I am as guilty as charged.  I find myself spending all-too-much time with that addictive little screen that fits right in my pocket.

And let’s not kid ourselves—these screens are addictive by design and there is very little to be done for it.

What is even scarier is seeing young kids with smart phones watching hour after hour of online videos. Like the video games that came before them, too many onscreen diversions can be a bad thing.

My generation grew up watching all the television we could get our hands on.  Fortunately, when we were kids, that meant Saturday morning cartoons and about two hours of programming after school when Sandy Becker and Soupy Sales had their shows.

After that, we were on our own. Usually my cousins, my siblings, and I were playing outside, wandering through the woods and playing on Alligator Rock. We picked and ate the wild wintergreen and blueberries and found the white violets that grew by the stream. We sometimes ventured as far as the barn at St. Joseph’s Seminary where Brother Bruno gave us ice cream bars.  If we felt adventurous, we climbed the hill behind the seminary where a huge crucifix stood overlooking the Delaware. Even then, we found the view spectacular.

We built forts in the woods in the summer and snow forts in the winter.  My uncle built us a treehouse where we spent hours playing and my brave cousins slept overnight in the summer. A truly homesick kid, I never made it through the night.

In the summer, we spent weekdays at the Youth Center where we did arts and crafts in the morning after our swim lessons in the freezing pool.  We went home for lunch and then it was back to the pool for the rest of the afternoon.  We often had money for ice cream, so we went over to McCoach’s Dairy-Creme and had a treat.  I have distinct memories of walking over there barefoot, though I can’t imagine what would have possessed me to walk on hot asphalt and dusty ditches in the mid-summer heat.

Before Hermann Hall was built at the Youth Center, there was a big green shelter, open on the side that faced the pool and lined with picnic tables. Here my friends and I played card games including a game called Knux. The rules of Knux are lost to the ages, but I do remember that it involved getting your knuckles hit by the deck of cards if you lost. 

If we got really bored, we would take a stroll down to the playground.  There a set of swings hung from a bar about 20 feet off the ground where we learned how to pump ourselves high in the air.  There was also a slide guaranteed to burn your bottom on a hot summer’s day.  Finally, there was the dreaded and dangerous merry-go-round. If you didn’t get a sliver in your bottom from sitting on the wooden seat, you could be mildly terrorized by the adventurous souls who got it moving either by pumping it or providing the foot power to make it spin.  I usually held on for dear life and closed my eyes.

Thank God smartphones hadn’t yet been invented to ruin those simple joys of childhood.