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Welcome back, everyone!
Some of these answers may give clues about my age. Here are four of the hobbies I used to enjoy but no longer participate in.
Photo credit: Tomasz Sienicki
This was a virtual pet that was wildly popular back at the turn of the century (Yes, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here).
I never actually bought one. Instead, my best friend gave hers to me after she grew tired of it.
I spent many happy hours over the summer keeping my Tamagotchi happy and healthy before passing it onto my siblings.
We must have given it to someone else after that, but I don’t remember who was the next lucky kid to play with it. Here’s hoping they loved it as much as we did.
Cycling
When I was a kid, I spent hours going on long bike rides over the summer.
My family lived in a housing development at the time, so the only traffic there was local. The streets were quiet and safe to ride on 99% of the time.
Once we moved into a small city, I only cycled on the residential streets close to my home as there weren’t any bike lanes on the main roads through town and they were far too busy to accommodate cyclists.
After I moved to the big city, I didn’t cycle at all because there weren’t any bike lanes to speak of at the time and it was terribly dangerous to ride alongside cars. There was also the problem of bike theft. You have to be quite careful about where you chain up your bike and how you chain it up here if you would like every part of it to still be there when you return.
Toronto has begun adding bike lanes to certain streets which has definitely improved the safety aspect of cycling here, but theft remains a big issue. I hope that changes someday as I really miss this form of exercise!
Poetry
I used to love reading and writing poetry, but both of those hobbies faded away in my early 20s.
Despite several attempts to revive my interest in them, I’ve never been able to recapture the old magic of that experience.
Maybe when I am an old woman I will find one or both of them enjoyable again.
Picking Up Trash
Okay, so I might need to explain this one a little.
I spent much of my childhood in rural places where there’s honestly not a great infrastructure for picking up trash that accidentally – or maybe purposefully – gets left behind. Much of it would just sit there until a kind stranger picked it up, the county assigned people to pick it up as part of court-ordered community service, or a inmates did it on day release from the local jail in order to make a little money.
My family were among those private citizens who picked trash up without being legally required to do so. Sometimes mom and dad would turn it into a free date night activity for themselves. They’d leave us kids home for an hour or so, go clean up the neighbourhood or a local road, and talk about whatever it is grown-ups discuss when their children aren’t around.
I took note of how my parents behaved and would sometimes go out on my own trash-finding adventures. Most of the items I picked up would be soda cans, beer cans, or plastic bags.
In college, I took Ecology as one of my science credits, and one of our assignments was to clean up all of the trash by the side of the road next to our school. That was a fun project. We did it in March or April and found everything from broken toys to cassettes tapes to, I believe, a few Christmas decorations as well.
Toronto was such a clean city that I never got into the habit of doing that after I moved here. We have city employees who drive machines that suck up every the smallest pieces of trash here, so there was usually nothing to pick up.
That began to change when Covid happened. Unfortunately, most of the trash I see on the streets these days would be dangerous to pick up with bare hands. Think broken glass, used hypodermic needles, dirty masks, human or animal excrement, etc. You don’t see it on every block or on every day, but it unfortunately is the sort of trash I’m seeing more often over time now.
If or when I begin seeing other sorts of trash in my area, I will start carrying a pair of gloves on me and once again keep things tidy.
Hah, Tamogotchis….I think had one of the off-brand ones, a gigapet? I remember a Gameboy game that had a similar premise (Dogz /Catz, I think it was called) but was FAR less fun. Good for you on the trash — I pick up stuff on walks around town, especially in the cemetery, but doing it along country highways is more hazardous.
I probably won’t do a post for this once since I can’t think of much…only PC modding comes to mind. I was continaully upgrading my computer and then hit a point of diminishing returns: I wasn’t going to notice any real improvements in performance for my needs for the next round of expensive upgrades, so I paused and haven’t gotten back into it.
Thanks, Stephen. And, yeah, you do have to careful about picking stuff up near highways. I generally chose pretty quiet areas and/or times of day.
I hope we’ll see you around for a future one.
I wonder how long my list of things I enjoyed as hobbies in my younger days but don’t have time time or inclination for now would be. I’d probably be blogging for days. 🙂
I’m sure you would be!
I love to cycle! But am terribly afraid of traffic. Other than dedicated recreation paths, I cycle in this big beautiful cemetery near me (https://laurelhillphl.com; the west cemetery is off a 1.5 mile recreation trail that wouldn’t be long enough for cycling, but I turn into the cemetery from there). There is little traffic and most drive very slowly. It has lots of hills and fascinating mausoleums.
That cemetery sounds incredible! They’re such interesting places to visit.
Oh I had many a Tamagotchi! In fact, strangely enough, I bought one for my younger nephew for this past Christmas. He loves it. Mostly because it has a choice of 22 different animals.
Oh, that’s awesome!
Oh man, my niece had a Tamagotchi! But I used to love biking as well when I was younger. Also, when I was a kid, the nearest convenience store was a mile walk from our house, so my friend and I would walk through a patch of desert to get there, collecting all the soda cans and bottles we could find along the way. My dad would take them to the recycling place and give us a cut of the money, which is how we funded our 7-11 trips. Hah.
That’s so cool, Aymee. What a win-win scenario for everyone.
You’ve got me on the thingamagig, never heard of it. Good hobbies, particularly picking up trash.
Thank you, Patrick.
My kids loved those (okay.. now that REALLY makes me feel old… am I the oldest one here???). I didn’t know they still made them… hmmm… I have birthdays for grands coming up…. off to Amazon!
Heh, that was not my intention.
I didn’t know they still made them either, though. Your grandkids might love them!
I never had a Tamagotchi, though I’m old enough to remember when they were really popular, and while I sometimes enjoy reading poetry I’ve never been any good at writing it. I would not have thought of picking up trash as a hobby, but it is something we do when we’re out walking the dog…
I’ve never had a lot of typical hobbies, so I had to get a little creative. 😄
I think picking up trash is cool, though. Glad to hear you also do it.
That’s cool about the trash! I remember when people used to do that more. Especially in the country. I guess it’s more dangerous now.
Yeah, could be.
And thanks, Greg.
Oh the Tamagotchi . My daughter had one. I was a teacher and schools all across the state of NSW in Australia banned children bringing these to class. My daughter was devastated. What if it died from starvation or lack of sleep or whatever its need was? So, I smuggled it into my desk drawer. Kids in my class couldn’t bring theirs . Did I feel guilty as I fed that little sucker every morning recess annd lunch and then in between sessions. I figured other parents must be doing it everywhere. I hope they were 😂 Then I was devastated the day she gave up on it and let it beep into non existence as she played with her new toy.
I love this story! I’ll bet other parents were doing the same thing secretly.
I remember my high school banning Tamagotchi’s and I desperately didn’t want mine to die… so my mum took it to work with her!
That’s awesome. 🙂
I never had a Tamagochi, but I have always been curious about them. Maybe they’ll have a comeback and I can get one for my kid! I used to cycle, but more out of necessity to get back and forth from school than anything. I didn’t always love it at the time, but in retrospect it was good exercise and had a purpose which motivated me! I love that picking up trash made this list!
I hope they do. I believe they’re still sold, just not as popular.
And thanks. Do you pick up trash, too?
Ah yes, Tamogotchis!
And I love that your parents not only willingly volunteered to help the community in this way, but also made use of the time as a ‘date night’! That’s such a unique idea, and I love it. Good for you for learning from then and helping out when you could too. My parents used to have ‘date nights’ at the laundromat, haha, but seriously it’s something we all do and I love these unique ways to spend a little extra time together when schedules are busy.
It’s sad to hear you city isn’t as clean and beautiful as it once was. That seems to be how much of the world (or at least the places I’ve heard about) are in recent years.