Kids should put down their gadgets

Re: “I was a free-range kid back in the day” (Letters to the editor, July 30)

This letter reminds me of the good old days when I was a kid. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey, in my boyhood we spent most of the day outside, summer and winter, using our imagination to think of and organize playtime. We even built forts and tanks to play, and box scooters with roller-skate wheels to zoom around on. Our parents never had to worry about where we were or what we were doing, because they knew that we were enjoying ourselves. Yes, the street traffic was lighter then.

We did not have small mind-numbing gadgets to occupy our time. The idea of instant information in your hand on cellphones is mindblowing to me. We had to go to the library or look into encyclopedia books to research subjects and information for our school essays.

One of my greatest pleasures for my “alone time” was sitting outside on the edge of the sidewalk in the summer evening under a street lamp reading an adventure book from the library. I will always remember lying in bed listening to the crackling sounds of a Joe Louis fight from London on the shortwave radio. The advent of television was an amazing experience, and the speed of jet planes and flights to the moon were a Buck Rogers (ask your Dad) leap into the future.

Don’t get me wrong, this old fogey is happy to see the advances that have come about to make our lives better. I did not have to be dragged into the future. I accepted and enjoyed it. But come on kids, put down those gadgets once in a while and enjoy what is around you. I guarantee that your brain will benefit in the long run.

OK, now it is time for this old fogey’s nap. Zoltan Molnar, Beaconsfield