There are very few things that I enjoy about getting older.
But here is one: I am glad I grew up before the internet, before cell phones.
Or, as I often told my kids: Do as I say, not as I did.
Hey, there is no video. I have total deniability.
Take the night before Halloween for instance.
We used to call it Mischief Night.
And we took it pretty seriously.
As I stood on my front porch last night handing out candy to the hordes of kids Trick-or-Treating, a couple of things struck me.
This is now largely a chaperoned event. Each group of kids would walk down the driveway and approach the porch as a parent watched carefully from the street.
I guess you just can't be too careful.
That certainly was not the case when I was a kid, when our challenge was to literally try to hit every house in town. Mom likely had no idea where we were - or what we were up to - until we walked back into the house long after we were supposed to be home.
In addition to collecting tons of candy, we got into more than our share of mischief.
It seems to be that soaping windows has become pretty much a lost art.
Not that I am complaining.
Of course, there are the exceptions.
Some kids in Upper Darby went on something of a Mischief Night rampage, breaking several windshields in the process and walking on top of cars.
You can get the details here.
We never did anything approaching that.
Like I said, this was before the internet.
Thank God for that.
Comments