As I was driving home from running errands yesterday, I drove by the park I spent so much time in as a kid. The park isn’t anything special. It has a rundown baseball field, some open land where we played football, some swings, and a basketball court. During the summer, if I wasn’t playing tennis somewhere else, then I was at this park playing baseball, basketball, or football. And during the school year, I spent most evenings there too.
I don’t drive by that park all that often, but when I do, I rarely see anybody using it. So, I was surprised to see three kids who were probably 13 or 14 years old playing basketball there yesterday. They were talking and laughing as they shot the ball and it made me feel good. Thirty years ago, I was one of those kids. I couldn’t wait to get to the park to shoot some hoops with my friends. Seeing the next generation enjoy something you used to enjoy is so satisfying. Those kids could have been playing X-box or chatting with each other on MySpace, but instead they chose to stand on the same cement I did three decades ago and play the same game I did.
I bet they didn’t have a care in the world for that short amount of time. I know I didn’t when I was in their shoes.
