The Loss of Disorganized Sports

Ext. Spring morning. 8 degrees celcius.

Friend: "Let's go play tennis."

Me: "Let's go cycling."

Friend: "Later. Pitch and catch instead?"

Me: :Ok. But let's go see if the French guys are on the diamond. Maybe we can have a game."

Such was the ritual for many, many years for me and my buddies. It's March and spring has arrived ushering in a new season. I was driving the other day and was struck by the silence on the streets. In the past, as soon as the weather permitted, the streets were swarming with kids playing sports and other activities. Subset communities of kids were constantly interacting. Everything revolved living outside.

One of my fondest memories was playing 3 on 3 ball hockey in front of my house with my neighbours. The best days were the ones after a snowstorm and the snow had a chance to set in and form a tight compact surface. The colder the better. -25c was perfect and we loved it. The bigger games were organized in math class or on the school bus. Locations for games scouted. Last minute calls were made. "Johnny can't come" and "The net is broken" or "some kids are in our spot." It's ok. We negotiated. We found ways to get our game in.

After a couple of hours a friend would admit it was time to have supper. Such interruptions! "Ok! Let's all meet after supper." If we were in an area we knew well the equipment would lay scattered in the night on the beautiful white snow. If I had a camera....

It was like this for any season. From morning until nightfall it was what we did. If no one was around I would kick a soccer ball of the side of my house - much to my mother's anger. Some of us shot hoops. No matter. We were biding time. It always seems we always ended up together playing something. As the sun began to set parents would shout the names of kids who colored the street. "Dan!" "Patrick!" "Claudio!" "Miriam!" "Veronique!" "Mario!" One by one the street emptied. But it was just a temporary reprieve because the next day was going to be even better since we had already laid done our plans the night before.

Girlfriends were found. Friendships strengthened - or weakened. New buddies discovered. It was all so simple.

Today, kids have other stuff to occupy their time. We didn't have cell phones back then. Heck, there was no call waiting or display. If the phone was busy we simply hopped on our bikes to get our friends. One by one we'd pluck them out of their houses.

This is the technology age: phone headsets, MP3s, iPods and so on. The sophistication of our technology is incredible. It takes a certain mind to take it all in. The kids of today use their wit and minds differently. It revolves around a chip. I suppose they are way to cool for sports.

Ours revolved around nothing but the urge to be active. I'm no Luddite. Nor am I here to compare and claim one generation is better than the other. I'm not about to start the "in my day..." angle. Though, I can now see why this is done.

As I write, my window allows me to see the action on my street. It's a wickedly gorgeous Sunday. I am staring out at the area where we used to play street baseball - more like stickball. It wasn't even a diamond. I can't even describe the dimensions. All I know is that it was 30 feet to first base and 120 feet from third to home - or something like that. I recall being mostly a singles and doubles hitter and a pretty darn good fielder.

I remember that while we came from different cultural backgrounds (mostly Italian and French), we all poked fun of each other's nationality. There was no political correctness to stifen this good natured fun. It was the wops versus the frogs. But mostly we were friends and we mixed the teams. It wasn't always perfect. There were fights. Nothing like a good fight to purge us of our sins. There was one kid I could not stand - still can't. But hey, it is what it is.

All this to say that the streets remain silent.