It's the dog days of summer and I've just learned that kids, even in the summer, spend almost eight hours a day facing into some type of screen (computer, pod, pad, phone app, et al) while spending less than a half-hour a day in physical exercise.
Of course those statistics don't depict Estevan and area kids. Ours are just a little bit better ... aren't they Mom?
What the heck, I see our kids in the playparks giving it all they have in the wading pools and playground apparatuses for three to five hours a day, so I don't know where these statistics people get their numbers. And as an aside ... thank goodness Estevan decided to keep the playpark programs alive and free for the kids. Not everyone gets to go to summer vacation spots every year.
I know I was one of those kidlets who rarely managed a summer getaway, and I never really felt sorry for myself either. It was just a fact of life.
Summer camps were foreign to moi as were summer cabins, although we did manage to make it to my aunt and uncle's cabin at Katepwa on an occasional Sunday. Even got into or on the water on occasion.
Most of my summer days were spent doing some retail chores at the store or studio, often begging off for a Saturday morning pickup ball game with like-minded friends who were also town-bound for the summer and there were a lot of them, which is why I applaud city summer programs.
An occasional Saturday afternoon would find us in the local theatre cheering on some B-movie hero while eating red licorice, popcorn or soft ice cream.
I had an additional job of cleaning that theatre after movie matinees (Wednesdays and Saturdays) for about a year because it was located next to our store.
I didn't like the job. Their vacuum cleaner was great fun though, because it was so huge and powerful. It was amazing the wonderful things that I could suction into oblivion without much effort. Of course I had to dump the vacuum after, so I had to reap what I had sown.
I didn't like cleaning up after matinees because sunflower seeds resting in an island of no longer frozen goop from ice cream cones or milkshake containers made for some messy situations and because the Wednesday matinee was later than the Saturday version, the time line for cleaning was tight since the doors opened again at 6:30 for the evening show. As recorded in an earlier column, I never uncovered anything of value and the rule was that anything under a dollar I could keep, anything over, I handed it in. I think I harvested three hair barrettes, one water pistol and 8,344 Blackjack and/or Pud bubblegum wrappers, 1,234 candy cigarette butts, and an occasional real cigarette butt (yes, smoking happened then; they're not wrong in those Mad Men episodes).
We went to matinees that included a 15 minute cartoon at the start (commercial free) sometimes an episode of a thrilling cliff-hanger serial mystery, maybe some MovieTone newsreels about something happening in some foreign country ruled by someone named Haile Selassie, and then the main feature.
We weren't disturbed by cellphone rings or somebody's app twinging away. It was just us, the movie, popcorn, bubble gum, ice cream and noisy friends.
We didn't worry about new rides at DisneyWorld or the cost of condos in Phoenix, Miami or Honolulu. What the heck, if we got a chance to hitch a ride into Regina for a 'Rider game, that was big time. We preferred the local theatre, baseball diamonds, playparks and golf course. As far as we knew, that's where the summer action was found and we didn't want to miss any of it by taking some dumb old trip in a car. I'm just happy to report that while some things change over time, other things are allowed to remain relatively unchanged. And kids still find fun at home when they're given the opportunity.
