Children of Summer

When I think back to the summers in my childhood, I think of swimming in the river, and listening to the crickets and wipporwills singing at night and sure, we took the occaisional vacation to a theme park. But what I remember the most is just going outside and playing. Playing in the woods, playing in the front yard, and just goofing off with my baby sister. How can I give that to my kids? We live in a community of fences. I long for the winding dirt road that I grew up on. Not only because it provided easy access to imagination, but also freedom from the oppression of urban sprawl. My kids have never looked up into the sky and actually seen the stars clearly. They see the lights of the city reflected off of the black canvas in the sky. I know that there are pros and cons to each situation and the grass is always greener, yadda, yadda, yadda. But yeah, maybe I would actually like to see grass that didn't come from a "grass farm" for a change.