Teenage kids push away from Grand Theft Auto games and create a Wiffle ball diamond on what had been, well: Poison ivy.
After three weeks of clearing brush and poison ivy, scrounging up plywood and green paint, digging holes and pouring concrete, Vincent, Justin and about a dozen friends did manage to build it
Rotton kids, why can’t they just stay indoors, smoke dope, and play nintendo like all the others?
No good deed shall go unpunished.
Lex, you were a child of the South, a Gentleman from below the Mason Dixon Line, of course you played out of doors. If your mother was anything at all like mine and every other Southern Lady I know, you played until the street lights came on.
XBradTC-That is all too familiar. Grew up in FL and played well, till the street lights came on! Kids need to be kids.
This story just infuriates me to the core as a mother and a large advocate for children staying in touch with the outdoors and exploring outside vs being parked in front of a TV, frying their couch potato brains, playing video games and eventually being diagnosed with ADD, ADHD and every other disorder known to man cause they simply cannot bear the concept of actually entertaining themselves and using their imagination. Kids need the outdoors as much as we need air to breath. It is so important for them in so many ways. There is a certain childhood “joy” associated with nature!
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.” – Anne Frank
Being a native city kid from the left coast, I can tell you we never played indoors. You wanted to punish a kid, you made them stay indoors! TV was what you did after dinner and homework, after Dad got through watching the news.
Bicycles were vehicles to freedom, and helmets were something you might wear on a motorcycle. Trees were meant to be climbed, or to be slid out of on a low hanging branch. Anything done at less than about 70% volume meant something was wrong.
I’m with you, Jessica, kids need the outdoors. They need to fall down, skin their knees, crash their bike, lay on their back at night and look at the stars, and play ball in the street.
XBradTC,
I grew up in Ohio and we played outside well after the street lights came on. And our baseball field was the vacant lot right across the street.
Of course, the street lights were oil and tar soaked animal skins stuck on tall poles made out of dinosaur spinal columns.
And we were told to go out and play. BTW, we took turns mowing “the field.”
If you’ve ever been to NAS Whidbey, you know the senior officers quarters are on a bluff. Mom used to tell me to go play on the cliffs. Really.
“I’m all for Wiffle ball and apple pie and baseball and the American flag, but there are plenty of fields in town they can use instead of building something in people’s backyard,” said Liz Pate, who is building a new house behind what’s now home plate. “If I come home at 6 at night after working all day, I want peace and quiet.”
I’m betting her house, on a suburban lot, is no more than 10 feet from her neighbors house. On a paved road with suburban traffic heading to work and heading home each day. Dogs in kennels or the back yard on chains barking at whatever it is dogs bark at. Guys in their garages tuning up cars and cutting lumber for that new kitchen make-over, jets on take-off roaring overhead…
And she comes home at 6pm, evidently working a day job with a standard commute, not exactly a heart surgeon trying to go to bed at 8pm to be ready for that 5am surgery session.
And some kids playing wiffleball are a source of noise? They need to move to where they don’t bother her Peace and Quiet?
So, it’s pretty much All About Her. The Noises she is used to aren’t a problem. The ones of kids growing up, learning and building and creating on their own are invasive?
God help us.
My nearest neighbor is about a half-mile away, because we sort of value privacy around here, and we’ve a lot of land to work with. The downside is if you commute it’s about 100 miles round-trip each day, so you either pay the gas station or you pay your mortage broker for a house closer to work, the total cost is about the same.
And, as a new parent, I’ve discovered that I’m an idiot, because prior to becoming a parent my opinion on child issues didn’t count (never mind the fact that, as I was once a child, I had plenty of first-hand knowledge on the subject), and now that I am a parent apparently I’m some sort of Luddite for thinking Tinker Toys and a sandbox might be preferable to whatever Sponge Bob trinket is now available as a toy. And now wiffle ball is a threat to our suburban lifestyle?
Screw. That. High and Hard. With a left-hand twist.
So far as I’m concerned, kids making a wiffle ball field fall right in there with kids making forts out of the couch cushons or making snowmen in the front lawn — they’re using what another is not, they harm nothing, and the delighted cries of kids are not noise, they are our future.
If I own the property I already have insurance. Let the kids play, I’ll not lose any value if it has a wiffle ball diamond in it vs weeds.
It’s not your property, Ms. Pate. If you wish to control the use of it, buy it. Otherwise? You chose to build a home next to my property, if I let kids play wiffleball there that’s my choice.
Your opinion has been noted. And dismissed. If you wish a say in the matter, cash works wonders. You can also complain to government, but I assure you that it will be a long, slow process. And as the landowner I’d rather kids play than you win. I’ll hire a lawyer to bleed you dry in court costs.
Be money well spent to have my retirement financed by kids who learned to play, with risks, rather than lard-butts growing up thinking the only entertainment was a Playstation or MTV.
– Max
True!
We didn’t play any wimpy wiffle-ball in my small Iowa hometown. We always played hardball, and as mostly farm boys, played it very hard! We came home sometimes bloodied, usually with raspberries and occasionally with loose teeth… but most always, happy kids.
My small, perennially financially strapped hometown nevertheless always made sure we kids had enough adequate “fields of dreams” to play upon, regardless of any proximity to any expensive (of which there weren’t any) residential properties. – consider the different (but correct) priorities there in Iowa, as opposed to Greenwich.
Back in the day I learned, unfortunately the vices of smoking. A few of our Little League All-Star team (when I’m age 11) sneaked into the brush to smoke cigars, Lucky Strikes, and corn silk in corncob pipes. (I in fact smoked continuously for another 34 years after age 11…. Until the day I had a heart attack, should have died, but logically and abruptly quit cold turkey nearlly three decades ago…..still do have the craving, but never have since.)
I also carried a rifle or shotgun, nearly every day on the farm beyond age 11. I shot ground squirrels, corncrib rats, pigeons, starlings, and all the local game in season for our family’s table. Years later, I killed a lot of the enemy, and for a couple of years. I was very good at it.
That is why I am a liberal.
We used to have a large patch of woods just behind our house in Decatur, Georgia. Seemed like it went for miles, and many hours were spent ranging through there with my brother, picking blackberries, climbing trees, etc. One time my sister even found a baby owl that’d fallen out of its nest – we brought “Pecky” home and raised it for awhile on ground beef mixed with dog hair (for fiber!).
A few years ago, I had just finished jump school at Ft Benning and drove by the neighborhood to take a look. The street looked about the same, but I was saddened to discover that the woods were gone – with a fresh crop of condos taking their place.
*sigh.*
XBradTC- playing outside had nothing to do with South, East, West or North. More an era I think.
I grew up in Michigan and we left the house at first light and came home when it was dark. Pretty common behaviour for those times in our neck of the woods.
Oh, the joys of youth for us Boomers! Summertime, dusk to dawn, out playing WW2 again with my buddies, throwing M-80s and cherry bombs into ponds and cricks to see what kind of fish floated up, all those fun things young boys did. New Orleans was a great town to grow up in back in the ’50s. Today, every place I lived when I was a kid is now a graveyard of homes that were under the filth of New Orleans after Katrina tried to wash the sinners away. I’d give just about anything to bring back those days…
Grew up on AF bases all over the world and the standard rule was out of the house after morning colors, in for lunch leaving ball gear on whatever field we were playing on, back out pick up gear which was always there and continue playing until Dad came home. Then dinner and back out to catch fireflies or sit in the cool grass to talk about who was moving when and where. It was a great life!
I just love the way the NYTimes can demonstrate cognitive dissonance within the space of two small paragraphs:
“on a lot valued at $1.25 million”
Next paragraph:
“the area was designated by the town as a drainage area, a function largely undone when the youths stripped away all the greenery and undergrowth.”
Who would pay $1.25 million for a drainage area??
Walla Walla Washington was and is a town of ~25,000. High latitudes and long summer nights. We rode all over town on our bicycles; there was a wood lot–of all of about 2 acres. The kids were in people’s backyards all the time, playing in the creeks that ran through a lot of properties. I can recall being worried that we might be chased off a few places–but it never happened. We’d ride our bikes out to a reservoir in the countryside (about five miles from my house) and fish there. We sure didn’t spend much time inside–but then again this was the early 50’s and television was two crummy channels from Yakima on a cable–why bother?
All the above lyrical and misty eyed evocations of youthful froliciking notwithstanding… the plain facts of this mater, as related in the article, stand out. The kids, however much I admire their spunk, did tresspass and convert for their own use anothers, in this case the towns, real property…and yes this is Greenwich CT… not Iowa or even Kansas. But I would bet that the same hue and cry would be made, by any one of you, if these lovable kids had done the same thing on your property… it depends on whose ox is being gored….verdad??? Best
PS, Field of Dreams is a movie..not a true story…and as I recall Kevin Costner built his field on his own property.
Pre-TV and within the city limits: We were surrounded by alfalfa fields which were excellent for football and war games. Every fall, we really tried to bring down the huge haystacks, before getting caught. We almost succeeded. And now? All houses.
I have lived in CT for 25 years and believe me, Greenwich residents are very prickly about what they perceive as their right to privilege.
At least once a month, the state newspaper has a story of some perceived nuisance for a Greenwich resident. Beach access. A Starbucks moving into a cossetted neighborhood. Who pays the cost of police OT for those mega-rich parties that require traffic patrol. One way streets and which direction they flow.
And while these may be issues of legitimate concern, the residents of Greenwich always paint it as something even more insidious given the value of their properties and their privacy. As if their wealth entitles them to something more than us mere serfs.
It’s the wealthiest town in CT – and they use that fact like a club to beat people with. True, the boys did something on property that didn’t belong to them. But would the residents of that neighborhood rather the boys were trolling thru the area on bikes – smashing mailboxes and doing other damage, graduating to speeding cars?
But if said children are minor children of tax-paying citizens, wouldn’t the property be, in fact, theirs? Given that the city allowed it to be overgrown with weeds and poison ivy, it seems an eyesore and health hazard was removed at no cost to the town.
And those self-aggrandizing scum that have complained simply want the city to hold, in perpetuity it seems, expensive land that benefits only them, on the taxpayer’s dime, of course. Screw the little people, my peace and quiet must be preserved.
And how can it be worth $1.25M as the article states, if the owners can’t remove the vegetation? Who would pay such an amount for a vacant lot that can’t be built on?
Snake does make a valid point or two.
But I question this … it was Town property and yet it was the neighbours (who really have no right to complain about what is done on neighbouring property unless it results in a legal ‘nuisance’ to them) doing the complaining. I wonder if all might have been copasetic with the Town itself had the neighbours not started bit**ching about something which was pretty much none of their business in the first place.
Then again, perhaps that takes us to the real beast here … the dreaded liability concern. That seems to be what the world eats, drinks, breathes and dreams about lately. And it really sucks. Particularly when I have seen completely inane policies created out of supposed ‘liability concerns’ that make absolutely no sense from a legal point of view.
Perhaps we will really litigate ourselves to death after all. Or save ourselves some time and money and just do ourselves in at the altar of … I suppose someone needs to come up with a word for “fear of being sued”. It being one of the latest phobias so prevalent in our society.
Kris, Please don’t cloud the issue with your overwrought yammering concerning the “richie rich” residents of Greenwich, CT.
I hope you agree that private property rights are sacroscant ….and that they apply even in bad old, serf abusing Greenwich… Best
The town does not tax itself on property it owns. I can only assume that the newspaper arrived at the value of $ 1.25 M based on a similar size and zoned parcel elsewhere in town…they proably thought it made for a more interesting article…however inaccurate. Best
PS, Prowlerguy, Thankfully your bazaar theory on obtaining the property of another does not obtain in the western world.
“I hope you agree that private property rights are sacroscant”
“Thankfully your bazaar theory on obtaining the property of another”
I saw nothing in the article to indicate that the property in question is privately owned. To the contrary, it is specifically defined as “town property.”
I’m not contending that “town property” is synonymous with “public use,” but it is most assuredly also not synonymous with “private property.”
In which case, both sides have at least somewhat justifiable arguments as to its usage. Leaving it in the weed-ridden state that the town apparently did would indicate abandonment in a lot of areas.
I’m a bit confused, Snake. WTF is my “bazaar theory on obtaining the property of another”? It seems your theory of “public land for enrichment of a few elite” is right in line with Kelo. Didn’t peg you for a Stalinist, but whatever.
The property was not private, but rather public lands. Paid for by taxpayer dollars. It was the self-important a-holes that live (or will live, in one case) adjacent to this publicly funded land that object to any use other that proping up their property values. As far as the liability issue goes, if some loser get $6.2M for breaking his leg while sledding, then the citizens (who make up the jury pool) have nobody to blame but themselves when they descend into socialist heck. They awarded it, after all.
Are we turning our kids into wimps?
Yes.
Kid-sick parents hate to let go at camp time
Our Scoutmaster and I had to just about climb into a car and demand that a mother let her kid go to summer camp this year. She wouldn’t let him go to camp last year because “he wasn’t ready for a week away from home’. The kid was 11 then. I’ve taken hundreds of kids to camp and this kid was no different from any of them. This year she threw up objection after objection about what he would eat, etc., etc. There’s nothing wrong with that kid. It’s Mom that’s the problem. These days I have to frisk the kids for cell phones in camp even after I tell both Mom and the kid directly “no cell phones in camp”.
I’m seeing it more and more. I’m getting tired of it. It comes up in conversation sometimes with parents that they’d like to do something about their kids’ weight and attention span. I offer my advice, pretty much as follows:
1) Smash his video games to pieces. Don’t buy another one no matter how much he bitches, moans, complains, or screams that you hate him and he hates you. Don’t blame him for being addicted to video games, you bought it, not him. Don’t let him have his own TV – take it out of his room and get rid of it.
2) Toss him outside every minute that you can.
3) Don’t give him a cell phone. WTF is an 11-year old kid doing with a cell phone? If he’s having conversations you shouldn’t be privy to he shouldn’t be having them.
4) Learn to recognize the difference between “want” and “need”. If your kid is a pre-teen or teenager and he’s not mad at you a lot because you won’t give him things he wants, you’re doing something very, very wrong.
5) Your kid has no right to privacy. The Columbine killers had arms stacked up in their rooms and Mom and Dad never knew because they didn’t want to invade their kids’ privacy. Go into his room frequently and check out what’s going on. Find out where he hides his porn.
6) Monitor his TV shows and learn enough about the Internet to block porn sites, etc. on the computer. Listen to the music he listens to. Tell him that if he DL’s any more racist or mysoginyst crap you’ll take away his iPod. In fact, your kid doesn’t really need to have earbud embedded in his skull so he can block out all natural sounds anyway, so don’t buy your kid an iPod either.
This advice is not universally welcomed. To the detriment of their kids. I had one kid last year go home because of Mom. No, he didn’t have a cell phone and talk to Mom every day. Dad came along and brought a cell phone and he talked to her twice a day. Homesickness finally overcame him on Wednesday and home he went. Dad needs to grow a pair, but that’s another story.
Gah!
[ /rant ]
“As far as the liability issue goes, if some loser get $6.2M for breaking his leg while sledding, then the citizens (who make up the jury pool) have nobody to blame but themselves when they descend into socialist heck. They awarded it, after all.”
Now that’s funny!
I agree that’s an utterly ridiculous damage assessment but it doesn’t look too far (if at all) out of line with the insanity which is US jury awards for personal injury. What makes your comment so amusing is you say those citizens are heading into socialist heck …
And here I thought we in the Great White Up were considered to be mired in socialist heck. To think that our damage awards are peanuts (very small peanuts, indeed) compared to yours. With the exception of BC, of course, but, after all, they are widely known as the California of the North. And even theirs don’t really come close to yours.
Thanks for the chuckle.
My theory is that if my property values go down, so do my taxes. Dig away, kids!
They should be damn glad to see and hear kids who are so industrious that they’d do something like this, and who have enough imagination to do it. These kids are the leaders of tomorrow. People like this are so damn self-centered I can’t believe it.
Either that, or they’re Yankee fans and despise having a replica of Fenway next door. Greenwich is right on the Yankee/Red Sox dividing line. That, at least, I can understand.
Ron
My kids are in a “leadership camp” this week. It’s kind of cool, they do things a lot of them might not get a chance to like horseback riding, rock climbing, overnight camping, etc.
Anyway I was talking to a dad I know through my youngest’s basketball team and when I mentioned they had went rock climbing (hey, it’s indoor on a wall!) he confirmed that I didn’t go along and questioned if I was okay with that. I said, sure, thinking that was kind of obvious. He gave me a strange look so I said I assume you wouldn’t be. Apparently not. He never did tell me why though.
I don’t get it. But then again, I’m the one that thinks sky diving and para gliding is cool, albeit not for the kids.
Learn more about it at -
http://www.greenwichtime.com/ci_9813800?source=most_emailed
- before Lex has to hide all the sharp-edged objects. Google map it too, and note the schoolyard ballfield approx. 1000m NE from the lot in question.
And of course, that kind of thing has never happened before. The kids sounds like they want to be as flexible as they can. The neighbors are talking about their “safety”…jebus.
Oh and Snake – smooches honey.
Having grown up in a “Leave it Beaver Suburb” of CT meself, I am no great lover o’Greenwich, CT though I could see that same thing happening in Del Mar or La Jolla or Rancho Sante Fe ….too easily.
Snake is legally right on this. He is a small town barrister after all. Morally right?? What the hell does that mean? Ask 50 people and you’ll get 50 answers.
b2
Growing up in Western New York, we didn’t have acres of green to play baseball/football or the occasional dodgeball. We made do with the street, local school yards or backyards. Believe me, neither we nor our parents worried about scrapes, bumps bruises or whatever.
To those kids in Greenwich, y’all did what your elders couldn’t/wouldn’t do and you should be PROUD! They’ll likely take it from you, force you into some miasma of false conviction over taking something not yours. Tell ‘em to stuff it and the horse they rode in on.
Jessica, thanks very much for sharing the quote. It works for me every time. Whether on or near the water, a field, the back yard, or a late Tuesday night taking out the nearly forgotten trash cans, long after everyone else is asleep. Neighborhood quiet and peaceful, moon phases and clouds. A moment taken to offer thanks for all we have, and an appreciation of life in general. Have a great weekend, B.
“…a tree-shaded Wiffle ball version of Fenway Park…”
Here is the actual root of the problem, had it been a replica of Yankee Stadium this would not have been an issue.
In San Francisco, (way back when it was a real town and still had some vacant lots), I knew where every fruit tree was within a 6 block radius. Late in the summer I’d come home with my shirt filled to bursting with apricots, plums, (the orange ones), apples and cherries, (the dark ones).
The people in whose yards these treats grew would wait until our shirts were almost filled before half-heartedly chasing us back over the fense.
One year my mom made about 2 dozen jars of apricot jam from what I brought home. Did that make her an accessory?
What-the-hell. Gone forever.