The other day I was driving through one of our row home neighborhoods, and I saw a father turn the front yard into a movie theater for his young children and someof their friends.

He had the TV turned around in the front window, playing a Disney movie, and he was cooking hot dogs on the grill. I thought, "Wow, there is a father that is not letting the high price of gas get him down."

Can't take the children to the movies, so he will bring the movies to the children. When I drove by a little later, the Home Theater had turned in to a small block party.

I was reminded of my childhood when the parents would sit on the front porch on
a warm summer’s evening, talking or listening to the ball game on the radio, while
all of the kids in the neighborhood would play across the front lawns…games
like tag or hide and seek. Or, if you had a jar, you could catch fire flies by the dozens.

Those evenings were the best times of the summer.

As the children playing, our front yards were turned into whatever magical places our imaginations took us as our parents looked on.

Now that gas is hovering at $4 a gallon, I wonder if those family nights will start to make a comeback. Will families be spending more time at home and getting to know their neighbors like they did way back when? How nice would it be if we turned off the air conditioning and opened the widows and stepped outside?

Perhaps if we stepped out on our front porch, and turned off the video games and computers, we'd hear that magical phrase spoken by our children.

Two beautiful words that we spoke as children, but in adulthood forgot their power.
Those two simple words, only understood in their fullest, in the mind of a child:

"Let’s pretend..."