What did you do for fun as a kid? I'm looking at what kids do today to entertain themselves and if I may say so, (and though it is very debatable), I think our generation had more fun.
We seemed to invent more things to do in our youth. Kids play "Sneaks" today, we played hide and seek, and kick the can. Kids today play video games of baseball, football and basketball. We played sandlot baseball and football (often times in the mud) and we played basketball in each other's driveways because most kids had a hoop on their garage. If we didn't have enough players for a baseball game, we'd play "Lazy Man," or "Ghost Man," or "Home Run Derby." One of the "perks" of sandlot baseball was going down into the sewer to retrieve a baseball if it went down there.
We built things when we were kids. We got hollered at by our dads because we used their tools and, most of the time, didn't put them back where they belonged. We left nails on the garage or basement floor, and never threw away the scrap parts which we didn't use in our construction projects. What did we build? Some kids built tree houses, some used baby carriage wheels and built jitneys, some of us took old metal roller skates and made our own skateboards, and we had toys like erector sets which allowed us to build things.
We flipped baseball cards playing "Closest to the Wall." (Closet to the wall got the cards.) We rode bikes all over, sometimes clothespins clipping one of our baseball cards to the spokes of that bike. We played board games, or we invented games. We went to the Hundred Acre Lot (J.C.C. College Park) and walked through the woods, swam in the deeper part of the creek, and caught crayfish. We went through Lake View Cemetery trying to catch chipmunks in large coffee cans, and we swam in the Allen Park Pool.
During the summer, we got up early, did whatever chores we had, and left the house. Our baseball gloves were already on the handlebars of our bike, we let our parents know where we were going to be and we went there. We didn't worry a lot about lunch. Some days, we'd pack a lunch, some days we'd stop at a corner Mom and Pop grocery and get one or two popsicles and continue whatever was the plan for the day. All we had to do was be home when our moms told us to be home. After supper, we'd be out again until the street lights came on doing whatever we decided to do. We did all of this without the use of a cell phone or a joy stick, or a thumb pad.
Many of us were members of the Boys' Club or the YMCA, so we had a place to go on rainy days or other days that we wanted to swim. We wanted to be out of the house. If we stayed home and weren't doing anything, our parents would give us something to do like weed the garden, clean the basement or garage, trim around the yard, etc. We had to do those things anyway, but if we had other activities, we didn't have to do the outside work daily, just once a week or so. We really didn't spend too much time inside the house, and there may have been times when we might have been bored, but they were very few and far between.
We weren't any smarter than the youth of today, but at times, I think we were more creative in how we occupied our time and found things to do. In fairness, there were fewer things (no video games, computers, cable or satellite TV) available to us when we were young, so we had to be creative or either become bored or become experts in lawn and garden care. Part of our motivation was provided by our parents, as they told us loudly at times, and in no particular words, to get out of the house and go do something. Whatever the reason, we spent most of our time, year round, out of the house and none of us felt abused by being forced away from the television and told to go out into the great outdoors.
Times change, circumstances change, opportunities change, and though many of the changes that have taken place are more efficient, and they may appear to be more exciting, I'm not so sure all of them are more fun, and I think the creativity of our generation may have provided that slight edge in the fun department.