My sister, a kindergarten teacher, mentioned her school showed a mixture of news and educational videos to the students. One video featured children sliding down hills on cardboard boxes. She remarked, it was sad when children’s’ best exposure to improvised play was a video monitor. When did creative play cease being a proactive experience and evolve in a documentary?

Later as, drove downtown, we noticed a few kids with cardboard boxes sliding down an overlook hill at Renaissance Park. Seeing them temporarily restored my faith in play. Maybe all hope isn’t lost, but it is slipping away.

I am at an age in which the generation gap expands. My niece and nephew’s generation are plugged in. Most of their free time is spent on video consoles, cell phones, web sites, television, or remote controls. Imagination is seldom challenged. Instead of entertaining themselves with noncommercial toys, or playing outdoors, they rely upon some artificially fabricated story line that dictates the game, and inhibits independent thinking. These kids are tech savvy, they will excel locating information on the web, and they are capable of setting the clock on the vcr, provided it hasn’t been banished to a landfill, but will they encourage their own children to pretend and improvise, or will they just entertain them?

Sunday, the kids requested returning to the park before they left town. The Mister and conspired to haul moving boxes, a tape gun, and a box cutter to the observation hill. Within five minutes of the first box launch, three college girls showed up with cardboard. Later, more kids showed up. The excitement was contagious, and there was no age restriction. Maybe my sisters kids will remember to share simple experiences with their kids and encourage the procreation of creativity.