When I was your age (best of)

Happiness today is having a large, caring and loving family ... that lives far, far away. But it wasn't that way back when I was your age. Back then if my mother needed a place to send me after school, it was to my grandparents’ house not to a day care center. There was no such thing back when I was a kid.

If you looked up a person’s name in our phone book it was a little confusing, for every last name there was a John, a Johnny and a Johnny Jr., three generations living in the same neighborhood. A phone call to a “distant” relative was not even “long distance,” and you didn’t need an appointment to stop by and visit an uncle, an aunt, a brother or a sister. Close relatives really were ... sometimes right next door.

Sundays were for beef roasts, penny poker, Uncle Charles’ homemade ice cream and my mom’s berry cobbler. The meal was always spiced with an assortment of family members from both sides of my family. Sometimes there were just as many people over on Monday to eat the leftovers. Christmas and Thanksgiving were mandatory family affairs but so were birthdays and anniversaries.

When I was your age, we didn’t know anything about Alzheimer’s disease. We just thought Grandma was getting a little senile, so we all took turns taking care of her. It was no big deal. When grandpa fell and broke his hip, he couldn’t get any rest for all the friends and relatives that showed up to sit and chew the fat with him.

Now days when a youngster wants to spend a week’s vacation with his parents, he probably has to be shipped off, boarding a plane with a name tag around his neck to visit a divorced parent in a city far away. The nuclear family has blown apart. It scares me to know that city kids have to join violent gangs to feel wanted, as if wearing the same color hoodie can replace the family feeling. When I was your age, the only gangs I joined were Little League, Cub Scouts and the FFA. Family members filled the bleachers and bought the Girl Scout cookies.

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