Outdoor indoor

When I was a kid we spent all day outside. That's where all the kids were. We'd all ride our bikes around or find something to do. But these days, it seems the kids are too happy to be indoors. Or maybe it's their parents' fear of child predators... or maybe it's the TV, computer and video game system.

Milo, my 7 year old feels like I'm grounding him when I say he should play outside. He's so much happier to go outside if mom or dad are going to play with him. But since the birth of his baby brother, we just can't play like that all the time.

So one day, I was especially frustrated with his excuse after excuse for not going outside. I grabbed a pen, some paper and told the wife Milo and I were going out and we wouldn't be back for a while.

You see, I figured what he was missing was neighborhood friends and, gosh darnit, I was about to make some for him.

Milo and I went to every house in the neighborhood (well the ones that showed signs of having kids anyway) talking to parents. I explained that I was putting together a phone list of all the kids in the neighborhood who would like to be called for pickup games of baseball, tag, kick the can etc etc. It took the better part of the day, but when we were all done we had 60 kids on the list.

I typed it up that night and distributed it via email. I only listed the child's name, age, street name and phone number. To maintain privacy, no house numbers or last names were included on the list. I organized the list alphabetically by street name so there could be what I called Street Captains. If Milo wanted to get a game of baseball going, he could call one kid on each street and say "You're the street captain. You need to call the rest of the kids on your street and see who can play." Then the kids would walk/bike to and from the park together in groups created on their streets.

Every parent I met told me what a great idea it was. With that kind of affirmation, I was sure Milo would be playing outside every day from now on. A couple weeks went by and nothing happened. After some thought, I figured they're not calling each other because they don't know each other.

To solve this I, with the help of two neighborhood parents, called everyone on the list inviting them to the baseball field that Friday night for a game of kickball followed by a showing of "The Sandlot" projected on the backstop.

The night of the big event, one of those parents was able to borrow a projector from their work and the other brought all the white bed sheets and clothespins she had. 18 kids showed up for kickball, half of which didn't know how to play the game, but everyone had fun. At least I know I had fun. I was running around playing game master, instructing play, keeping score and whatnot. I hadn't intended to be that involved. I assumed kids plus ball plus field would run itself til the sun went down.

Thank goodness for those 2 parents who helped call everyone. While I was playing game master, they hung the bed sheets on the backstop and ran an extension cord to the projector. I was able to quickly rig a sound system with some home stereo equipment before it got too dark.

The event was a huge success. I can't tell you how many parents said something to the effect of let's do this every week. Unfortunately, I had plans for the rest of the summer but I vowed to do it earlier and more regularly next summer.

This winter, I emailed everyone on the list stating I was creating an hockey rink on the pond. I explained I would need help flooding it. I received dozens of responses but only two concerned the rink initiative. The others commented on the movie and wanted to know when the next neighborhood movie night might be.

So it seems in my attempt to get kids outdoors and away from watching a screen, I only achieved by creating a screen outdoors. How funny is that?