It was a warm early spring afternoon. The sun was shining; I
could feel the light breeze upon my face and smelt the sweet aroma of the
grass. It was perfect, just perfect for some quiet reading. I was engrossed in
a book while sipping a cup of coffee. Completely content when all of a sudden that
serene moment was shattered by shouts and gunfire. Around the corner of our house
came three little boys, Nurf guns in hand and seriously enthralled in their
game of cops and robbers. One of the boys grabbed another and said “You’re
going to jail”. I watched as he was dragged off to the jail house, which
is our little swing set clubhouse.
I stopped reading my book, completely unconcerned with it,
as I just watched what was going on in my backyard. Those boys ran this way and
that, guns blazing, one boy broke out of prison; another was running out of
bullets. They were having the time of
their lives, but after a few moments the game changed. Tired of cops and
robbers, they decided to play some b-ball. All three dropped their guns and ran
to the front yard. “Do you want to play ‘Pig’?” asked Angel. Both Joey and
Damien agreed, “Pig” would be the game.
Each boy took their turn throwing the dirty basketball.
Sometimes one of them would make the shot, and sometimes they missed. When they
made the shot I heard shouts of praise and when one missed the basket, low moans
of defeat. This was serious business.
Again, it wasn’t long before they tired of basketball and
grabbed their bikes. Up and down our private road the three zoomed, racing and
trying to do tricks; skids, jumps, and the like.
As I watched my son and his friends play cops and robbers,
basketball, and ride bikes, I was reminded of my youth. Oh, the sweet time
before life got so busy, before bills, worries, burdens, and health
insurance. It’s funny how long the days
seemed to be back then. Today life speeds by, one day blurs into another, over
and over again, but back in the days when I was young.
Growing up a typical Saturday might last weeks, at least
that’s the way it often felt. In the morning I would get up and watch a few
cartoons while eating some Captain Crunch. Then maybe I’d play in my room with
my He-Man and transformer figures, two worlds colliding in mortal combat, who
would win? Those were epic battles and everything would come down to the last
robot.
In the afternoon I might climb the tree in the front yard or
get a game of dodge ball going. Back then it wasn’t a game till most of the
kids walked away with limps and red welts from the rubber ball. As the night
began to creep in and the street lights came on you could hear moms yelling for
their kids to come in.
At night we’d eat dinner and maybe watch the A-Team or Knight
Rider, then off to bed. It was an amazing adventure.
There’s an old cliché that says “Youth is wasted on the
young” and I was contemplating that saying as I watched my boy. I think that
saying might tell us more about adults than it does children. I’m like most
adults, I think, and have those moments of nostalgia, but I was hit with the
reality that I can, in a sense, travel back in time and recapture those moments
of awe, adventure, and bliss, through he eyes of my son.
Even though we can’t literally hop into our H.G. Wells time
machines and go whizzing into the past to recapture those moments, we can re-experience
the ecstasy of youth through our children and grandchildren. Let’s take time to
enjoy those moments when our children are engrossed in games and realize that
they’re creating memories that can last them a lifetime, and on occasion go
head and strap on your Nurf gun and take aim at some escaped enemy.
