What is something that disappeared from American life over the years and mostly went unnoticed?

You’ve probably come across prompts like those if you spend any time at all on a social-media platform.

My default answers are common sense, civility and shame. In other words, a lot of people now seem all too comfortable in letting it be known that they’re not so bright, not so nice and lack the self-awareness that should come naturally to all of us.

There’s a column to be written about all of that, but something else far more important seems to have faded from the American landscape over the years.

I’m talking, of course, about backyard football.

If President Donald Trump really wants to make America great again, he should consider an executive order that would require kids to put away those ubiquitous digital devices at least twice a week for a few hours and go outside and play backyard football.

In the America that existed when I was growing up, we weren’t allowed to park ourselves on a couch or a recliner and wile away the hours watching TV, playing video games or getting on the interwebs.

There really was no “internet” … wait for it … back in my day. My generation had video games and even computers, but the ancient Atari and Intellivision game systems and the old Commodore 64 PCs didn’t dominate our lives the way today’s digital products — including smartphones — have grabbed hold of kids and even adults.

Our parents didn’t want us spending an entire summer day in the house. In most cases, we were sent outside early and stayed there all day until it got dark and the streetlights came on. Aside from lunch and dinner breaks, that’s how we rolled in the 1970s and 1980s.

A friend and I were talking about backyard football recently. If there wasn’t a game in the neighborhood, we knew where to go to find one. Some were behind the elementary school in town or even on the high school field — no stadiums had turf then and they weren’t locked up like Fort Knox — or the adjacent practice field. You could often find games breaking out just about anywhere, Monday through Friday and especially on weekends.

The weather was a nonfactor. We played year-round, be it in half a foot of snow and ice or in 90-degree heat. And this wasn’t two-hand touch or flag football. It was full-on tackle, no helmets or pads. I once got spiked by a friend who decided to wear track spikes. There were some injuries, of course, but we played through them — aside from the kid who sustained a compound fracture one day.

There were so many guys playing that day that two games were going on at once — one on the high school game field and another on a nearby practice field. At some point, the action on the main field stopped because of that pesky compound fracture, but only long enough for someone to run to a nearby house and call an ambulance. I was in the game on the practice field, and I remember we only paused our game long enough for someone to note that an ambulance had arrived.

“Must be bad,” someone said.

We found out later exactly what it was, but the incident never gave us pause. One time, a guy tackled another kid and someone would end up breaking off a tooth in someone’s arm. The guy who lost the tooth kept playing — hockey style — and the other kid went to see about getting a tetanus shot.

I was lucky. My backyard football injuries were relatively minor. One was a pinched sciatic nerve when I got tackled returning a kickoff and wrenched my back. The next morning, I couldn’t get out of bed without help and ended up making three or four visits to a chiropractor over the next couple of months. He fixed me right up.

Another time, I ran into a picnic table in a friend’s backyard and sliced open a nice gash above my left eye that required 11 stitches. There was also the black eye I caught when I tried to horse-collar tackle someone from behind and took an elbow to the face.

Another time, a future Edinboro State University linebacker clobbered me on an overthrown pass. That was the first — and still the only — time I’ve had the wind knocked out of me. Another time, I made the mistake of ducking a tackle from a guy who supposedly played at Mount Union College. That only made him mad, and I got about 5 more yards before he knocked me into the 1990s and out of the game.

But I tell you all that to say this: Those were the best days of our lives growing up and if someone ever invents a time machine, I’m going back to do it all over again.

I’m not stupid or misguided enough to try to turn back the clock and play now. As Clint Eastwood once said in a movie, a man’s got to know his limitations. I have a friend who broke his hip a couple of years ago, and I’m in no hurry to replace any of my body parts.

And even if I wanted to throw caution to the wind and perhaps die doing something I love, you simply can’t drive around and find a backyard football game now. As far as I can tell, they aren’t happening because too many kids today are in the house and attached to their gadgets.

They’ll never know the joy of getting knocked off your feet and into a pile of branches by the future left tackle at N.C. State. Trust me, I do. And I wouldn’t trade that backyard football memory — nor any of the others — for anything.

Ed Puskas is editor of the Tribune Chronicle and The Vindicator. He can be reached at 330-841-1786 and epuskas@tribtoday.com.