Sidewalks and other things we need more of

I recently blogged about hand-written letters after reading a My Turn article in Newsweek. Well, the next My Turn article made some good points about connections through communities and prompted me to think of some things I think, we, the world, could use some more of.

Sidewalks
In the My Turn article mentioned above, Carolyn V. Egan reminisces about sidewalks. When my wife and I looked for a home, sidewalks was on my wish list (along with lots of windows and radiator heat, both of which we got). My wife didn't understand why at the time, but now that we moved in and have 4 kids but no sidewalk out front, she sees my point. My neighborhood has sidewalks for about 75% of the streets. So the neighborhood itself is a decent sidewalk-type neighborhood, or at least, there are always a good amount of people and kids walking about. But I agree with Ms. Egan. We certainly could use more of them.

Unorganized Sports
I played a good deal of street hockey growing up, starting around 4th grade and ending in high school. We had two primary places to play and had to make our own rules. Sometimes if we got bored with hockey, we'd make up some game, involving the ball, the net, or maybe a nearby wall. I think kids learn a great deal from that type of experience. Now it seems like sports are over-organized. Some of this may be a result of the fear that now exists that don't allow children out of our site as much. I used to walk to school in first grade. Not sure if many first graders do now. I still see kids in my neighborhood in what appears to be "pick up" games out on the street or at the local park, but my sense is that more of the sport played nowadays is in organized leagues. I am not sure how to promote more of the unorganized sport approach for my own kids, but would like to.

Unorganized Religion
Keeping the unorganized theme, I've never been much of a fan of organized religion. I grew up Catholic and have the same issues as probably thousands of other Catholics have with the Church. But I'd like to think I am somewhat spiritual and could embrace a religion with a little less formal organization.

Ice Cream
We can always use more ice cream. My kids would agree with me on this one.

There are probably a hundred other things more important than these that we could use more off. One thing we probably don't need more of is blogs.