Monday, April 06, 2009

Parks for Kids

Let me tell you about "Super Sucker."

Super Sucker was a game me and my siblings came up with that we'd play in the basement of the house during winter. The game entailed grabbing toilet plungers and one of them 50 cent el cheapo balls you can pick up at the grocery store. My brother and sister and I would then don capes made from whatever cloth material we could find and the goal would be kind of a tag like game where we'd whack the ball with the toilet plungers at each other. It was a great game because you could hit that ball as hard as possible at your siblings, beaning them right in the head. We'd run around with our capes flying with no particular rules or structure to the game aside from hitting that ball with the plunger as hard as possible. And when not in possession of the ball, we'd taunt our sibling who had the ball by plunging the plunger on the cement floor of the basement - "PA-THWOP PA-THWOP PA-THWOP." Occasionally we'd hit a line drive right at the drier which would make a loud reverberating "BAUWAWAWAMMMMM" sound, reliably followed by our step dad yelling from upstairs to keep it quiet. That basement, despite it being January, got so hot we were dripping sweat.

Another game we'd play was "Hit." Jayme our neighbor would come over and ask me and my brother if we'd want to play "Hit." All Hit was, was a simplified version of baseball as there was not always enough kids to play baseball in the neighborhood. There would be the hitter and two fielders as the hitter would self-pitch the ball to himself and crank it out as far as it could go. We then upgraded to "Super Hit" where we replaced the baseball with a golf ball and summarily pissed off the neighbors as golf balls have a tendency to fly a little farther and hit cars more frequently than baseballs off an aluminum bat.

A friend of mine played "Hogan's Heroes," a game where his dad would come out, armed only with a flash light and the kids would then have to somehow sneak past him, crossing from the neighbor's yard to the east to the neighbor's yard to the west. If the dad spotted them with the flashlight "Colonel Klink" caught them and would have to be sent back to Stalag 13...only to try to escape again!

The common trait in all these games is that all of them required very little, if not, nothing in terms of capital investment. Super sucker required 3 toilet plungers (our step dad, upon finding out we were using the REAL toilet plunger said, "Oh, for Christ's sake, you're playing with used one!!!????" which capitulated him to buy 3 brand spanking new plungers, oh they were shinny), "Hit" required a bat, a ball and some gloves, and "Hogan's Heroes" required a flashlight. And though, there was not a lot of capital investment in these games, these games were the funnest and most memorable games of our childhoods.

No doubt we all had these games. Some a bit more conventional than others. Sure, "Kick the Can" was a popular one or "Bloody Murderer" was another, neither quite as fun as "Super Sucker," but regardless, all these games were the best freaking games on the face of the planet and all you really required was other people and a mere nano-ounce (pun duly noted) of creativity.

Which brings me to my point today; "Parks for Kids"

Well, it's not really "Parks for Kids" because I can't remember the precise title they gave themselves, but I heard a public service announcement on the now dying AM 1500 that there's this political group or campaign "trying to fight the obesity epidemic" and they want you to donate money or vote for more funding for parks for kids.

And the reason I bring this up is because this is a huge testament to just how pathetic we've become as a society that we now have to have government financed parks to help facilitate "fun" for kids.

It also starkly reminds me of just how quickly people forget what it was like to be a kid. I don't know about you, but truthfully, I never stopped being Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes. I still like to go sledding. I still would SO play a game of Super Sucker. I like watching my Saturday morning cartoons. And I still demand to play video games. About the only REAL difference between my life as a child and my life now is that I smoke and drink and chase after skirts. Alas it seems this fun has to be ordained or organized by government and MUST take place in a "park."

In any case, the larger point is the hypocrisy or inanity in demanding we "pay" for more "parks" to help fight the obesity epidemic.

For one, if you looked at where kids expend the most calories of energy it isn't at the park. It's in their neighborhood where they run and jump and play games like "Hogan's Heroes" or "Hit."

Two, "parks" are SOOOO typical of public schools where the government tries to convince kids with lame and ineffectual campaigns that no kid really believes;

"Hey Kids, it's "cool" to play on the play ground and in the park. Pete the Park Puma says "roar! playing in parks is fun!"

Smoking it's the same thing;

"Hey kids, Phillip the Frog says 'Don't smoke. Ribbit. Smoking is dumb!"

Alas, just like every other government campaign, it isn't working. I see TONS of parks, TONS of baseball diamonds, tons of beautiful volleyball sand courts, all empty, all abandoned. And the only reason I don't avail myself of those empty baseball diamonds is because I can't get enough of my lame ass adult friends to play kickball with me.

But, three, is this outright lie there isn't enough parks. Come on, I see parks all over the place. What kid doesn't have a park within walking distance (and by walking distance I mean that in 1983 terms meaning 5 miles), besides which WHAT KID PLAYS IN A PARK?

And this gets to the heart of the hypocrisy.

NO KID PLAYS IN A PARK.

Kids play with other kids and will make their environment, no matter what it is, the park. They will create and concoct various and unlimited games in whatever environment they have. And when the government or some nerdy, hypocritical non-profit organization, headed up by adults who forgot what it was like to be a kid, give them these sterile, fake, fabricated areas called "parks" no kid is going to use them.

Alas, this drive to "create more parks" is really one of two things;

1. A crusade to give worthless adults something to do with their worthless lives to make them feel like they're making a difference even though they're not.

2. Another excuse to extract money from the productive members of society to the non-productive. Lord know where the "donations" go. To help some middle aged woman repay her student loans for her psychology degree? To some guy who, despite being 48 still wears a pony tail and sits on the "parks and recreation board" because he couldn't land a real job and still lives off his parents' inheritance? Whatever the case, the children (as is typically the case...ahem...cough cough...TEACHERS UNION) are never considered.

In the meantime kids, do what Uncle Cappy Cap says and go buy yourselves some toilet plungers or have dad go buy himself a flashlight.

14 comments:

Unknown said...

My biggest complaint with parks is that the planners think that planting a bunch of playground equipment is enough. They don't seem to realize that when you take all the grassy areas and fill them with decorative trees and gently rolling hills, you're sacrificing play space for kids in return for some questionable sense of beauty. A big, flat, open field is all kids need.

amcz said...

I guess my friends and I fought obesity by playing Tag. However, we played a themed version of Tag.

What theme you may ask?

HIV Positive Tag.

Whoever's "It" is HIV Positive.

The thought of the game would probably send our teachers into conniptions.

Anonymous said...

This is unrelated but still interesting:

http://computationallegalstudies.com/2009/03/26/visualizing-the-campaign-contributions-to-the-united-states-senators-in-the-110th-congress-—-the-tarp-edition-the-image/

"Visualizing the Campaign Contributions to Senators in the 110th Congress — The TARP EDITION (The Image)"

A graph from the blog "computational legal studies" which visualizes the relationships between TARP fund allocation and political contributions.

Sparky said...

Captain,

When growing up, my friends and I played everywhere, including the park. Well, except for those who had video games--they seldom wanted to run around and play outside. During the summer, we would be running around the parks, parking lots and forests playing war, tag, super heroes, climbing and jumping trees. In the winter we would be building snow forts, toboganning, snow ball fights, tunnelling and you name it. Although for some things we used the parks, usually we did not. Most were just too limiting to what you could do. The best parks we found bordered on the woods.

I'm 34 this year and still love to build snow forts. Each winter I'll ask my co-workers if they want to come build a snow-fort at lunch in the monster snow piles in the parking lot. Most decline and say that they're too old for such things. I always like to know "since when?" and "says who?". However, those are often the same people who once the fort is built, are only too happy to come play in it for a few minutes.

When I take my daughter to the park, we seldom see anyone else there. At 3,
her favourite game there is tag. She runs up, down, and all around the play
structures. And its me that chases her, or me she chases. When she wants to play by herself, I keep playing too. When we do see other kids (with parents) there, they seem so sterile, as if neither really knows how to play except in authorized ways. The parent stands around while the kid goes down the slide a couple of times, and then they go home. Meanwhile, we just keep on playing and receive strange looks.

Good play takes work. Only the lazy get bored.

Joie said...

ah, yes the good ol' days. when playing games were imaginative and friends were bountiful, and staying skinny was simple!

CBMTTek said...

While normally, I am a big fan of parks, I have to agree with you. Kids do not play in parks.

As a kid, I used to go to the park every once in a while, and there were never any kids, or even adults there. We would ride our bikes on the paths, right past signs that said No Bikes. The playground was usually empty. Most of the time, it was just a shortcut between friends houses.

If you want to have a campaign to raise funds for parks, I am all for it, but make the reason realistic. "We want green spaces in our cities" is a good reason. "Trees and flowers make people feel better" is a good reason. "It is nice to see something other then building every once in a while." is a good reason. "For the children" just makes you sound like that Miss Teen America contestant.

Anonymous said...

In my city, Calgary, I don't let my kid play in the park because it is a campground for crackheads.

Anonymous said...

Some of my childhood games included:

500 up - use a soccer ball (or similar). The caller calls some number (eg. 250) and hoofs the ball high in the air. Who ever catches it gets that number of points and if they drop it they lose that number of points. First one to 500 becomes the new caller.

Ball Tag - like regular tag except to tag someone you have to hit them with a ball. We preferred playing with one of those big rubber balls that, if you hit someone in the face the right way, would knock them off their feet.

Guns - Get toy gun (preferrably machine gun), run around in squads shooting imaginary bad guys. Make the neighbours nervous as a bunch of kids run around yelling "incoming!", "Fire in the hole!" and "I'm hit!! Medic!!!".

Parks, when we used them, were best if they had a hill, a big field and a few things to use as cover. Swings etc. were rarely used.

Anonymous said...

Amen. I'll pay more for turf fields (for my own use), but my kids don't need a park--they just run around in our shrubberies and whatnot. I have to say, though, that they have a lot of fun at the park too.

Ryan Fuller said...

"And the only reason I don't avail myself of those empty baseball diamonds is because I can't get enough of my lame ass adult friends to play kickball with me."

You're awesome, Captain.

I always had a lot of fun with wasp nests. Throw rocks at it with your buddies, then run like crazy as soon as somebody scored a hit. Mortal terror makes for great exercise. Also, if you have big piles of dirt with good clods in them, you can have all the fun of rock-fights without any of the bleeding! Good times.

Oh yeah, and then there's nerf guns. Those are still fun. Recently my employer (who I love VERY MUCH in the even they're reading this) decided that everyone having fun with nerf guns was damaging to productivity, so we don't have them anymore. We still have the darts though, and throw them at each other whenever the opportunity presents itself. (Note to employer: we TOTALLY don't have any darts. Just stay in your office and don't come over here.)

Anonymous said...

I personally loved Hide and Seek at 10pm-12am with no lights on at all with a base (the Porch) being a safety zone. If you could sneak by whoever was It and get to the base you were safe. Whoever was found first was It.

I'd still play that today.

I remember being It once and my cousin hid on the top of the basketball goal. Now that was clever.

Ray K. said...

I love this post, I am going to lock my kids in the basement with two plungers and a dollar store ball tomorrow!

Unknown said...

while I am not a parent yet, I nanny, a lot, and these kids still have a healthy imagination, and i have to take the shovel away from them often so that they dont dig a hole to China, there are all ready to many pot holes in there back yard as it is. Anyway, they only need a few balls, a bat and sand, dirt and a shovel and they are happy for hours. If I wasnt afraid of the parents getting angry with me, I would let them roll in the mud! This past winter we had a ton of fun creating our own sleding hill in their back yard, it was great!
We do go to parks but not very often, and its a mix, sometimes they are flooded with kids, and other times they are empty....
As a kid all we needed was our bike, you werent cool if you didn have a bike, and we went EVERYWHERE! people didnt care if you where playing in their yard as long as you didnt break anything!

Hot Sam said...

Parks are for rich kids who will go to Oberlin or Grinnell College when they graduate high school.

Us poor kids had fun without any government assistance. In New York City, we'd play a game called Scully which is like marbles, except you use the lip of a soda bottle that you very carefully tapped off and polished on the concrete curb. Then there's stickball - a rubber handball or tennis ball and a broom stick.

In the Burbs, we'd play Kick the Tin, kickball or box ball. We'd also play Wiffle baseball or Nerf football. We'd also play stickball using tennis ball and a wiffle bat filled with newspaper and wrapped in electrical tape.

When we got older and earned paper route money, we'd play street hockey. That game was relatively expensive but still cheap for a working kid. The 'richest' of us would play goalie because we could afford the equipment.

Not only did we have fun, we used our imaginations and not one dime of anyone else's money - not even from our parents.