When I was a kid I built my share of snow forts. The unfortunate thing is, I was lousy at it. Thankfully, and this is probably the only time you'll hear me say this, but thankfully I had my stepfather.
I talk shit about him all the time with good reason, but no one is completely a piece of shit. Except for Donald Trump, but he barely qualifies as human. At any rate, my stepfather had a few good qualities, and one of them was he was a genius. He was a biologist with a well-known Chicago area university, and he wrote books on the subject.
I should probably mention, before you start armchair shrinking me, that I wanted to be an author *before* I met him. Just a weird coincidence.
One of the things he was really good at was building snow forts. They were masterpieces of architecture. He tried to teach me how, but I have no skill for building anything, the reason being is I can somehow measure out, say, an inch, but anyone else measuring the same inch would get two. At first I thought I was so unlucky that I blamed every ruler I ever got for being wrong until I realized that the problem was with me.
Hey, I was ten years old when I came to that conclusion.
I shit you not, someone could live in his snow forts. The walls were so solid you could probably punch one and break your hand. And these fuckers were huge. As a child I could stand up inside, reach my hand up and barely touch the ceiling. And he didn't just build this part, because he knew that you needed a refuge during a snow battle, but you needed ramparts to defend, too. He also built those ramparts so that they were nearly impenetrable.
No one could sack our snow fort, no matter how hard they tried. I rarely won anything when I was in his presence, but I could win snow wars. And yes, I did pretend I was on Hoth during such skirmishes.
You know what I never see anymore? Kids building snow forts. It seems they're only interested in snowmen, and that's just barely. I know, I know, kids today have so many things vying for their attention, but I *did* have TV when I was a kid. Maybe the other parents back then forbade their kids from watching TV for too long, and they're not doing that for any and all devices today for whatever reason.
I don't want to come off as a grumpy old man complaining about kids today ("But?" I hear you ask), but my complaint is *not* with the kids. It's with their parents. We have adults today who were raised on the internet and tablets and smartphones, and that can't possibly be healthy. Why aren't parents more vigilant today? I'm sure middle-aged men when I was a kid were bitching about how TV couldn't possibly be healthy for kids, so maybe I'm just muttering darkly at the cloud instead of yelling at it. I *do* think I'm going through a midlife crisis, after all. I could be talking out of my ass, but the older I get the more I enjoy time away from any screen, any modern tech. It feels better, and I'm not sure why other people don't do that. I get it. Devices are addictive. They're designed that way, like cigarette companies putting nicotine in their product.
*sigh* Ah well.
I have very few happy memories with my stepfather, but I do miss those days building snow forts with him.
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