The Best Days Ever

Nowadays, we often hear about how much kids today have. There are video games, iPods, iPads, cell phones, portable gaming devices and DVD players to keep them busy. When I was growing up in the 1970's and 80's we didn't have these things. If we wanted to play a game, we went outside and rounded up our friends to play tag or Red Rover in the front yard. If we wanted to talk to our friends, we went outside and hollered for them to come over, or we rode our bikes to their house. If we wanted music, we had these things called record players that we would put a vinyl disk called a record onto. The record would spin with a needle from the record player gliding along in the grooves to produce the music. After four or five songs, we had to flip the record over to listen to the B side. This is how I grew up.

We had to use our imagination to play. We couldn't put a small disc into a machine and watch detailed animations come to life on the television screen. We didn't rely on someone else to create a storyline for us to follow. No, we would make things up ourselves. I spent hours pretending to be Daisy Duke to my friend Shane's Bo and Mark's Luke Duke. The old Studebaker that my dad spent countless weekends tinkering with was our General Lee. When we tired of pretending to outrun Boss Hogg and Rosco P. Coltrane, we became the Justice League. Some days, I was one half of the Wonder Twins and other days I was Wonder Woman. The Studebaker was my invisible jet plane, or Lex Luther's secret lair.

I often wonder about the imagination of today's generation. I often think that because they have such unprecedented access to technology that they will lose the ability to imagine and play make believe. One child of today's generation that I don't worry about is B. B is my nephew. He is a bright, articulate 3 year old. He makes us laugh on a daily basis because of his imagination and quick wit.

Today I went to visit him so that I could give him a t-shirt that I had gotten for him. As I was getting ready to leave, I mentioned that my cat had decided to escape the other night and was hiding under my boyfriend's truck. This sparked an imaginative story from B. It seems that the other day his rabbit escaped and hid under his dad's truck axle. (The same area my cat hid.) When his dad went to get the rabbit a snake was hiding by the axle, so his dad grabbed the big BB gun and shot the snake. But the snake had already bitten both B and his dad. So B called his mom, the nurse, and she called her nurse friends. They killed the snake and saved B and his dad from their snake bites. (B's mom was listening, grinning, and shaking her head the entire time he was telling his story.) I asked B if the nurses were the heroes, and he promptly replied with a resounding yes.

Other days, B decides to be the superhero. He has several capes to help him act the part as well. Each superhero persona he imagines has a different color cape. His Superman has a red cape, and his Batman has a black cape. His Kung Fu man wears a green cape with "kung fu" clothes. He has other capes in different colors, but each of his superhero characters  has a different personality and super ability. How did he end up with so many capes? Simple. He talked his grandma into making each and every one of them. When she argues that he has has plenty of capes, he argues back that he doesn't have the right cape for the superpower that he wants to pretend to have. So she goes to her store of fabrics and finds just the right color and makes his new cape.

Some of my favorite days lately are the "B and Tia" days, when I get to babysit him. (Although he insists that he isn't a baby so I am not babysitting him. He is just hanging out with me for the day.) We will cook together, and we will play some video games. But my favorite thing to do with my B is to pretend. We pretend to be superheros or dancers. We pretend that we are in spaceships or giant boats. We use our imaginations and THAT is (as Phineas and Ferb would say) "THE BEST DAY EVER!"