I was afraid of this. I never wanted to be the person that thought the music was terrible or too loud, become nostalgic for my childhood because life today didn’t make sense or become that old man that always forgot to zip his pants after he put them on in the morning.  Unfortunately, it happened. Today’s music is annoying, even country music, I miss the days of my youth and how things felt so real and uncomplicated and I can’t seem to make it out into public without my fly open. I literally have to make a conscious effort now to remember to zip up when I get dressed or use the bathroom. What was once pure Rote memorization and muscle memory has now become a fully aware function of my day. When the Hell did this happen?

Enough about my unintentional exposure, this is meant to focus on what I see as the loss of innocence and childhood and its unfettered freedom to live and learn. This is about being a kid. Being oblivious to the challenges ahead but already knowing more than your parents. It takes us so long to realize that, as a kid, we see with tunnel-vision; blinders that keep us from seeing all the possibilities in the world. Our world sets before us with a five foot radius. We are quarterbacks throwing the touchdown pass that wins the Super Bowl; the Army sergeant that saves his platoon from a sniper attack or setting the land speed record on a Schwinn Stingray with giant ram horn handle bars.  When we got home from school, we got a snack and watched Bugs Bunny,   Gilligan’s Island or The Munsters and mom would chase us outside to play until dinner. We could be found anywhere in the neighborhood with friends, a fishing pole or a bicycle.  But when you heard that two-syllable whistle, a whistle that could heard from 3 blocks away, you knew dad was home and it was time to head for the house.

We shot bb guns and sling shots, waded in the creek next to the house and caught crawdads or spent hours swinging on the huge rope Jim Jackson hung on a branch belonging to the biggest tree in town.  We didn’t wear helmets, elbow and knee pads or safety goggles. We scraped our knees and scabbed up our elbows.  We carried pocket knives because that’s what our fathers did, and we cut ourselves trying to whittle with a dull blade. I remember that little Pony knife I had, even carried it to school.  I never thought, not one time, about pulling it out of my pocket for something more sinister than shaving down a stick at recess. It was nothing for me to spend the night at my friend Jeff’s house, and we would take off on a “journey” into the woods behind his house.  We’d be gone for hours, come out somewhere a quarter or even half a mile from his house. All this freedom and adventure, learning to explore, think and experience. Never the risk of being snatched from our parents, hurting ourselves because we didn’t wear a helmet on our bike or shooting our eyes out or anybody else’s for that matter.

A fist fight that was actually more of a wrestling match was about the worst thing that ever happened at school. We knew the rules and the consequences and they were worse at home than anything the school could dole out. Teachers were the authority and parents weren’t looking to blame them for a child’s poor performance or sue them when something didn’t go the parents way.  Our parents deferred to the teacher as they were onsite with us and they would get to the bottom of the issue and report to the parents, whatever the the investigation revealed.

Today, I see an education system that spends more time coddling kids and their parents and less time teaching the subject at hand. We had bullies, every generation did, but we moved on, ignored them and proceeded with our daily lives. Today, bullying is worse than ever, but we are supposed to be teaching a kinder, gentler, more passive approach with our kids. So then we employ no tolerance and any kid that fights back on a bully’s aggression gets suspended as well. What message are we providing kids when we don’t allow them to figure things out for themselves, defend themselves against a bully.  The message is retaliation and vengeance that manifests itself in the form of school shootings, stabbings and attempted bombings.

We are dressing our kids in designer clothes and signing them up for beauty pageants; enrolling them into exclusive schools where fashion labels are emphasized; elite traveling sports teams and workouts for advanced college scouting even before they are juniors in high school. Kids in today’s world are missing out on the best part of their lives, being kids. Catching fireflies and frogs, swimming with friends at the lake, the occasional broken bone or tonsillitis, all part and parcel of being a kid. I get a little nostalgic when I see a kid, riding his bike, with a ball glove hooked on the handle bars, a fishing pole in one hand and a cup full of worms in the other…and no bike helmet on his head.