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I often see people fantasize of pre-internet days where everyone was super social and living grand lives outdoors. I hate to tell you that's just the movie version--we were mostly sitting alone inside watching not-good TV for hours on end. Like... 7 hours of TV a day. Maybe more.

A weekend for Gen X children? How did we relish our delightful freedom? Sitting on the coach alone watching TV. For the entire day. Drastically flipping channels trying to find something we want to watch on limited channels. Sighing into watching something we dont want to because it is on.

It cracks me up, guys younger than me talking about how their childhoods were like The Sandlot. Not if you grew up in Queens NY in the 70's & 80's. We hung out at the park, sure, we played stickball and football in the street but this Little Rascals-esque utopia they remember was not a thing

Right? Like half the jokes in Calvin and Hobbes were about parents trying to force their kids away from the TV and outside. As a 70s and 80s kid in Spokane, WA we did not hang out in the park. The nearest park was a drive away. And never played stickball or football in the street in my life.

Even Charlie Brown often had one if them laying in a bean bag watching TV, and those kids were weirdly social. Sorry my parents weren't letting me ditch Thanksgiving for a yard party with the local youths.