Tuesday I turned 22.  Have I really been around that long? I read these things on the internet about memories people have about being a child of the 80s and tv shows from the early 90s.  I feel old now that Full House and Roseanne can be shown on Nick at Nite (that was always reserved for those boring tv shows from the 50s that gave the idealistic view of the world during the time it was shown to distract from the turmoil around society at the time - I was a smart kid).  Yet, I read something today that was so true and it makes me pity the kids of today.  I had a Super Nintendo and a Commodore 64, so video games were at my disposal, there were always 2 tvs and vcrs in the house, so i could watch "Scooby Doo," "Hey Dude," and "Salute Your Shorts" (against mom's approval).  Yet, I still begged to go outside, the world ended at my friend's house (across the street and over 1 house). Anything outside of that was an adventure.  The front yard was a baseball field and the neighbor's driveway was a full lenght basketball court.  The "woods" behind the house held many mysteries and a great place to take discarded wood and fallen trees to make a fort.  It was a privilege to get to ride my bike around the block.  Playing baseball, there was no stealing, hitting a ball over the house was a foul, if the ball went in the road, the game was stopped to keep the ball out of the drain.  Hit the ball over the tree that was second base was a homerun (note, that was over the tree, not through the tree into the neighbor's yard).  On a rainy day, you had a city in your room made of legos, and you controlled everything...there was no violence, no war, maybe a car crash into a building because it was fun to break what you built just to build it again.  You sat around with your friends with a tape recorder making radio shows and mix tapes of your favorite music.  Sometimes you would sit by your radio for hours waiting for that song to play on the radio so you could record it from there (and now I will probably have the RIAA after me).  Your mom gave you the remaining checks from the account she closed so you could learn how to write them for when you get older and gave you a new game to play.  (of course, now your brother made you write a check for everything you borrowed).  You had chicken pox with your best friend.  To meet the girl you had a crush on in elementry school you ran into at the skating rink (roller skating that is).  When your grandfather dies in his 70s when you are 7 you can accept that he was old and his time to go, but when your grandmother dies in her 70s 13 years later, you think she died so young.  I remember that if you didn't have something, you just pretended you did, or changed the rules to exclude it.  There was no excluding anyone from playing.  All problems could be fixed with kool-aid and popsicles.  Staying up until midnight was the most awesome thing you and your friends did, and seeing that pg-13 movie was the best movie you ever saw (even though you didn't understand half of it).  I remember when i was able to walk outside with my friends and be gone for 6 hours walking through the neighborhood and nobody had to worry...we would come back, or someone would return us after 30 minutes.  The feeling of taking your bike down that hill going super fast was the closest thing to drugs you would ever know about.  Smoking and alcohol were never an issue, that was something grown ups did. 

That is enough rambling for right now...if you remember things different from now and growing up, share.

-Daniel