Summer has always been my favorite season.\u00a0 As a child growing up in the Catskill Mountains of New York State in the 1960s, I counted the days each June until finally the shrill sound of the last school bell rang, signifying the end of the school year and the beginning of summer. Oh how I loved that day! Two months of \u201cno more pencils, no more books, no more teachers\u2026\u2026\u2026\u201d [You know the rest!]. Oft times my little sister and I would be shipped off to my grandparents\u2019 farm to spend weeks on end doing pretty much whatever we pleased.<\/p>\n
Nana and Pop were both born into large American\/Irish families [Sheridan\u2019s and Dillon\u2019s, Lynch\u2019s and Naughton\u2019s], all firm believers in the old adage \u201cIdle hands are the Devil\u2019s workshop\u201d.\u00a0 They found countless ways to incorporate us, their little angels, into life on their working farm. If we were not picking berries, we were churning butter. We watched and we learned as Pop helped a calf come into this world; the miracle of life. There were always plenty of little jobs for little people like us on the farm. We loved every moment!\u00a0 We still had plenty of time to play; the 100 acres of farmland, pasture, orchard and barn was our playground. We were busy from morning till night, our imaginations always in high gear.\u00a0 Bored? We did not know the meaning of the word. Oh but how things have changed!<\/p>\n
I am now the Nana [although my four darling granddaughters call me Grandma, a name that took me some getting used to]. Their mothers [my daughters] schedule mostly all of their activities as is the way of today\u2019s world. Lessons, lot of lessons! Swimming lessons and riding lessons, art classes and afternoons at the community pool. Play dates and asphalt playgrounds. Does this sound like a fun and full way for kids to spend their summer?\u00a0 Sure it does, except for one thing. That \u2019thing\u2019 has turned my otherwise active and beautiful little granddaughters into miniature cyber-slugs.\u00a0 Can you guess what is dragging them into sloth and boredom? I will give you a hint: It is the size of a deck of playing cards and more powerful than any government on the planet. It is the almighty I-Pod. Eye-Yi-Yi!!<\/p>\n
My little darlings\u2019 age range: 12, 9, 8 & 5 years.\u00a0 Each one of them [including the youngest one] spends countless hours sitting on their little bottoms with those tiny computers in their hands. They stare at the itty-bitty screen, intent on the game they are playing or the music video they are watching. Their fingers remind me of hummingbirds as they skim over the miniscule keyboard with lightning speed. Most times they seem to be in a hypnotic state, unaware and uninterested in their surroundings. If spoken to while they are \u2018I-Pod-ing\u2019, they must first snap out of \u2019trance mode\u2018 before they acknowledge the person wanting their attention. If they do not respond at all, it may be because their ears are plugged into the tiny machines with microscopic ear-buds.<\/p>\n
Yesterday my 12-year old granddaughter asked me, as she lifted her lovely brown eyes up from her nasty little I-Pod for a few seconds \u2019Grandma, how long till we go back to school?\u2019\u00a0 I could not believe my ears! Go back to school? Are you kidding me? It is only mid-July, she has been out of school for just a few weeks and she wants to go back already? What was that all about? I wanted to know and I asked her. OK, here it comes, the answer that is so predominant in today\u2019s world \u201cGrandma, I\u2019m BORRRRRRRRRED!\u201d\u00a0 Bored? BORED! She is BORED! As she tells me this, I can hear my own father\u2019s voice in the corners of my mind saying \u201cBored? I\u2019ll give you bored!\u201d That may not make sense to you but I surely got his message and I love those times when I actually hear Dad\u2019s voice [in my mind of course].<\/p>\n
Have we turned our children into little cyber slugs? After all, those I-Pods make fabulous little babysitters, allowing us lots of time to surf the internet, shop on Ebay , tweet or interact with our Facebook following. We are guilty as sin here folks!\u00a0 The answer is really simple: get up off our own bottoms and enjoy the sun, sand, water or whatever summer offers in your neck of the woods. It\u2019s not too late, only mid-July. We can turn this thing around if we make some rules for the kids pertaining to electronics and remember to follow those rules ourselves. If we don\u2019t heed this, it\u2019s gonna be a long and lazy summer. My best advice, most importantly to myself, is \u201cget up off that computer and MOVE!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Talk to me:\u00a0This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.<\/span>” mce_’ + path + ‘\\” + prefix + ‘:’ + addy45597 + ‘\\’>’+addy_text45597+'<\\\/a>’; \/\/–><\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2012, DPNLIVE \u2013 All Rights Reserve<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letter from America Summer has always been my favorite season.\u00a0 As a child growing up in the Catskill Mountains of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-and-style","category-living-in-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9933"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9934,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9933\/revisions\/9934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.webhostlabs.net\/synergy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}