Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

I was thinking of my dad the other day, and those thoughts kind of stuck with me. When I was growing up, I remember whenever he and I did something together, fishing, going to watch him play baseball with his buddies, or even playing catch in the back yard, I had Dad all to myself. If we went some place, and he wanted to talk to mom, he had to stop at a pay phone, and if mom wanted to talk to him or me, well, she was out of luck.

We didn't have cell phones, and other than Little League, we didn't have organized sports. Kids had to make up their own games and set their own rules. After a while you recognized who the leaders were and who the followers were. Many times it wasn't the biggest kid who set the tone for the day  a lot of times a smart small kid could get things going his way. We played in the streets or in the empty lot on our block.

We built forts and climbed trees, we walked down to the Mississippi, or we rode our bikes down there to fish, and sometimes we just rode around doing nothing but talking to each other.

Here I am in Tallahassee, a city much like the one I grew up in. Saint Paul was also a State Capital, and both cities have lots of parks, and both are clean. The big difference I see is that Tallahassee doesn't have any children. Oh, I am sure there are kids here. It's just that they are not visible.

Today in America kids don't play games in the street, and they don't ride their bikes or walk to the park or the river to fish. Today everything is organized. Parents tell me they have their kids in soccer, baseball, and swimming, and marching bands are big down here, but every sport or event is planned and run by adults.

Kids don't get to pick their teams, and they sure don't get to make up their own rules. They don't even get to transport themselves, because then they would be alone without parental supervision, and they might get hurt.

When I was a child, if I got hurt over at Mikey Kane's (my best friend) house, his mom would patch me up, and if it were bad enough, she would call my mom. Mikey and I were outside in the summer at least 12 hours a day playing. The streets and parks were filled with kids doing the same.

Today, children grow up in the presence of adults. They are not allowed to go off on their own and explore what it is to grow up. They don't get to make their own decisions, and they sure don't get to do anything that might be a little bit dangerous.

Well, we as a country are going to pay for that sometime in the future. Someday America is going to run out of leaders, because we have stopped our young people from thinking for themselves. Someday, no one will be around to tell these now adults what to do, and they will be scared.

That is why today so many people are willing to let the government walk all over their freedoms, because they are scared, and they don't know how to think for themselves. As more and more of our "protected" children become adults, it will be easier and easier for Washington to take control of everything they do, and those young Americans won't even think there is anything wrong, because they have always had some one taking care of them.