Category: Family

Family

Technically speaking

Well, technically, my team lost.

The event we lost was a scavenger hunt. Now it may have been a while since you took part in a scavenger hunt, but I assure you, if the competitive gene is strong in you, I highly recommend you take part the next time the opportunity presents itself. Or, even create one yourself. It’s worth it.

We were out at my folks’ cabin to celebrate my son’s 15th birthday. The cabin is nestled on 100 acres of woods and swampland, and is a favorite rallying place for my family. My son decided it would be fun to do a nature scavenger hunt. Hey, your birthday. Let’s do it.

He developed a list of things we would hunt. Among the items:

Five pine cones bigger than a fist
A feather
Picture of a salamander
Video of a team member climbing a tree at least 10 feet high
Animal track
A bone
Something shaped like the letter “E”
And about a dozen other things

My son said he and his cousin, Nick, would be team captains and would hold a draft. My son had the first pick in the draft. So naturally his first pick was … not me? What? He picked his cousin Sam. Surely I would be Nick’s first pick. Nope. Aunt Laura. Well, time to join Parker’s team. Nope. Uncle Ron. Oh, so this is how it is? I was picked last by Nick, setting the two teams.

Before we started on our quest, I made a pronouncement: My mom would be the judge of whether things would be accepted (as no one can overrule Judge Grandma), and we were enacting the “Well, Technically” Doctrine.

That is a piece of international law that states when, in taking part in things intended to be fun, you cannot skate on technicalities. We are going with the spirit of the law, and you can’t bring back a footprint you just made and call that an animal track. Judge Grandma would rule those out.

And off we set. Ron, Sam and Parker set off in one direction, and we set off in another. Laura, Nick and I were gradually adding an item here or there, and spending a good chunk our time being wiseguys and seeing how we could test the limits of “Well, technically.”

Soon, we arrived at a large tree that was tilted up at about a 45-degree angle. I stood under the tree, and estimated it to go up at least 10 feet high. “Hey, Nick, climb that tree and I’ll video it,” I said.

I turned to Laura, my oldest sister. I said to her, “It’s probably a good thing Susan (Nick’s mom) isn’t on our team, or one of us would be climbing the tree.” Upon seeing the video a while later, Susan confirmed that was the case.

We continued to mosey about being our funny selves, slowly adding to our collection. And then we arrived at a spot where we could see a big, open field. And we saw Ron, Parker and Sam sprinting across the field, stopping only briefly to check off items on their list. And that’s when the Gibbons competitive gene kicked in. The three of us began sprinting back toward the cabin. “E! Find something that looks like an E! And where are the pine cones!?!?!?”

Both teams arrived back at the cabin after the 30-minute time limit mark. The whole family gathered to check off the items that Judge Grandma ruled as admissible. Admittedly, we were amazed that, after some deliberation, she allowed the lettering on a Home Depot bucket to count as something shaped like an “E.”

Alas, at the final tally, my team fell short, 13-12. Begrudgingly, I acknowledge that Sam, Parker and Ron won the scavenger hunt. Well, technically.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.

Animals Family

Fowl play

I was leaving the grocery store recently when my wife called. I answered and she said, “YOU NEED TO COME HOME. NOW.”

Based on this tone, this was not something I had done. I knew this, because that tone was not the one someone would use had I, say, left the toilet seat up. That’s the tone for someone who has just been caught replacing the dining room furniture with a video game arcade. And I knew I had not committed any egregious acts, so it had to be something I had not done, but needed to take care of.

“What’s wrong?”

“There is a BIRD in the house.”

Uh-oh. Now, my wife is a very patient woman, and very understanding that we are a family of animal lovers. She has evolved immensely over the years as snakes and lizards and possums and such have made their way into our house. But she draws the line at birds. They are welcome at the feeders. They can nest in the boxes. But they better stay outside. And this one had not.

I told her I would head that way. I asked her what kind of bird it was and where it was. “I don’t know because I’m outside,” was her very direct response. She then said, “My computer bag is inside and I have a work call in 15 minutes. You need to COME HOME NOW.”

The grocery store is just across the street, so normally this wouldn’t be a problem. However, I had just dropped our son off to go fishing a few blocks away. If I went home for a bird rescue without him, he would be devastated. “I need to get Parker first,” I said. She reminded me that the clock was ticking and that there was a BIRD IN THE HOUSE!

I drove to where Parker was fishing and rolled down the window. “There’s a bird in the house.”

As if we had rehearsed this 100 times, Parker quickly packed up his fishing gear and sprinted to the car.

As we were pulling into the neighborhood, my phone rang. I looked at the screen. It read “Parker’s phone.”

I looked at Parker and showed it to him. He put his hands in both pockets and said, “Where’s my phone!?!?!”

I answered the call. A voice on the other end said, “Hi, I found this phone on the road…”

I swung around and turned back toward the fishing spot. I called my wife. She skipped the usual “hello” and answered with, “WHERE ARE YOU!?!?”

I responded, “I need you to not freak out…” I told her that Parker had dropped his phone and we would be there as soon as possible. Her silence was not one of a pleased person. Tick-tock. Tick-tock

We arrived at the fishing spot and a nice young man was waiting for us with the phone. We gave a very quick, “Thank you thank you thank you!” and then made our way back to the neighborhood a second time.

We pulled into the driveway and my wife was sitting on the front porch She was wearing sunglasses, which meant I could not see the daggers she was no doubt shooting into me.

We sprinted inside to confront our avian invader. Nothing. Not a thing. Just a backdoor that I had left wide open earlier during the very pleasant day. We checked the house twice. Disappointed, we went outside. “It’s gone,” I said.

“Go check again.”

We did. Nothing. Later that night, as my wife was planning to head upstairs for bed, she turned to me and said, “If I get upstairs and find a bird…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, but my guess is she would have been less mad had she gone upstairs and found I had replaced our bedroom furniture with a video game arcade.

Childhood Family

Permit me to be terrified

Post author By Mike Gibbons
Post date March 8, 2018
No Comments on Permit me to be terrified

Disclaimer: This column is not about guns or gun laws. Yes, it starts with a mention of the gun debate as a jumping off point, but please don’t stop reading just because you see the word gun. I don’t do politics in this column, and never have. The most controversial subject I have tackled was the grand debate raging through our home on the proper way to eat corn on the cob. (The correct answer is typewriter style, not the barbaric way of corn cob rotation that my wife continues to try and indoctrinate our poor children with.) Now, to the column:

One of the talking points that comes up in gun discussions is raising the age of purchase to 21. A common rebuttal is, “Should we raise the driving age to 21, too?”

To which I immediately think, “YES! At least 21. How about 30? Can we do 30?”

I realize this is my knee-jerk reaction because, in less than two weeks, my son will be eligible for a learner’s permit. You know, that thing that means you are legally allowed to operate a car. An actual car. Yes, the state of South Carolina is going to be a-ok with that, assuming he can pass a written test.

This is the person who often cannot find his shoes, and when he does, they are often not in the same room, and have even been on entirely different properties.

This is the person who recently asked me if he could hide in the attic and sit above his sister’s room until she and her friends got there so he could pretend the house was haunted. (Answer: No, because your mother is home.)

And now this is the person who will be able to drive a car? Oh, lawdy.

In all fairness to him, I believe he does understand the big responsibility of being in charge of a car. And he is surprisingly risk averse when it comes to speed. Roller coasters? No thank you, for him. I am hoping that applies to when he is behind the wheel as well.

Initially, he was rather indifferent about nearing the legal age to drive. That is quite the opposite of his sister, who was there when the DMV opened the first morning she was eligible to take the test. Same with when it came time to get her actual license.

But he was kind of meh about the whole thing. We weren’t going to push it, because if he wanted to kick that can down the road, fine by us (and our insurance premium).

But the other day, we were driving along and he said, “Dad, want to hear something terrifying?”

My answer, of course, was, “What have you done?”

He said, “No, nothing. I think. But this is terrifying: In two weeks, I can get my permit.”

Terrifying indeed.

My guess? It occurred to him that, with a driver’s license, he has vastly expanded his potential fishing holes. He’s nothing if not pragmatic.

So this week I will go to the DMV and get him the study guide to take his test. When I told him that, he was thrilled that he was going to have to actually study for it. “Do you think I could just take it without studying?” I considered saying yes for a second, guaranteeing he wouldn’t pass that way. But that would be wrong for multiple reasons, so I said, “Trust me. You need to study the guide to pass the test.”

So fairly soon, I will take our freshly minted 15-year-old to take his learner’s permit test. But I’m OK if wants to hold off. I can take him when he’s a bit older. Say, 30.

Childhood Family

I want to ride my unicycle, I want to ride my … unicycle

Post author By Mike Gibbons
Post date February 26, 2018
No Comments on I want to ride my unicycle, I want to ride my … unicycle

Prior to becoming a parent, there are plenty of sentences I had never uttered. In fact, I had never even considered saying plenty of them, including:

“Do not feed your brother crayons.”

“Take the underwear off your head.”

“Fine. You can wear a sombrero to school.”

Plenty of those were said when my kids were much younger and, by all accounts, living in a different realm of reality.

Now, my kids are teens, so I don’t as often say things that, as a standalone, make me sound like a person who is just stringing random words together.

But every now and again…

The other night, I was walking inside my house. There, right by the front door, was something that was not supposed to be there. So I came inside, went to my son’s room, and said a sentence I would not have predicted saying pre-kids: “You need to make sure you bring your unicycle inside.”

Yes, my son has a unicycle. It was a Christmas gift, and he was taken to it quite well. When he first got it, we went online and watched tutorials about how to ride one. By most estimates, it was going to take 15-20 hours of practice to learn how to unicycle.

My guess: That estimate is for adults, not teen-age boys who are blissfully unaware.

The first hour or so of practice was just getting to know the unicycle. He would lean up against the garage or the back of a car, and gradually ease up onto the unicle, just learning to balance. He would make a few pedal rotations before being dispatched to the ground.

Fast forward a few hours of practice, and he was moving up the distance a good 20-30 feet before falling off. Add about two more hours – I’d say five total – and we now have his primary mode of transportation.

When I pick him up from school, we usually have this conversation:

ME: Any homework?

PARKER: Yeah, some math.

ME: Well, why don’t you knock that out when we get home.

PARKER: Yeah, I’m probably gonna unicycle the neighborhood, fish for a bit, and then come home and do it.

ME: Sounds like a plan.

And it’s a quite good plan. Burn off some energy on a unicycle, hook a few fish, then come home and rock out some algebra.

That said, I do remind him that he should bring his unicycle inside. No, it is not likely that a thief will come to our porch, dedicate several hours of training to learn to ride a unicycle, and pedal off. It is also unlikely that a skilled unicycler will happen by and seize the opportunity. What is possible, however, is that someone sees it and decides, “I’m gonna take that.” Why would someone do that? For the same reason people vandalize street signs. Because they just want to make the world a little less better. I hate to be a cynic about things, but it’s just a sad reality of life. You have to be proactive in making sure the cretins of the world aren’t given the opportunity to be awful. And one way of doing that is to bring your unicycle inside.

My son has gotten good at making sure the unicycle is inside each time he’s done, meaning I do not have to utter the previously mentioned sentence often. Granted, I do have to occasionally say things such as, “Hey, don’t unicycle through the kitchen when I’m cooking.” But who doesn’t say that a few times a day?

Childhood Family

Choose wisely

Remember that scene in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” when the bad guy, Donovan, has to choose which one is the Holy Grail?

You don’t? Well let me refresh your memory. The knight guarding the Holy Grail (among scores of other goblets) tells Donovan, to “choose wisely.” He picks the wrong one, drinks from it, and, instead of eternal life, he ages instantly and is quickly turned into a pile of dust and bones. (Yes, I know Elsa actually chose the goblet, but isn’t it really his responsibility at the end of the day? Oh, and also, spoiler alert.)

The knight responds by saying, “He chose … poorly.”

Well, now you know how my daughter feels right now, as she tries to make her choice of colleges.

We have assured her there are no wrong choices. She has five schools she is looking at: University of Alabama, University of South Carolina, Winthrop, Elon and James Madison.

Depending on the day, a different one is a leader in the clubhouse.

I get that this is a big decision. I mean, I get it in theory. I never had this inner turmoil, as I had been sold on going to Alabama pretty much forever. I applied to a few other schools, but my plan had been to go Bama all along, which is what I did. My wife did not have a lifetime favorite, but when she got accepted to Bama, she said, “Meh, why not.” We met there, so I’d like to think it worked out for both of us.

So you might think there is pressure on her to go to Alabama, since in addition to her parents, countless relatives (including aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents) and family friends went there as well. (There is a reason my wife and I walked into our wedding reception to “Sweet Home Alabama.”)

Rest assured, there is not. We have told her that she needs to go to the place that is the best fit for her. If that’s Alabama, super. If it’s one of the other four, good for her. (One caveat: Regardless of choice, we do have rules on who she can root for under this roof on football Saturdays. Some things are non-negotiable.)

We have told her not to fret too much about the decision, as she still has several months to decide. And we still have to visit some campuses to find out if it just feels right.

Here’s the main thing I want her to factor into her decision: What school wants her the most? And I am sure they will all tell her they want her. But I have a slightly different way of determining just how much they want you.

My wife and I were both fortunate enough to get out of college without debt. And that’s my main goal for her. I want her to find out what scholarships are available, and what the school is willing to do to entice her to attend.

It seems really bonkers to me that (a) we ask 17 and 18 year old kids to know what they want to be when the grow up and (b) give them ability to get into a debt that will follow them around for decades.

Yes, I get personal responsibility and all the jazz. But let’s be honest – if you are looking for someone to hoodwink with a really bad deal that will cost them for decades, a senior in high school looking for the perfect college is a great mark.

So over the next few months, we will team together to find what the best fit is, in terms of academics, social life and financial responsibility. I feel confident that, at the end of the day, she will choose wisely.

Family Home improvement

Couch your answer

Some two decades ago, prior to getting married, my wife and I went through the ritual of picking out dishes. And, because she is a saint, she structured the process thusly: She spent hours looking for plates, knowing that my main criteria for plate is “holds food.” Upon identifying three possible patterns, she brought me into the mix, asking if any of the three were especially preferred or, more importantly, especially offputting.

Once I confirmed that all three patterns of plate would successfully hold food, I told her that I really didn’t have a favorite, so whatever she went with was great by me. And we still use those plates to this day, so they seemed to have been a good choice.

Fortunately, my wife takes this approach to a lot of things. It’s not that I am not willing to help. It’s that with a lot of these things, I really, truly do not have an opinion one or the other, in particular on appearances. I am far more concerned with the utilitarian aspect of objects in our life.

Add to the fact that I have the color matching skills of a fence post and you can also see that, even if I am contributing, I’m probably contributing poorly.

We employed this technique recently when shopping for furniture. Our den furniture currently fulfills its desired functions, which are primarily (1) sitting and (2) napping during sporting events.

But my wife has wanted new furniture for a while, as these are getting older. Additionally, they do not match our new flooring, which is something she assures me is a fact but that I just have to accept.

When we went to the furniture store, we fortunately picked one right next to a sporting goods store that sold fishing gear. This was critical, as we brought our 14-year-old son with us, and if there is one thing that is the most awful thing on the planet for a teenage boy, it’s shopping for furniture with your parents.

I dropped my wife off at the store, and she said she would browse while I took him to the sporting goods store. If she found something, she would text me. I do want a little more input on a furniture purchase, as I am very particular about just how comfy my nap space is, so my wife assured me she would let me take it for a test drive before pulling the trigger.

After a while, I got a text. “I found a few things.” I told her we would finish up at the fishing place and head next door. “Hooray!” said my son, not once.

When we walked into the store, my wife was standing at a lovely couch in the showroom, along with the salesperson. I sat on the couch. Niiiice.

I kicked off my shoes, which caused my wife to roll her eyes and the salesperson to look at me a little cockeyed. “I don’t want to put my shoes on the couch,” I said, as I swung my feet up on the couch and nestled into napworthy position.

Homerun.

My wife mentioned that she had seen a few others as well. “Do you like it?” I asked? She said she did. “Well then let’s stop looking and start enjoying!”

“Hooray!” my son said internally, as no one actually says “hooray” any more.

The couch will be delivered soon, and I look forward to it giving many years of service. And I hope excited to have a couch that matches our floor color. Whatever that means.

Childhood Family

Exit stage left

When my children reach a finish line at various stages of life, I try not to get too sentimental about the fact that a chapter has closed.

Sure, some of them are easily celebrated – being done with diapers, being able to ride a bike without training wheels, and, of course, being able to respond to “I’m hungry!” with “Well, then make yourself something to eat.”

Others are tough, however.

Such as when you realize your child is no longer going to bring home school craft projects.

Or when your child drives off alone for the first time.

Or when you realize they are probably going to see that new superhero movie with their friends instead of you.

But I tell myself not to lament these closures. Rather, I tell myself to celebrate that my wife and I were able to successfully usher our kids to their next phase.

I found myself having a little bit tougher of a time not lamenting such a closure the other night, however.

I sat in a high school theater, watching my daughter take a bow onstage at the conclusion of the play “All Shook Up,” where she played Mayor Matilda.

And I said to myself, “This may be the last time I see her perform on stage.” At that point, the person to my left began cutting onions, and the person to my right blew dust in my face. Yes, that’s what I’m going with.

My daughter is a senior, and this was her final high school theater performance. She has been involved in theater since she was four, when she played a rabbit in a Winnie The Pooh play. (It was a tour-de-force performance, widely regarded as one of the greatest rabbit performances of all time, mainly because she was four and managed to not fall off the stage.)

She took to the stage naturally. Over the last 13 years, she has been consistently involved in some aspect of theater.

When she was 5, she auditioned for a role in “Best Christmas Pageant.” I took her up to the auditions and was pleased to see her taking an interest in it. I had done some theater when I was in high school, but drifted away from it in college.

As I sat back away from the auditions, letting her do her thing, the director realized that no men had come out to audition for the role of the dad. They asked me if I would read for the part, which I reluctantly did, mainly at my daughter’s urging. I got the part (yes, I realize I was cast out of a pool of one), and my daughter and I were soon on stage together.

Getting me back involved in theater soon led to my wife getting involved in theater. And with us came our son, and we spent the next decade with theater as our full-time, non-paying (but incredibly rewarding) jobs. Allie’s interest in theater was the snowball that brought us into that world, a gift she gave us that has had such a remarkable impact on our family over the years.

When we moved a week before her freshman year, she immediately found her tribe in the high school theater department, something that helped her transition into the scary world of starting high school in a completely new town.

But she’s a senior, and she is heading off to college next year. She has her eyes set on a major that is not theater. But as I can certainly attest, even if you get out of theater for a while, you can always get back in.

But I realized at that moment this was the last time I would see her on stage when we are a family of four under one roof. Because this chapter is closing. And as much as I want to be sad that it is closing, I have to remind myself that this is the best possible thing that can happen, because time only moves forward. So go write that next chapter, Allie Gibbons. And break a leg.

Family

Banned for life

It is quite the moment when you see the heavy hand of justice come down, and a child is informed by his mother that he is, from this point forward, forever banned from Lowe’s.

It is even more amazing when his two siblings are given the same sentence seconds later.

I witnessed this event recently at the self-checkout aisle. (Side note: The self-checkout aisle, when used properly is one of mankind’s greatest inventions, up there with roller coasters and backgammon. When used improperly, it is a plague upon humanity. I still think we should strongly consider a system in which one must pass a test and get a license to use self-checkout.)

But I digress. All four of the registers were occupied, and there were a few of waiting in line for an opening. (OK, another side note: one slight inefficiency in self-checkout lines is when there is line backing up. There is really no place to line up, so everyone just kinda mingles in an amorphous blob. And periodically, when a register opens, a new person who has just entered the area beelines straight for the opening, forcing the blob to mobilize and start shouting, “HEY! HEY! HEY!”)

Anywho, at one of the registers was a family of five. Dad was checking their handful of items, while Mom was overseeing the kids quickly unravel at breakneck speed.

The three kids – the oldest was maybe six – were behaving like … oh, what’s the word … Oh, yeah – kids. They were acting how kids act at any given point, and anyone looking at this family and thinking negatively upon them needs to really recalibrate their expectations about how little humans who have no compunction about eating quarters behave. Unfortunately for this mom, it was the perfect storm of all three of her little bottle rockets firing at once.

First one made a run for the candy at the checkout. Mom darted toward him and removed the eight packs of Skittles from his hand, which did NOT sit well with him. So he went for the Snickers. Then he went flat to the floor, doing that thing small children do where they suddenly weigh 900 pounds and are immovable anchors. That’s when Mom laid down the law. “YOU. ARE. NEVER. ALLOWED. AT. LOWE’S. AGAIN!”

Clearly, his siblings saw this as their time to shine and began their own shenanigans in different directions.

I would also like it duly noted that during this episode, the dad stared at the register, scanning his items, one by one, but VERY slowly.

Once the mom had banned the other two children for life as well, she began the whirlwind ninja mom trick of somehow gathering up multiple children at once and placing them at various parts of the shopping cart.

As I said earlier, no one should pass judgment on this family. I sure wasn’t. Because I’ve been there. I’ve climbed to the top of a McDonald’s playground because my child refused to come down. I’ve removed a wailing child from a grocery store because we couldn’t get “all of the potato chips.” And I’ve issued lifetime bans right there on the spot, knowing full well it wouldn’t be upheld.

Hopefully the next outing for this family was a little less eventful. I completely understand that going out in public with small kids can sometimes be an adventure. And I think we should all be sympathetic toward the parent who is dealing with a rambunctious child in public, and even a little bit for the child. After all, that may very well be the last time that child is ever allowed to go to that store.

Adventures Childhood Family Uncategorized

Winter wonderland

Winter Storm Grayson has come and mostly gone, and I think I speak for plenty of folks when I say, “Alright, that’s enough winter for 2018.”

A few thoughts on our big blizzard to kick off the year:

Yes, I know that five inches of snow isn’t a lot for much of the country. And yes I get that many people like to mock our (a) awe of the storm and (b) occasional ineptness in particular when it comes to driving. But I live in Charleston, SC, where we haven’t seen this kind of snow in nearly a decade. Congratulations if you live in a community that is prepared for this kind of weather and handle it without batting an eye. Please remember that we handle hurricanes and brutal heat quite splendidly.
But speaking of driving, we in the South do kind of earn that reputation honestly. I tried to stay off the road as much as I could. However, once the roads started clearing, I did get out a few times, mainly for groceries and a doctor’s appointment. I consider myself a fairly good driver, and approach driving in winter weather with caution and patience. Other drivers? Not so much. Fun fact: A four-wheel drive is not magically designed for driving over ice. I watched one big truck try and take a turn and slide sideways into another car. I also witnessed another big truck tailgate me as I went down a road covered in ice patches. Guess what? I’m not speeding up.
There really is nothing like watching kids play in snow, especially ones who have never seen it. We live in a neighborhood with a lot of little kids, and seeing them frolic and play was awesome. That said, there seems to be a pretty good chance you could take the wrong kid home, as they are virtually indistinguishable once they are bundled up and then covered in snow.
International Snowball Fight Rules must be adhered to, or there will be chaos. Timeouts must be honored, even it’s your big sister calling timeout. I mean it. Seriously. Parker – she called timeout. Do you want to go inside? Parker!
If you put gloves on your snowman’s arms, monitor them closely the next day. The gloves may be iced nice and stiff at first. But as the temperatures rise, the gloves may begin to melt. And once the four fingers not being supported by the stick arms melt, your snowman may inadvertently be giving one-fingered salutes to everyone driving by. Oops.
Ponds around these parts rarely freeze, so we thought it was pretty cool to see the ones near our house with a thin sheet of ice on them. Knowing we couldn’t get on the ice, we pitched snowballs at them to watch them explode on impact. Over the last few days, I have noticed that most every frozen pond has snowball plops all over them. Good to see other people are as easily amused as we are.
When I was a kid and winter weather approached, we had to watch TV or listen to radio and wait for the long list of closings to be read to see if our school was canceled. These kids today, with their smart phones and social media? Spoiled. And you can also tell when the announcement comes out, as you hear your two kids scream at the same time from different rooms when they get the alert on their phones about school being canceled.

So we have had our winter fun, and I am more than happy to let the rest of the country take on winter storms for the rest of 2018. I’m all for getting back to normal, and getting temperatures back way higher than my age. The snow was fun, but I’m good for one of these a year. Around these parts, I think it’s time to put our focus on what we’re best at: hurricanes and brutal heat.

Childhood Family

Kids today…

I was driving in the car with my wife and son recently, and I had the opportunity to partake in one of my favorite pastimes: Telling my kids about a world they will never know.

We were talking about an article I read that said young folks these days don’t gather socially, at least not in physical locations, as often as they used to.

Kids today, with their new-fangled technologies that connect them instantly.

My wife and I began regaling our son – which he no doubt was super appreciative of – of a time when we were young, carefree 20-somethings, without the burdens of children but also without the conveniences of smart phones.

For a good chunk of our early professional lives, my wife and I would join friends at a local watering hole after work several times a week to play bar trivia over cocktails. Even though I am a bit older now and seldom play anymore, I am aware that bar trivia is still a thing. But I would bet that few groups had as consistent run of attendance that our crew did for a good four or five years. Also, for those of you still playing trivia, please remember one of the cardinal rules of playing it: Even if you are just drinking water, you have to tip as if you are drinking beer and getting food. You are renting time and space from a server, so drop a fiver at the very least at the end of the evening.

At that point, my wife decided to go super “Kids today!” and said, “And there’s not destination television anymore! And what about Saturday morning cartoons!?!?!”

Let’s unpack these one by one.

My kids watch most of their TV on their phones or computers. And they do it whenever. Our daughter, who is 17, watched the entirety of “Friends” in a couple of weeks, a feat she accomplished by ignoring such pesky things as cleaning her room or sleeping.

Well, when “Friends” was airing live, we used to watch with a group of our friends, and we had to do it 30 minutes a time, every Thursday at 8. And it took us 10 years to knock that bad boy out. (We also did the same thing with “Melrose Place,” but I’m not going to recommend that show to her. Or admit that I watched every episode religiously. No one can prove I watched “90210,” either.)

As for Saturday morning cartoons, kids today, with their cartoons whenever. My wife and I were sharing with our son about how our Saturday mornings were the one day when we could see cartoons (with the exception of holiday prime time specials). We had about a three-hour block on Saturday mornings, and we liked it! Harumph.

I then took the helm and went on to share with him about how awesome Blockbuster Tuesday new releases were. “Independence Day” coming out and you’ve got a watch party scheduled? You better get to Blockbuster bright and early and make sure you get one of the 12 copies they were going to have available. If for some reason you couldn’t get there that early, you could hope and pray that some kind movie watcher had rented that morning and returned it the same day. I remember several times heading into my local Blockbuster, eyeing a new release in the return bin at the counter, and hovering like a vulture until I could catch the eye of the clerk and saying excitedly, “Can I get that copy of ‘There’s Something About Mary’ that just got returned!?!?!” That was my on-demand, my friend. (Oh, and fingers crossed that the person returning it had in, fact, had the decency to be kind and rewind.)

So the world is different now, and maybe that has led to a bit of a fracture in the traditional social structure. I’m not one to suggest the old ways are better or worse. Just different. Now, if you’ll excuse, my show starts in 10 minutes, and if I don’t see it now, I’ll have to wait until summer reruns.