It appears as if this is now a different world than the one in which I grew up. And it leaves me a little sad.
First of all, I'm not saying that today's world for a kid is better or worse than it was when I was a kid. After all, that was last century, and things change. It's not better now, nor is it worse now. It's just different now, as different as the 1940s or the 1950s were to when I grew up.
Change is a constant. That's a fact of life. It's not a bad thing.
That being said, here's how it's a different world than the one in which I grew up. It's my nephew Abel's birthday Sunday. I looked around a few stores to find a gift for him, a gift that would both appeal to a 5-year old and show off what a cool uncle he has. I tried to find him a spaceship. A rocket. Something that would show him about the wonders of space flight.
Guess what you can't find in stores any more?
I mean, you can find Transformer-like toys that could (loosely) be called spacecraft, and you could find a bunch of “Star Wars” vehicles that (theoretically) could fly in space. But I couldn't find a toy that's a realistic space craft. I couldn't find a shuttle, an old Apollo/Saturn V stack, or even a Space X Crew Dragon capsule or the new STS booster system. There was nothing along those lines available in any of the stores I checked.
I was bummed.
In all honesty, I didn't know if I actually expected to find any; after all, the US is just getting back into the business of flying humans into space after an almost eight-year hiatus. And I know that rockets and spaceflight aren't as magical to kids as they were to kids back when I was young (you know, the last century). So I wasn't totally surprised by what I found (or didn't find). But still—spaceflight is one of humankind's great, defining technical achievements.
Shouldn't kids know about that?
I guess I'll just have to make sure he understands what a big deal it was (and is) as he gets older. But for now, I hope he enjoys what I did get for him. And I hope his mom & dad don't get TOO upset if he tries some of the idea contained within that gift.
But what are uncles for right?
8-)
Speaking of the birthday boy (and showing how he comes from the Koski family school of picture posing)--
Happy (almost) birthday, Abel!
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