Technology is limiting kids’ freedom today, something I didn’t know we had growing up in the 80s as GenXers. The old railroad tracks ran almost from Tim’s house on Amador Valley Boulevard in Dublin straight to mine on Sand Point Drive in San Ramon. Sun-baked railroad ties, the acrid smell of tar and petroleum in the hot summer air. Loose gravel. No cars or traffic of any kind. No shade. And nobody was watching. No one was paying any attention to the two preteen kids riding their bikes. That path? It was shorter than any road, an almost straight shot, and completely ours.

That was the whole point.

Only on the hottest days, when we could afford it, did we ride the two miles to the pool — sunburnt by afternoon, aching the whole way home. It cost maybe two dollars to get in. Supervision was for the lifeguards. We didn’t need parents. They didn’t want to be there anyway. Every second or third hour, for twenty minutes, it was adults only. They floated. Swam. Whatever they wanted, in the calm water, without us. You could understand why they needed it.

I can, today.

Unless Jonathan came with us. Then it was sunscreen, extra money for snacks, and keeping an eye on him and his friend, David, the whole day. James was supposed to watch them. He’d leave it to me.

In 1982, a gaming arcade came to San Ramon’s strip mall, a few blocks from the house. We only went a few times. The teenagers had more money, more time, more resources. We found a different place. Mountain Mike’s — a small pizza place on the opposite corner from the AM/PM, right across the street from Fandango’s, both of them tucked under I-680 on Amador Valley Boulevard, the street Tim lived on. It was dim inside, loud with machines, and it always smelled like pepperoni and carpet. Nobody cared how long you stayed.

We played whatever was there, getting good at Galaga, Centipede, Pinbot, and Spy Hunter — which we turned into a two-player game, one of us shifting while the other steered. Track and Field required mashing A and B as fast as possible for ten decathlon events. We figured out that when you laced a pen between your index and ring fingers, you could move faster than any button-masher. We got good at the timing, trading off the pencil and the action button. Everything with Tim became a two-man operation whenever possible.

But all that ended when my brand new twelve-speed bike, less than two weeks old, was stolen from in front of Mountain Mike’s — the one place I wasn’t supposed to be.

The railroad tracks are gone, and a paved bike and walking path is in their place. So is the twelve-speed. Shalimar, an Indian cuisine restaurant, is where Mountain Mike’s used to be. Lulu’s Kitchen, a Chinese food hotspot, is where Fandango’s was. The smell of tar on a hot afternoon still brings it all back.

Along with the taste of chlorine and hose water.