Where did you go? Out What did you do? Nothing; by Smith Robert Paul,

A very endearing reminder of yesteryear that we remember, of days before cheap or expensive toys of recent times that fill houses and leave little for the child's imagination - the role taken up at a later date today by other commercially provided occupations, such as malls, unlike those years when people had time and more basic, natural, imaginative ways.

Feynman played with radios then and had his scientific questioning mind kept sharp and fresh, Asimov read, others wrote poetry, and so on.

Perhaps today the internet has replaced the neighbourhoods as meeting places and it is once again a space of mind for people to explore. Still, the years of when one could do infinitely many things with spools (who has now heard of them, in more consumeristic nations?)are past. Not all that good.