Mrs Whacked and I were watching the kids playing games at the Australia Day celebrations at Lake Weeroona on Monday – and you just couldn’t help but smile at what was going on.

We were supposed to be looking after the children’s and family area at the celebrations organised by the Bendigo Sandhurst Rotary Club, but thanks to a beaut youth activities organisation called Fusion, our job was almost pointless. This lot looked after themselves.

Now get this. Kids played... sack races. And had hula hoop contests. And a version of Simon Says. Stilts, Twister. And a very messy and raucous group co-operation game involving a blanket and a thrown balloon filled with cold water. They had their faces painted and made stuff out of clay and feathers and coloured paper.

Nearby kids mucked about on a little tennis court. Or they invaded Farmer Daryl’s beaut farmyard filled with dozens of docile and adorable beasties. Or romped in a huge temporary sand pit.

There was not one electronic device in sight all day. Not one. No mobile phones sucking their attention and brains into the ether. No digital ear-buds isolating them from any genuine nearby analog experience. No demands for high-tech, mindless baby-sitting. 

I do not recall seeing a single bored kid of any age. I reckon that if you’d said to any young teenager “Why don’t you go out with your friends and have a sack race or pat baby lambs?” you’d get a fairly snotty response. But in this instance, because everyone else was clearly participating and enjoying it, it became infectious.

And then you have to wonder. What would happen if, when your young’uns wandered into the kitchen to moan about there being nothing to do, or when they were in their seventh hour of playing Attack of the Zombie Horde, you demanded they go out into the yard and play Goodies and Baddies (or whatever politically correct version of that might be in 2015).

Or, better yet, there was a massive Electro-Magnetic Pulse from the Sun which made all electronic devices shut down for one week. Curiously, there are predictions of a huge electronic Sun storm in the next few weeks. Here’s hoping.

Finally, in case you need convincing that kids haven’t changed, here’s a wonderful quote from 1970s Chicago Top 40 DJ Larry Lujack: “When buying a used car, punch the buttons on the radio. If all the stations are rock and roll, the transmission is shot.”