The Trigg County school system, like others across the Commonwealth, has been involved in state achievement testing the past couple of weeks. After a recent day of intense testing, the 6th grade teachers took their students outside and let them have some supervised free time. This concept, free time or recess for students, is just about extinct in this era. As we, the teachers, observed the students, we noticed something very quickly. The kids did not have the least idea how to handle having a little time to just enjoy themselves. Why is this?

What ever happened to the day when children could quickly organize themselves into fun activities that did not require technology or any expensive apparatus? Does anyone remember playing freeze tag, Annie over, red light green light, red rover, kick the can, whiffle ball, kick ball, hotbox or Simon Says?

What about sand lot baseball? There was a time in the mid 1960’s when there was always a baseball field on a vacant lot in Turner Addition or around Sunset Circle. When a house would go up we would just move to the next available lot. One of the aspects I remember most is how we would choose teams. Two guys would be in charge of choosing the teams. They would usually be the two who were widely accepted as the best players and they would be the captains. One of the captains would toss a baseball bat to the other. The second player would catch it and the two would then take turns putting fist over fist until someone could grip the end of the bat. Finally, once the end of the bat was gripped the player would have to throw it 10 feet back over their head in order to get first choice.

For the rest of this column, read this week's Cadiz Record.