Ahh for the good old days.

I used to live for Saturday mornings. Some of you know what I am talking about. The TV would be on well before 9:00, in eager anticipation of Bugs Bunny, The Road Runner, The Banana Splits, or whatever cartoon was on. Massive bowl of Quisp cereal in front of my face, I would crunch away as The Coyote would be foiled yet again in his vain attempt to have Roadrunner Stew for dinner. It was the time when cartoons were on. There was no Disney Channel. No Cartoon Network. No Nickelodeon. There was just Saturday morning.

Today, my DVR is filled with episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place and ICarly. Every night before I hit the sheets I have to turn off brooding young teen #2's television in her room. (TV in our room. Who could have imagined that growing up.) She HAS to fall asleep to some endless loop of reruns on one of the afore mentioned channels. Next to her head, is her Ipod touch, loaded with games, songs, pictures and the like. And her charging cell phone blinks away as she sleeps. The thing is never off. Do you see where I am going here? Do I have to actually say it? Today's kids are spoiled rotten.

I defy anyone to find a young-un who knows what kick the can is. Or ghost in the graveyard. Or sardines. My neighborhood growing up was a plethora of young minds, where age didn't matter, and you came home to the dinner bell at 5:30 every night. Some dads would whistle from their back porch, other kids would just instinctively head home every night at the same time. We had the bell. You could hear that thing 8 blocks away, mom knowing that we were out there somewhere, and within minutes would be sitting down to meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Today is a different story indeed.

If we are brave enough to let our cherished offspring out of our site for one minute, we know that peace of mind is only a cell phone call away. That is, if the kids aren't chained to the TV in the basement playing Call of Duty with some kid on Xbox half a world away til 2 in the bloody morning. Hell I used to go to bed early on Friday night just so I wouldn't oversleep and miss a minute of the weeks worth of cartoons. But dinner at the table? With the whole family? Oh we manage a few times a week. But 35 years ago there wasn't the constant shuttling to basketball, soccer, baseball, tennis, whatever you-name-it sport-of-the-month you can come up with that dominated our lives 24/7.

When I was a kid, we played. All the time, all over town. At my house, at your house, outside, inside, we played. On our bikes, with cards in the spokes, we cruised the neighborhood like we owned it. Because we did. And you know what? I miss it.