WE CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

Ok Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "SOMETHING HAS CHANGED": 

That is funny. If you had a club like that now, someone would accuse you of being elitists or exclusionary. even the mens' clubs in England and that one golf tournament in the states are under siege.

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Clubs, maybe in all of Europe,have a definite function. I mis-named George Bernard Shaw 's Club association. I went to Wikipedia and discovered the Fabian Society was his association. It dated from pre-world war 1 and  promoted political change by peaceful means rather than revolution as in France and Russia. 

It was a pre-cursor to the British Labour Party. Hardly an exclusive organization. 

Clubs in general , like pubs, were and are an important part of that society. Europeans don't entertain in their homes.They have never had enough space. 

It's the reason theatres, music halls, opera houses,coffee shops, patisseries and bistros are popular with the natives. Europeans live their lives in the community. 

In my time, even children didn't spend evenings at home unless it was raining or snowing. We gathered under the lamplight in the street. Games  like  hide and seek, bar-the-door and leave-all were organized. Every street had at least one wee  shop with a lighted window full of a  variety of  boxes of sweeties (candy) on display with a raised  shelf  at the back and a sentinel row of giant jars of hard pastilles ,lozenges,comfits or humbugs in every colour imaginable, wrapped or sugar-coated. 

 IT would give the initials of a sweet and whoever guessed right would have to beat IT in a race to the other side of the street and back in order to have a turn at being IT. 

There were circle games, hop-scotch, ball games, rope skipping and in winter ,when temperature dipped to freezing, a slide would be created in the middle of the street and twenty or twenty-five kids would line up to take a turn running and sliding over and over and over again.

When we were all in bed at last ,one or other  parent would come out and destroy the slide so that next  evening, it had to be created again. It was  closest we came to skating.  Oh yes and roller-skating as well. The games were countless and we had "the swings" as well. 

For everything there was a season and no shortage of kids to join. 

In industrial cities and towns  in England ,working men's clubs provided  a home away from home. Drinks were cheaper. Darts and cards  and words were games of choice. Continuing education was not unheard of either.

For young adults,"The dancin "  was a passion everywhere.  Second house at "The pictures" on Saturday  night was de rigeur as was  promenading through town streets on a Sunday night.Hundreds of young folk congregated from villages and smaller towns for  miles around. 

Shop doorways were the place to huddle tightly in the rain.Thought of staying home and missing the ritual would never have occurred. 

It was like that in my teen years ,my mother's, her mother's and untold generations before that.Those who did not participate were the excluded ones. I doubt very much their absence was noticed. 

I believe older residents of Aurora are familiar with what I have described. 

Nowadays, we have a youth co-ordinator on the town payroll to discover what it is  young people

want. Half a  million dollar annual dole-out for "Culture"  to entertain the  adults. And tonight Councilors are conducting a walk about to discover the "Cultural Precinct" in our town.