When I was a kid and it would rain on the weekends, I would go into a small scale depression. I lived for the outside world: Climbing trees, learning backflips on the trampoline, exercising my overactive imagination by playing Jurassic Park in the backyard, running around, playing on the jungle gym, the list could go on for days. But every now and then, rain would shit all over my parade and I would be trapped inside for the whole weekend.
This weekend Southern California saw more steady rain than it usually does, which is none. For two solid days the rain came down. For about an hour there was one window of opportunity where the sun came out, but I didn't see any of the neighborhood kids capitalizing on the sunshine. If I was a kid, I would've grabbed my bike and squeezed in any dry time I could have. My guess is that kids were too busy with their Dan Fogleberg music and Pac Man videogames to even notice the rain had subsided.
With the birth of video games, childhood obesity being the epidemic it is and every other invention that's come out with the sole purpose of keeping kids indoors, I wonder if kids even care about the rain anymore. I wonder if kids sit by the window like I used to and just stare at the outside world, longing to go climb a tree or play tag. Or maybe nowadays kids pray for rainy days so that they have an excuse to not go outside. Now they have a perfect excuse to sit inside and play Halo.
I guess I won't know until I have kids myself, but I'm hoping that children still enjoy the outdoors as much as we used to.
New comic coming soon!
Max and I used to build slings on boy scout outings to propel rocks at our capture the flag opponents. We had such great times in the outdoors as kids. Kids have really changed so much over the past decade. They just can't get by without their electronics and their mothers to wipe their hineys. What a shame.
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