"Boredom"

Do kids ever get bored anymore? With all the gadgets, videos, nine hundred television channels, and everything else that is available for their entertainment today, do they ever have the opportunity to say they are bored? Somehow I doubt it, and one of the great reasons to whine has been lost to the ages.

When I was small I had whining down to a science. I could make that sort of nasal sound that enhances a good whine and I could stretch out my words to eternity. It was I-I-I-I-I-M-M-M-M-M-B-B-B-B-O-O-O-O-OR-R-R-R-R-E-E-E-E-D-D-D-D, and I would have my sullen lips out pout on my face too. It was not a pretty sight.

Truth is I enjoyed being bored. My mother was a saint. She would listen to my whine and then she would begin suggesting different things to relieve my boredom. My favorite was when she would make up a story about some adventure a little boy named Jackie would be on. The storybook "Jackie" would fly a plane to New York and go to the zoo. She would describe all the animals and make me feel I was actually there. It was wonderful.

My mother had time to be inventive with me because my brother was never bored. He could entertain himself endlessly. He liked to read, he liked to play the piano, he liked to listen to the radio. I don't think during our entire childhood I ever heard him once say, "I'm bored!" 

Just as my mother was good at making up stories, my brother was good at inventing games. He was the one who thought up the "cuckleberry wars." We had a tree/shrub/something in our yard that had prickly things on it that we called "cuckleberries." They fell off in the fall and littered the ground. My brother invented a game that utilized them.

We would collect a bagfull each and then we would race around the yard throwing them at each other. Wherever you got hit with a cuckleberry you were wounded. If you got hit on an arm you couldn't move that arm; if you got hit on the leg you couldn't use that leg. We alternated shots at each other and the first one to immobilize the other one won.

Okay, so it doesn't sound so profound now but back in those days it was a great game and one we would play over and over. He also invented "Chase," which was a game we played with croquet balls and mallets. One person would be "it" and would chase the other person's croquet ball. The "not it" person would knock his ball as far as he could to get started and would try to stay away from the pursuer. Once the ball was hit by the other person's then they became "it." Again it wasn't rocket science but it was fun.

So because boredom has become a thing of the past, kids today will not have the chance to invent games such as these. And that's a shame. There is nothing as fertile as a child's imagination. What a pity that all the "things" of life now have crippled this form of creativity.

Progress brings about gains, but it also creates some losses.

 

 

 

 

 

©2004 Jackie K. Cooper

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