Is it possible that First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign has actually started working? Is it possible that kids are getting the message, and instead of sitting on their keisters in front of the television, computer screen, or twiddling their thumbs over a video game remote, they are starting to play outside more?

I don’t know about where you live, but since I’ve moved into my new house and neighborhood I am always seeing kids outside playing. And I mean playing the way I used to play when I was a kid.

I’m not talking about just walking up and down the street and hanging on a corner or something. So I figure they aren't just out there because their moms and dads, hollered for them to "go outside and play.  Get  up and get out of the house. Go do something."

These kids look like they couldn't wait to get outside.

I’m talking about playing full out games of street football and kickball and dodge ball.

Almost every evening this fall when I came home from work, if I got home before the sun went down, there would be a group of boys and girls playing a ball game in the street. They stop their game every time a car comes and run to the sidewalks and the minute the car passes they are back at it again.

That is exactly what we used to do when I was a kid. Some of my best memories were of us playing kick ball, or dodge ball, or football in the street where I grew up in Long Island, New York. I remember that kids of all ages could join in the game as long as you knew the rules.  I also remember that the older kids didn’t really give the little kids and special breaks either. If you wanted to play you could play but you better be able to hold your own. That is how I learned to play football, to run, tag, and catch a ball as well as a lot of the little boys in my elementary school. I still amaze my boys with my throwing and catching ability.

I know my sister and I are always talking about how kids today don’t play the way we used to when we were kids. We had to make things up and be inventive with ideas and tools and toys. I remember making scooters out of old metal skate halves and wooden vegetable crates. What fun. I remember too how we used to play cops and robbers in the sand dunes near our house and how we would build forts out of old wood and tires and stuff we found tossed in the sand. It was a lot of fun and taught us to be creative and to be problem solvers.

All of this struck me when the other day I was sitting on my deck, it was warm and a few  young boys in the neighborhood were playing out back in one of the neighbors’ yard.  It looedk like they were playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers or something like that. They had built a little fort or something out of tree limbs they had collected from folks’ yards. They were laughing and running from one back yard to another and hopping over the creek that runs through the back. One young man had set up his hideaway in my yard behind a clump of trees. I watched and listened as they yelled gotcha and I see you, and then joined together and just went off hiking along the creek bank.  

I sat there for a minute remembering how I had done just that as a kid.  I remember thinking I didn’t know kids played like this anymore. It was so nice to see.

When I first moved into my new house I was put out a bit when I saw a group of kids and one of two adults playing kick ball on part of the acre of land that is now my back yard. I thought what if someone gets hurt back there then I would be liable. I told the adults just that and said I didn’t want the kids playing back there anymore. I've thought about this a lot since then. I don't want to be the old grouch in the neighborhood. Remember the old guy always yelling at you for stepping on his grass.?

 I still don’t want anyone to get injured on my property. But the day I watched the boys playing and running through the yard was so pleasant I didn’t mind it at all. In fact, now on nice days I go out and stand on the back deck and look to see if there are kids out there playing. And if they are, l love watching them.

Who knows one day when they are playing a game in the street out frotn I just might come outside and join them myself. Of course I know I'll have to hold my own, no special slow pitches for the old lady.