This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The saddest thing today is the guarded life that our children now live. No longer is Halloween just you and your friends racing around town for the most candy. It's now groups of kids with parents on alert, only a few steps away.
Unfortunately, there is good reason to be hyper-vigilant these days. Yet I'm saddened that the days of "carefree youth" have faded into memory.
As a kid, in the summer I would leave after breakfast and not show up until dinner. I was off playing baseball or riding bikes with my buddies, wherever the wind took us. Now, parents track their kid's every move by the child's cellphone and GPS.
Every day, I walked home alone from school. I was Billy from the Family Circus cartoons with a wild path over fences, playing with dogs, climbing trees in the park. Today, it's a line of cars at school with all the parents who would never let their kids walk home alone.
As much as technology has opened up the world to our children, today's evils have sadly put up boundaries that I never knew. I feel lucky to have grown up during those carefree days.
Brad Rouillard
Salt Lake City