A slice of childhood

     My little boy found a tv channel that plays a lot of old style cartoons. Power rangers, digimon, ninja turtles, sonic....I watched most of them as a kid and it made me think about other little slices of childhood that brought back some good memories.

 
   When i was a little kid we would run out and play with our friends. There was a patch of wasteland behind an industrial estate which was really overgrown and had a patch of trees in. Nothing special but we spent hours upon hours down there. Making "bases"  and playing hide and seek and no doubt getting up to a bit of mischief.  We would be out for hours and our parents wouldn't worry that we'd been snatched or gotten lost as long as we came home when it was time for dinner or when mum or dad yelled out the door for us that it was time to come in. It was cool.

   Then there was the crazes that would come and go. Anyone remember pogs? I loved pogs and tazos and must have had thousands of them. For anyone who doesn't know what they were, they were little round cardboard discs that you and a friend would pile up face up then hit with a plastic disc (which we called a slammer) and whichever pogs landed face down you kept for your collection. It sounds pretty lame now but at the time it was massive. Then there was yo-yos, not a new craze but it came around again when i was about 12. Everywhere you looked in the school playground there was people "walking the dog" or going "around the world" with their yo-yo.

    Looking back on this side of childhood brings a sense of nostalgia for the simpler times. When the worst that you had to worry about was who was friends with who or what "swapsies" you had in pokemon cards.  I'm talking about before the worst of the bullying kicked in and when things just seemed easier. As a child we have a sense of wonder and adventure that is all too often lost as we get older. An innocence that is one of the true blessings in life. I think we should all take a leaf out of our children's book sometimes and just enjoy things for what they are and not worry so much about what they aren't. The world might just be a better place if we can keep a little of that childhood magic in our hearts.