The Good Ole Days! (How these kids now days are missin' out on all ofthe fun)

"Playing without nets! Now that's what I'm talking about!"

Joel Osteen once said, "Sometimes we look back and 10 years from now we think, 'Boy, those were great old days.' Well, you know, we're living in the good old days." Ziggy Marley gave it to us like this, "I don't have to wait to realize the good old days." Then Doug Larson shut the building down with, "Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days."

Our kids are growin' up durin' a very technological time where everything is right at they're finger tips. They are so engulfed into computers, IPods and video games that they are missin' the most important thing, playin' outside. They don't know what it is to just run up and down the street. Sports weren't playin' in some organized league, it was simply goin' outside and playin' ball. Braggin' rights was takin' off your shoes and racin' down the street to see who was the fastest in the hood. I don't know why, but you were much faster barefoot or at least you thought you were. Those were the good ole' days!

No one signed up for sports until they were many times 4th or 5th grade not in kindergarten like they do now. Heck, there were a lot of kids that didn't play organized sports until high school. Just because they didn't play on the little league team didn't mean that they couldn't play. The best games were in the hood right out in the middle of the street.  I don't care if it was football, baseball, piggy(a form of baseball only played in the hood) or dodge ball. Those were the good ole' days!

The best athletes played in the street and the best hoopers played in the cage(a complete fence around the court that kept the ball from getting away) in the projects. There wasn't an AAU league that everybody signed up for. Naw playboy! You learned how to compete by playin' the best everyday of your life. Now if you're good you can't go outside and find a great game because the best kids are playin' AAU ball somewhere. So kids have to play in a league in order to get better and that costs money. Back in the day the All-Americans were right in the cage all day long. So if you wanted to put in work and get better the tutors were right where they should be everyday, on the court! It was nothin' to play against guys 3 to 5 years older than you were either. That's how you got better bruh! Playin' Pookie and Ray Ray nem that graduated 5 years ago but they were still at the courts hoopin'! Those were the good ole' days!

There would be at least 20 kids playin' in the street at any given time and most of them would be related. I don't remember a house with less than three or four kids. Most households had 9 or 10 kids. So when the Johnson's etc. came through they had a whole team with them. If no one was home I could still go out and play because I had four siblings to play with until everybody else came out. Those were the good ole' days.

Now it costs so much to live that people are only havin' one or two kids. Everybody's mom was a stay at home mom so in the summers we'd play from 9 am 'til it got dark. There was also "Recreation"(open gym) at all of the schools from 10am until 2pm. EA Sports has also taken away the all day games in the streets and the pickup games in the cages. I will admit that our kids understand the games better because of  NFL Madden or NBA 2K14 etc. I was in college before I understood offenses and  how to read defenses. However, it's something to be said about bein' able to just walk out of your front door and get right in the middle of serious game or to be able to say, "I got next". Those were the good ole' days!.

Our kids are goin' on play dates and makin' arrangements to play. I can remember bein' gone somewhere with my family and pullin' up to find ten kids sittin' on our porch waiting on us(my brothers included). They'd say, "We need you guys because the next street over challenged us to a game of football or baseball. We'd run in to put our play clothes on and dart out of the front door full speed and would be gone for 6 hours at least. Remember how every hood had a team and you would go from hood to hood to play a boy? We were known as the Tyler Ct. Raiders! Those were the good ole' days!

 Now the NFL has to market "NFL Play 60" for kids to go somewhere and play for an hour. Are you kidding me? We played until the street lights came on or until your mother would come out of the back door and scream your name. You could be three blocks away and still hear her. Then you would just drop the ball and run to the crib sayin', "All right dawg, I'll see ya'll tomorrow."
Those were the good ole' days!

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The caption under the photo is REAL today playa!