or even 14 or 15. Back then, anyway).

Kids in our neighborhood don’t play outside; in fact, I don’t even know if there are kids in our neighborhood. I thought I saw a few, but that was only once, last year, so I can’t say for sure. We used to play outside all the time, unless it was raining really hard, with lightning, or a blizzard struck, and then we’d just wait it out so we could go back outside and make igloos and have snowball fights and play until our fingers were frozen and we couldn’t feel our toes and our noses were dripping. We’d play until our mothers called us for dinner and we’d go back outside as soon as the dinner table (remember those?) was cleared, the left-overs put away, the dishes washed and dried (by hand) and put away. We’d play until dusk, when our mothers would call for us again because it was time for bed. And we’d plead to say out just a little bit longer, even though we were being attacked by mosquitoes and couldn’t see because it was getting so dark. We’d play tag or kick-the-can or ghost-in-the-graveyard or climb trees or ride bikes until our legs were wiggly with tiredness. And we didn’t ride bikes with so much gear on that we looked like the Staypuff Marshmallow Man. No helmets, no kneepads, no elbow pads.

And if we fell, we fell. We hit our heads and scraped our knees and we bled and we’d keep playing. That’s what we’d do, all day long, all year long if we could. While our parents talked with our neighbor friends’ parents on the back porch or front stoop. Or over the fence. I don’t even know my neighbors. I mean, I know their fist names, but I don’t know them. Not like when I was little and my parents knew my neighbors’ parents and we kids would all play together and we knew that if we locked ourselves ouf of the house we could go next door and get the extra key or stay there until Mom or Dad came home to collect us. Or, we’d just stay there for dinner and walk, alone, in the dark, home after dinner. Then try to go back outside to play some more.

Sometimes at night we would play records on the record player; that’s all, just play records and listen to the music and try to figure out what George, Paul, John and Ringo were trying to say and why Dad only tapped his foot when we were playing those records and not when we were playing “our records.” The Go-Go’s, The Police, Talking Heads, the Eurythmics. Other times, we’d listen to the radio--when we were really little it was a transistor radio, that if you were lucky, had AM, FM and shortwave. Shortwave. I didn’t know what it was when I was little and I never listened to it, but if you had it...cool. Sometimes we would all dance in the living room, practicing; just in case that boy we had a crush on would ask us to the 8th grade dance.

I wish I heard kids playing outside more often. Maybe it’s just my neighborhood, I don’t know. But that sound, the high-pitched laughing and screaming and even the crying was music, is music. Music to my ears.

When we were older, we’d watch some TV (Little House on the Prairie or the Dukes of Hazzard) or we talked on the phone for hours and hours and hours with our best friend even though we had just been at school with them an hour ago. We didn’t text them or instant message them; we called them, but not after 9 p.m., because that was rude. We’d call and ask to talk to Debbie or Kris or Catherine or Julie. And then we’d talk about everything, anything. Boys. The cute English teacher.The mean gym teacher who was always picking on us to make that jump-shot or hit that softball or catch that foul ball. We talked about everything. Isn’t so-and-so cute? He likes me? Do you think so? Really? And when we were older, maybe 14 or 15 or 16, we’d think and dream and talk about when we might have our first kiss. Oh, that first kiss. Magic. It was magic. We didn’t think at that age about...well, you know. Not until we stopped playing with Barbie or until we were too “grown up” to play tag or catch with our dads did we even think about that. I mean, maybe we’d get a kiss on the cheek from a boy on our birthday.

...Oh, our or birthdays. When we were really little, if we were lucky, we’d get to have friends over and we’d play pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey or that game where you’d try to get the clothespins into the jar with the too-small mouth or concentration and then we’d open presents and after that...after that, there was cake, and ice cream, too. Whoopee! Then more games! And then Mom would come and pick us up and we’d go home, sleepy because the sugar high had worn off and we were pooped.

We didn’t play video games or watch movies or anything like that. We played, actual physical games that required energy and elicited giggles and laughter and screaming for joy. And as we got older and we looked forward to (or didn’t) our “Sweet 16,” we were honestly surprised to get a surprise party at a relative’s house with music playing from the record player or tape deck. Goofing around and talking and laughing with our friends in the back yard eating barbequed food until we couldn’t eat another bite. Until the cake and the ice cream came out. We didn’t have birthday extraganzas, where we’d dress in hundred- or thousand-dollar dresses and arrive at some sawnk location while our friends gathered around our limos in black-tie attire to lavish us with expensive gifts while we listened to hired boy-bands.

We were just regular. We were everyday people. Common, one might say. We didn’t try to out-do each other, we didn’t try to get into the society pages or make the news for some reason, be it good or bad. We didn’t drink, we didn’t do drugs. We didn’t carry $400 designer bags or drive or ask for BMWs or Jaguars for our birthdays. We were just regular. But we had really great friends, and we knew our neighbors and trusted them with our house keys. And we played. Man, oh, man, did we play.

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