Springtime, Then and Now

It's been unusually warm on the East Coast this week, and it has me longing for those Spring days gone by.

I remember playing outside all day, making "stews" in garbage can lids consisting of tree bark, shrubbery leaves, water, rocks, a little dirt, and anything else I could find. My imagination was boundless.

I remember playing tag down the street with the kids on my block and making a "board" out of chalk for a game of bottle caps on the sidewalk.

Mister Softee would come every afternoon and stop right in front of my door.

Those were the days I cherish, the ones I wish my children could have.

Instead they're subject to playdates, mostly indoors, or playing in the yard behind a locked gate. Days spent inside playing Wii, Leapster, DS. But it's not all their fault.

Even in the nicest of neighborhoods, the stories are told of child abduction, pedophiles, drugs for sale.

It's a world that's unsafe. A world that's scary. A world I never knew when I was their age. Certainly not a world I wished for them.