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Back to the Forum Archives When I was a kid, it never occurred to me to rebel. I was busy having fun and being a kid. Sure, there were some sports organized by some silly ego-driven old men in the American Legion. My parents didn't take me to those. If a kid wanted to be in that, he had to find it himself and figure out how to join. There was no little league that I knew of. I participated in sports activities, but they were not organized. We just got together and played. If we wanted to play baseball, we would find an empty field or lot to play on. Then two guys would become captains and choose up sides by turn. We had a ritual with a bat to decide who got to choose first. Everyone knew the ritual. Then we would make up rules to fit the conditions. For example, if the field was long and sort of narrow a fly to right field would not be a hit. It would be an out. We usually only had one ball you see and right field was either someone's yard or a field of tall grass, clover, or alfalfa. Our intent was to spend time playing ball not hunting for it or begging to get it back from a hard nosed adult. We used whatever we could find for bases, bricks for example. If they were there, cow pies could be utilized. This gave a somewhat different meaning to the term, sliding in. We usually had only one ball and I don't remember ever having more that two bats among us. The kids we called the rich kids had the bats. These kids were not really rich of course. It was only by contrast. Their dads had enough income to spend some of it frivolously for their sake. Most of our dads worked very hard for not much money. That's how it was then. The real lucky kids also had mitts. I don't remember any of them not sharing their mitt. When they went to bat, they would hand it to someone on the other team. When they went back to the field they got their mitt back. For me that was quite fortuitous. I could do it, but I am here to tell you catching a hardball fly barehanded is a real iffy thing. If you don't get your hand motion exactly coordinated with the flight of the ball, it can sting something fierce. I think the economic situation was a big part of how I got to be a kid. My pop was either working or taking care of our home. He did not have time to interfere in my activities. For sure, if he discover I was doing something dangerous or illegal he would have interfered. He had a razor strop to deal with that. Otherwise, so long as the cops didn't show up and no one got hurt we were left alone. Now, adults seem to have a surfeit of time on their hands. They must have because they spend way too much time interfering in kid's games. I think adult interference in children's activities has gotten completely out of hand for our kids. It seems they cannot do anything without some half witted adults getting in and trying to organize it. Of course, along with the organizing comes adult rules. Then there are teams and leagues and woe be unto the kid who embarrasses his dad with poor performance. You are not allowed to be a kid you see. You are not allowed to learn through experience. You are not allowed to make mistakes. You are not even allowed to decide not to play. You must "play" and you must win. Heck, when I was kid we had good players and poor players, but everyone played. The good players got chose first. The poor players got chose last, but everyone played and generally had fun. We played the sports in season. In fall we played football. In spring and summer we played baseball. If we didn't have a ball or bat, we played tippy. Tippy can be played similar to baseball. Instead of a bat any long stick would do. For the ball there was a short stick. There was no pitcher in tippy. The short stick was leaned against a brick. Then the batter could whack the high end of the short stick with the long stick. If he did it right the short stick would fly up in the air and he could whack it into the field of play with the long stick. Then the task of the fielder was to grab the short stick and get to first base with it before the batter. And so on. That was then. I wish the kids now could have as much unorganized
fun as I did.
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