There were no game controllers in Street hockey. 
I remember growing up playing street hockey; it was nearly a full time job. We didn’t have store bought nets, no ours were made of 2 X 4’s and chicken wire fences. When a vehicle of any kind approached a cry went up “CAR” – it took two kids to half drag half carry a net to the side of the road. Then right back to the dead center of the street it would go, when the car passed – GAME ON. These were glorious times – no eye protection, Helmets or mouth guards were used. No one talked about bully’s…if you were a big kid you were most likely picked first and the runts were picked last – but we all played. We played until dinner time, and then we came back out for hide and go seek…there were no kids on milk carton back then.
The biggest scare I can ever remember was one time after playing baseball behind the church we all got on our bikes to ride home. But we stopped by a brook near a busy road to drink from a stream. A couple of men in a work truck slowed down and yelled to us that the water was poison and we were going to get sick and die. I was about 10, and no adult had ever lied to me in a vicious way before – I had no antenna for danger or fear of being mislead. We didn’t have baskets, or backpacks back then. I remember peddling home with my glove on my handle bar and carrying a bat while steering with the other hand…and crying all the way home. We didn’t have 10 speed bikes, when you got to a hill you had to walk. It was horrible, when I got home I told my mother what had happened – she could see the fear in my eyes. She said Stephen “they were just kidding with you” I looked at my mom and said “why would someone do that”? The age of innocence left me that day. I still rode my bike everywhere, played hide and go seek until after dark and moved the net when a car came – but now I was suspicious of other people.
Today, kids don’t play a pick-up game of hockey or baseball, these are organized by adults. Kids don’t drink out of streams; they have filtered water in insulated bottles with a special pocket in their back-pack for just such a purpose. And everyone is suspicious of anyone that goes near our children. I guess that’s why kids have video games and sit in front of the television – it is much safer inside. My son will be 19 in a couple of weeks and when he was young he never left the yard on his bike. I used to leave my town on mine.
I miss my baby boy...one day playing in the mud and the next off to college. where does the time go?
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Let your kids get dirty, but keep an eye on them...they want to set the world on fire - let them return when they are out of matches.
New Hampshire boasts one of the lowest crime rates in the nation…give me a call if you are looking to move to the beautiful White mountains.
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