When I was a kid on any given summer day we would rove around several adjacent neighborhoods in a pack of 4 or 5 kids on our bikes (sting rays with banana seats).

We'd start in the morning and go from one person's house to the next to the next and so on. One kid had a pool, another had a trampoline, another had the Twister game, I had a garden hose, a Slip and Slide, and grass, someone else had a basketball hoop above their garage, and another's mother would make us koolaid without fail whenever we visited.

When we's get bored we'd just hop back on our bikes and head into one of several expanses of desert that surrounded the neighborhoods and do a little more work on one of our our forts. We'd nail foot boards up the trunk of the biggest mesquite tree or gather old plank boards from the stray garbage here and there and build a seat up in the crux of the tree for a look-out.

At about this time we'd run into the other pack of kids that ran the same neighborhoods and engage in a bit of "I can do whatever you say better than you" talk. Then we'd all hop back on our bikes and try to pedal the fastest up to the Circle K convenience store on the corner to get a red and yellow bullet popsicle, a fugsicle, or a cherry icee. We'd pay with money from our allowance that was earned doing household chores like weeding, babysitting, washing the car, or cutting the grass.

It always felt just great to have ALL DAY to spend with our friends, living large, in the neighborhood.

After all, we didn't HAVE to be home until dinner time which strangely enough was 6 p.m. at everyone's house.

Our parents were never worried about us one bit. When we'd get home, all they wanted to know is what we had ended up doing that day and did we have a good time.

Then, after dinner, more often than not, back we'd go outside to play again with our friends in one person's driveway or carport or the street. We'd play until dusk set in and the streetlights came on (which could be as late as 9:30 or 10:00 p.m.)

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHANGE ALL THAT?