Thursday, August 25, 2011

Ride a bike or take a walk

I am old fashioned and conservative in many of my views.  Not too much I can do about it.  I have caved in many times and gone against my beliefs. 

Several years ago, we opted to purchase the boys a DS system.  They loved them, but I always thought my kids would never have a gaming system like that.  Like most new things, they played with them a lot for a while but it had been cyclical for the most part. 

When we moved to Md. I again gave in and purchased the kids a Wii system.  I did almost feel like I was pressured into it.  The boys would have friends over and the first question was, "do you have a wii or xbox?"  My justification was that it is so cold here and we unfortunately have to spend a lot of time indoors.  And like the DS system, playing is cyclical, sometime they play a lot and other times they have no interest.  Our kids like to read and play outside so I don't worry as much about them playing video games.

I am sure there are other things where I will be swayed in my beliefs.   

What I do know is that I will never purchase a motorized scooter for any of my children.  I will stick with the old fashioned bicycle.  You know where you have to pedal to expend some energy.  And when and why did those become so popular?  I absolutely can not stand to see kids riding those in our neighborhood.

Now let's take that one step further, what about a golf cart.  Yep, there is a family who owns a golf cart in our non-golf community.  Just for clarification, my kids will not have one of those either. 

So the daughter in this family, who is about 13 years old, rides the golf cart up and down the street.  In a matter of a few hours, I probably see her ride past one way and then the other 6 or so times.  Sometimes it is her and a friend and other times she has girls piled in.  It bothers me every time I see her.  Forget that it is not safe I think she needs to be walking or riding a bike. 

A neighbor just happened to be home yesterday and witnessed what I have seen just about all summer.  He started a thread regarding how dangerous it is.  The father of said girl commented back that he would only have his daughter ride on the sidewalk and make sure there are no more than 4 people in the golf cart.  He was actually a little ticked off and couldn't believe that this is a concern in the neighborhood.

Many neighbors have chimed in with what they have witnessed.  And many neighbors have said that riding a golf cart on the sidewalk was not appropriate.  Thank goodness they said it because I was thinking I would have to chime in also.  My kids walk and ride their bikes on the sidewalks.  Tee gets freaked out if someone is walking towards him, I can't imagine what he would do if he saw a huge golf cart coming towards him.

After all of these threads were posted, the father got really mad.  He thinks we need to stop worrying about an innocent situation and start worrying about important things like vandalism and other community issues.  This father is clueless.  Luckily, our new HOA president, who just happens to be an officer of the law, posted a thread on the laws of our county.  Guess what, it is against the law to ride a golf cart in a neighborhood such as ours.  Shocker.

So rest assured no motorized scooter or golf carts will reside in our garage.  Now on to more important things.

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