Why it sucks to be a kid in the 21st century

I was watching TV and one of those commercials came on that encourage kids to get out of the house and play. Now that strikes me as bizarre. Things have definitely changed since I was kid. Don't get me wrong, I spent plenty of time watching my share of TV and reading(a little too much time reading sci-fi and comic books according to my mom),but I also spent plenty of time outside. There is such a contrast between life for kids in the fifties and what goes on today.

The first biggest difference is the amount of time that children are supervised now. When we lived in the city I walked the dozen or so blocks to and from school. I didn't ride the bus until Jr. High and after eighth grade I went back to walking. Nary an adult in sight. As you might guess I seldom took a direct route home. We lived in a suburb of Cincinnati called College Hill. If you have been there lately,it is not the place I grew up. Things have changed. Walking home from school I usually hit every drug store on the way home,sometimes to get a phosphate at the soda counter(yes they still had them when I was a kid). I would peruse the the latest comic book arrivals or men's magazines(not porn smart ass).

The one  drug store I stopped at on a regular basis was called The Brothers at Brother's Corner at Hamilton avenue and Cedar. The sales clerk and some times soda jerk was an unusual  looking  homely middle aged woman that wore a severe hairdo, coke bottle glasses and lipstick so red that it bordered on the infrared. But the really creepy thing about her (other than her speech impediment) was that no matter when you went in day or night, Monday thru Saturday (yes in those days stores closed on Sundays) she was there. Later on I found out she had a twin and lived in the up stairs apartment above the drug store. Not only did they dress alike and wear the same make up, they had the same speech impediment. They also had little patience with prepubescent boys.

After the Brothers I would go to Woolworth's. I loved browsing at the Dime store. All of the neat little glass partitioned spaces filled with little objects. Woolworth's had a distinctive smell and all of them had wooden floors that squeaked when you walked.  I usually  found something I could afford there with the money managed to scrounge from the couch or pennies I picked up on the way. From there I would cross the street to look at the movie posters on the front of the Hollywood Theater. If there was a Monster movie playing that weekend I would start planning my strategy on how to get Mom to let me go(for a dollar you could get in the movie, a medium pop corn and a coke to drink on the way home fished out an icy barrel that made it so cold it made your teeth hurt).

Next stop was Whitey's Variety Store. At Whitey's you could buy Halloween masks in July. Whitey's was a kind of store that doesn't exist anymore. Strange little toys, jimcracks and geegaws. Things that you wind up, things you blew in one end out came an amazing ear shattering sounds. And squirt guns(much to my sisters chagrin). Whitey by the way was really white, I mean like transparent white. He was tall and had a weird high pitched voice. He was very patient with kids, he probably had to be seeing as 90% of his business came from kids.

Next time: The week ends!

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