A lot of kids — well, people in general, really — talk about how little there is to do in Demopolis. Now that summer is upon us and school is out for the season, that feeling will likely grow as teens too old for youth sports and too young to drive prepare to spend the next three months whining about how little there is to do.

Well, first off, that complaint is not new.

I can’t say that I was never bored growing up, but somehow, even in an age before cell phones, text-messaging and even (gasp!) computers themselves, my friends and I found plenty to do.

Just hanging out with friends is fun enough. We played tennis (occasionally going to an actual court), Frisball (a game that combined Frisbee with baseball that we invented) or just plain goofing off, walking around talking and just good old hanging out.

That was outside stuff, and a very small list of outside stuff, at that.

We had games that we would play — rain or shine — board games, card games, pinball games and pretty much anything in our rooms designed to give us the proverbial something to do.

On rainy days when I could leave the house, I had books and magazines. This was an age when there was usually something decent on TV — sorry, kids of today — and even sitting around listening to music on the radio or the Victrola could occupy time like nobody’s business.

Times don’t change that much, but some things do. The local library has tons of things to do and take part in with your friends or to make friends at. You don’t have to be in its Summer Reading Program to read during the summer, although it could be more fun (and profitable) if you join.

I can see kids rolling their eyes at that suggestion. Hey, it’s something to do, and a lot of times, you have to put a little effort into avoiding boredom. That’s a big part of the answer.

Find something new to do, something that you probably don’t do all the time. That will help shake the summertime boredom blues. It’s easy to say, “There’s nothing to do” without looking for something to do. Take some initiative, and you will find the first day of school here before you know it.