> I guess I grew up in the same period as Sam's parents.

Not quite. They were born in 1946. You're approximately mid-way between my parents and grandparents.

> You couldn't get toys during the war, so me made most of the stuff we played with.

This is the kind of stuff I was talking about. Kids don't do this anymore. They get a buzzing lighting shooting racing exploding thing for Christmas, it breaks a week later, and that's that.

> You didn't have to tag him with the ball to put him out. You just threw it at him. Ouch!

This raises a whole new issue. If that happened today, and a kid inevitably got hurt, there'd be heck to pay. The parents of the hurt kid wouldn't just get angry, they'd be expected to get angry or considered uncaring or negligent. The kids, emulating the adults, will of course develop an animosity. In your day, the kid would get up, shake it off, and that'd be that. If he *was* hurt enough to need some time and comfort to recover, he would, the parents would chalk it up to a normal part of growing up, which of course it is, and that'd be that. The kid learns that incidental pain is a part of life and not grow up to be resentful of every little thing that hinders him in some way and aimlessly cast about blame and lawsuits at random.

Howard, I bet your father and grandfather had even more interesting stories of their childhood to tell than you do. There's a fascinating set of used books written by Henry Shute. Henry Shute was a judge who lived in Exeter, NH, and the books are actually his published childhood diaries from the 1880s. They're simply amazing. It's stunning how much trouble he got into. His idea of a great 4th of July was one like the year he knocked himself unconscious with a firecracker. (One of his friends had a whole set of firecrackers go off in his pocket when he got careless with a match.) But it's refreshing how creative he and his friends were at their play. Today, no kid would be caught dead with a firecracker for fear that he would be. And, sure, there's a bad extreme here -- the idea is, there's a world of good outside of the extreme we're in now.

> Do I ramble?

Yeah, but it's some of the most interesting rambling I've ever heard. Don't stop.