Pong Killed Outdoor Play, Tis True
You just have to love technology. But, then again, it did wipe out imaginative play as we know it. Childhood was so simple in the early sixties. We had no choice. My parents and their parents had even a simpler time. We didn’t have cell phones that interrupted our play with a text from your mother that simply read, “Dinner.” No, they had to stand out on the porch and yell for us. On the third yell, we would go home.
We had jump rope, a kick ball, and indoor board games. Can’t forget about pogo sticks. We weren’t indoors much. The neighborhood was filled with children playing, people hand washing their cars, and neighbors sitting outside on their porches in the hot summer evenings. Many didn’t have central air conditioning. We knew our neighbors. We also knew when Mr. Softie was coming around in his ice cream truck. We could hear the music. Because we were outside.
As the sixties moved closer to the seventies, it was still like that. We now had eight track stereos to occupy our time, but not much more. We would sit out on our front porches, but this time, waiting for boys to drive around and around the block, finally to stop and talk to all the neighborhood girls my age who hung out on my front porch. But, in and around 1975, that all changed. We started staying indoors more. Things were changing, for sure. And we can point our fingers to one new gadget.
Pong.
Yes, Pong. Not to be confused with Beer Pong. This was played without alcohol. Well, unless you really enjoyed drunk ping pong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPkUvfL8T1I
I know what you young people are thinking. Are you kidding me? But, yes, this was exciting stuff. I mean, we could turn on the tv and use this game console and play ping pong. There were no pictures or bombs going off or bullets flying. This was ping pong and nothing else. And we were thrilled.
Now, we did have pinballl machines. I was quite good at the one at The Pub, a local dive where we all congregated in college. My mom even bought a pin ball machine for our basement rec room. We were the coolest family on the block. But, Pong was different, because it was on tv.
In the end, Pong was fun, and it was just a matter of time before we were hearing names such as Sega and then Playstation.
And life as we knew it changed forever.
And we can blame it all on Pong.
Posted by penneyfox on March 21, 2012 at 5:13 pm
We had Pong too and we thought we were so cool. I would play for hours – you could play the game against the ‘wall’. I also drank water from my water hose
Posted by hollybernabe on March 19, 2012 at 3:07 pm
PONG! Oh, that brings me back. We were too poor to own a console. But there was a kid who lived down the street from me who had one and I used to go to his house and play it. We got bored with it pretty quickly, though, and always moved on to his mammoth lego collection. (I remember being envious of that collection–my parents kept getting me stupid barbies and they weren’t good for much other than riding the collectible horses my grandma sent me or for playing a very adult version of “house”.) If we didn’t play with the legos, we’d go outside, gather up the other neighborhood kids and play tag or red rover or hide ‘n seek. We played one game that was a mashup of tag and hide ‘n seek that we called “hide and go tag”. That one was the best. It was especially fun when played at my girlfriend Michelle’s house when I spent the night. We would play a night-time version on her 9 acre property with her multitude of brothers and sisters. Now I wonder what her parents were thinking letting us wander around on their property at night, but back then we had fun!
But then, I think parents were more lax about stuff. We lived in a small town/rural area. People just assumed we were safe, I guess. When I was in fourth/fifth/sixth grade, I used to take off for HOURS at a time. I would tell my mom I was going for a bike ride, then ride it several miles a way to a LAKE, alone. I would ride around the whole dang thing, swim in it ALONE, stop off at a river on the way home, play in it, jumping from rock to rock, etc., slide down roadside embankments like they were slides in my wet jeans until I was completely coated with clay/dirt. I only came home when I was finally getting really hungry. Out of curiosity, I just went and looked up that route, and google maps tells me it was just shy of 25 miles (I probably rode further than that, too, since I often biked all over the little trails and such). Yegods. When I think of my ten year old doing something similar now, my hair goes white thinking about it. We live in a big city, on a very busy street and I hardly let her out of the parking lot, unless an adult accompanies her, lol. It’s sad.
I think I don’t let my daughter out of an adult’s sight is because I know how I was. I don’t think I ever told my mom where I went. If my daughter is anything like me (and I’m sure she is–she is a wanderer), she would tell me something equally vague. When I would come in all dirty and tired, my mom would ask where I had been, and I’d reply, “Riding my bike.” If she asked why I was so dirty, I’d tell her I was playing on the mountain (there was a mountain/hill that we lived near the base off–about a half mile away). Or I would tell her I was playing in my friend Michelle’s pond. I think if I had told her where I really went, she probably would have gone ballistic.
So…maybe parents back then weren’t more lax. Maybe we were just really good at lying….
Posted by NCMountainwoman on March 17, 2012 at 8:32 pm
Brings back a lot of memories. I think pogo sticks and stilts were my favorites. And I seem to recall that Pong damaged some of the TV screens. (We never had Pong.)
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on March 18, 2012 at 8:57 am
They damaged some tv screens? I did not know that. I’m surprised ours wasn’t ruined.lol
Posted by Let's CUT the Crap! on March 17, 2012 at 7:45 pm
Yes, those days were magic, weren’t they? Never again. Kids slept well and smelled like sunshine and dirt because they lived outside. Loved it. Even though I was the eldest of five siblings and had chores, I spent lots of time outside. Slept like a baby
Posted by Stacie Chadwick on March 17, 2012 at 4:12 pm
I played Pong for hours and hours when it first came out, so much so that the gravatar started getting shaky from overuse. Great post!
Posted by Peter Kevin Connell on March 17, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Great post…thank you. I could pretend for five or six times that I didn’t hear her yelling. But I bet you knew that about me
. Happy Irish Day!
PKC
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on March 17, 2012 at 2:55 pm
Happy Irish Day to you too!
Posted by cristycarringtonlewis on March 17, 2012 at 11:50 am
I think we can make the same argument for air conditioning and cable television.
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on March 17, 2012 at 12:45 pm
Air conditioning for sure. People quit sitting on their porches. I missed that, mainly because I was so nibby, I enjoyed talking to the neighbors when I was young.
Posted by WSW on March 17, 2012 at 9:31 am
Oh man, you had a PINBALL machine? Your mother was cool. All we had in our cellar was jars of pickles and a persistent trickle through the foundation that pooled and sometimes housed pollywogs.
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on March 17, 2012 at 9:34 am
Pollywogs in the basement? LOL Now, you had a cool basement.! I would have loved finding pollywogs. I would have brought them upstairs to my room…lol
Posted by WSW on March 17, 2012 at 9:38 am
In Maine we raised them as herd animals.
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on March 17, 2012 at 10:03 am
LOL