CARELESS MEMORIES

I try not to get too peevish here (I swear), but I've been chafed recently by a number of people who, upon hearing me drop some useless bit of pop-culture trivia, will share that they weren't aware of it because they “played outside” when they were kids.

OK people, I played baseball all day in the summer, then hide-and-seek from dinner to dusk. I played Nerf football in the snow, and mapped the craters of the moon in the subfreezing cold.

I caught fireflies, butterflies, garter snakes under planks at the lumberyard, and bullfrogs in empty peat-moss bags at a swampy pond a couple of miles from my house. To which I rode my banana-seat bike...

Hell, I rolled hoops and whitewashed fences and rafted down the ole Mississipp. Practically.

So don't deride me for being able to do all that AND watch TV, read books, and listen to the radio. And, heaven forfend, remember some of it in detail.

Y'all need to step off...