PAX Centurion - January / March 2016

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • January/March 2016 • Page 31 When life was simple By Mark A. Bruno B efore technology took over the world, we lived in simpler times. There were no iPhones, only rotary phones on the wall or on a table. They had cords on them, granting you the ability to travel the entirety of three feet. When you were done, you put the phone back on the receiver.You had shows on television like Dialing for Dollars and Boomtown starring Rex Trailer. The “rabbit ears” on your television sets had the power to give you about seven good channels. If you had a colored television, you were lucky. There were no remotes to change the channel; you actually had to get up off the couch and change it yourself. Some shows, like Star Trek, were telegraphing the future to come with their communicators, phasers, and dilithium crystals. Now we have cell phones, tasers, and lithium batteries.You hadWMEX andWRKO for radio stations. I really can't believe how far we have come from when I was a kid back in the sixties and seventies. When your Mother wanted you, she need only to shout out the window and God forbid if you were not within ear shot! Back then, we played board games like checkers, chess, and Monopoly for entertainment. Now, we have Candy Crush, Farmville, and Facebook. We played with marbles on sewer covers, flipped baseball cards on sidewalks, and actually enjoyed it. Who remembers Buck Buck?We'd play tag, off ground tag, and manhunt. One of my favorites was Blue Blade, where you would hide the belt and whoever found it, would whip the other players until they got back to a safe zone. Oh, the revenge I extracted on some bullies in this game – the number is too high to count. I would wind up from Detroit with that belt, like I was whipping a tiger. The nuns probably thought our parents were keeping us in line when they saw the welts. Of course, if you played this game today, you would be charged withA&B D/W! We would gamble our lunch money pitching quarters against a wall to see who got closer, or we played Glummy, where you pitched the quarter to a sewer cover first and then try getting it close to the other guy’s coin to win. We would play all kinds of card games, but Heaven help you if the nuns caught you! The priest at our parish would scoop up the money, make the sign of the cross, and walk away. We would all look at each other like “holy crap (no pun intended) what just happened!? Father Dominic just jacked up the game!” I'm sure it all went into the collection box; NOT! We would build all kinds of club houses out of pallets and line them with cardboard boxes for insulation. We actually learned carpentry at a young age. Most kids today have probably never swung a hammer. My favorite project was making a scooter out of a produce box, a 2 x 4, and a roller skate. We were creative and didn't have the distractions of today. One pimple-ball would provide many hours of endless entertainment. We would play Errors, Hit the Point, ball tag, and of course my favorite – stick ball.You could either use the whole ball or cut it in half when the air went out and play half-ball. Some of my friends could get the ball to move really well. Of course, you needed a stick- ball-bat which was usually provided by a broom stick stolen from one of our homes. Mothers were not happy about this! It was an incredible time of youthful innocence when life was simple. A game of Buck Buck. Scooters were made out of produce boxes and roller skates.