The call of summer

Children playing outside. Families visiting the river. Eating ice cream in the afternoon. The year and clothes may have changed, but summer activities remain basically the same in today's age of PlayStations and public pools.

The average American home has more television sets than people, according to Nielsen Media Research. Homes have PlayStations, Nintendo GameCubes, Xboxes, Nintendo Wiis and an average of 104.2 TV channels to indulge in on a hot summer day, but teenagers outside Monday said they still like to spend their summers outdoors.

When Lorene Wood was young, she played and fished in the creek at the back of her family's farm outside Poplar Bluff, Mo. That was in the 1940s.

Now youngsters who find themselves in need of a dip head to a public swimming pool.

"Sometimes we go swimming," said Apolonia Thomas, a 14-year-old who baby-sits to get extra money.

Christopher Conway Jr., 10, attempted to balance on his skateboard, as he and his friend, Devyn Ford, 8, tried different moves Wednesday in Cape Girardeau's Missouri Park. "Really, all we do is skateboard," Devyn said. (AARON EISENHAUER ~aeisenhauer@semissourian.com)

On Monday, Apolonia and some friends were sitting in the park outside the Capaha Municipal Pool. She said the baby-sitting business has been slow, and she didn't have the money for admittance.

The five friends said they prefer being outside to watching television or playing video games. "It's our own choice, really," Apolonia said. Her parents don't legislate the time she spends in front of the television.

The children said they like to be outside and that most of their peers agree. "I only play inside when it's raining outside," one of them said. The teenagers play basketball and racing games on their Nintendo GameCube or PlayStation 2 only as a backup plan for playing basketball in parks, driveways, "basically anywhere there's a basketball goal," said Ramone Thomas, a 15-year-old visiting from Illinois.

Even with the call of cable, sports have lingered as a way for children to pass the summer days.

When Kenneth Wood, Lorene's husband, was younger, they played softball, dodge ball and volleyball.

"We played baseball and softball just like people are doing now," he said. "We had to find ways to entertain ourselves.

"We didn't have electricity until 1941," he said. Wood was 13 when his family started getting electricity at their farm outside of Poplar Bluff.

Wood said his parents occasionally took him and his siblings into "town" on special Saturday outings.

"When we got the chance to go to town on Saturday, Dad would give us a quarter," he said. "Twenty-five cents and we would have enough to take in three movies and have a nickel left over to buy a bag of popcorn."

The rare allowance given by a parent has been replaced with a steady paycheck from a summer job for many teenagers today.

Betty Buhs gives swimming lessons and is a lifeguard, but when she's not working, the 17-year-old still likes to be outside, as do many of her friends. "Most of the people we hang out with stay outside," she said.

"It's nice outside," agreed Charlotte Schaffner, 17, who was with Buhs and several other friends.

Instead of television or video games, the group ended up passing the time with ice cream at the river on their day off.

charris@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 246