Remember when...?

[texasgirl]

Close your eyes...And go back in time Before semi automatics and crack...
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo... Way back...I'm talking about Hide and seek at dusk.
Red light, green light.
The corner store.
Hopscotch, butterscotch, doubledutch,
jacks, kickball, dodgeball.
Mother May I...
Red Rover and Roly Poly.
Hula Hoops.
Running through the sprinkler.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night...
Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or
maybe butter pecan.
Wait... Watching Saturday Morning cartoons...
Short commercials.
Fat Albert, Road Runner, The Three Stooges, and Bugs. Or back further... When around the corner seemed far away,
And going downtown seemed like going somewhere.
Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Zorro.
Climbing trees, building igloos out of snow banks
Running till you were out of breath.
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.
Jumping on the bed.
Pillow fights.
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down...
Being tired from playing...Remember that?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
War was a card game.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike
into a motorcycle.
I'm not finished just yet... When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked,
and gas pumped without asking, for free, every time...
and, you didn't pay for air.
When nearly everyone's mom was at home
when the kids got there.
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up,
if you even had one.
It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
When it was considered a great privilege to be taken
out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
When girls neither dated nor kissed
until late high school, if then.
When they threatened to keep kids back a grade
if they failed...and did!
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't
because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! Didn't that feel good? Just to go back and say,
"Yeah, I remember that!"
Remember when... Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo."
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do over!"
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
The worst thing you could catch
from the opposite sex was cooties.
It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event.
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare."
If you can remember most or all of these,
then you have LIVED!!!

 

[kadesma]

Lordy,
I've lived forever

kadesma

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Add to that list:

A boxed Chef Boyardee, or Apian Way Pizza was a gourmet treat.

A spaceship could be something as simple as a piece of school paper with drawings of gauges, hung between the bar and seat backing of the bus seat in front of you.

Time travel was achieved by riding your bycicle in a wooded clearing, clockwise to go forward, bacward to travel back in time.

Your favorite breakfast was Lucky Charms, or Super Sugar Crisp.

Gasoline cost 20 cents per gallon.

The smelt ran so thick in the streams during the springtime run that you could almost walk accross on thier backs.

Bamboo fishing poles and picking nightcrawlers were what made the world go 'round.

Fishing with Dad was considered an event, not an embarassment.

Making and flying homemade kites taught wisdom and patience.

There was a middle class.

Trips with Grandparents to nowhere, just to spot wildlife was an adventure.

You could play on the streets, and run through all of your neighbor's yards without worrying about molestation, or crime, or violence.

Nobody sued anybody.

Meals took an hour or more to eat, at a table.

Everybody raved about steaks that were tough and chewy, but they were cooked on the grill.

We swam every summer day off of the dock on our side yard, watched by our next-door-neighbor's mother.

Working on the snowmobile in a cold garage with our parents while shivering like crazy was quality time with Dad.

Blaming the dog for suripitous blasts of silent gasseous emmitions was the norm.

Sledding in the gravel pits until our clothes were frozen hard, and we were close to suffering severe hypothermia, or, it was too dark to see happened regularly on Saturdays.

Springtime brought the freedom of bicycles back, and mounds of snow waiting to be transformed into launch ramps.

Network telivision shows were uplifting.

Comedies and comedians were more concerned with having fun, and tickling the funnybone rather than shocking us into laughter.

Walking to the local chicken joint and getting a plateful of fries for a dime to go with that chicken was a communal event with your buddies. And the baked beans were new and different from anything you'd ever tasted before (a touch of chilli powder added to the recipe).

Roasting marshmallows and hot dogs over an open campfire, sometimes at the same time made up the evenings festivities.

Girls were freindly and innocent, and somehow scarry and extrememly attractive at the same time.

Boys actually got embarrased into their teens.

People didn't look at you funny if you carried a rifle or shotgun during hunting season.

Arrows cost a quarter apiece.

Balloons made great archery targets when tied to a hay-bail.

I could do an excess of 250 pushups, and 30 pull-ups without breaking a sweat, twice.

Making a rickety raft out of driftwood and trying to float on it into the river was engineering.

Parents trusted their kids to behave.

Parents disciplined their kids who didn't.

Religeon wasn't a societal sin.

And yes, I was a Boy Scout.

And the list goes on.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of teh North

 

[auntdot]

And Chung King in the can was about the most exotic Chinese food one could imagine (and there was the little can of those awful noodles on the top of the regular can).

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

That was supposed to read 250 sit-ups, not push ups.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

 

[middie]

Yay I lived !!!!!!

 

[BigDog]

I remember going to a ball game with my old man and it not costing a day's wage to attend and feed the both of us.

 

[fireweaver]

how 'bout these:

the average life expectancy was at a record 77.9 years

excellent quality fresh produce was available year-round, with far fewer seasonal variations than before

cancer death rates had a steady drop for 10+ years running

ethnic & fusion cuisine flourished alongside traditional offerings even in smaller towns

the internet provided artists of all types limitless low-cost opportunities to self-publish and get their stuff out in the world

we lived in a country (well, some of us do anyway) where fully half of us could be outspoken about our disapproval of the government and never risk arrest because of it

3 words: netflix, XM, tivo. technology is full of powerful tools, trade out those 3 for your personal favorites.

aw, heck, 2 more: INTERNET SHOPPING

you could buy a really great bottle of wine from halfway around the world, arrived safe in your hometown with no shipping damage, for under $15

and through the internet, you could contact with tons of friendly, like-minded people full of helpful advice FOR FREE

because that time is now. it's like the man said, "the good old days weren't always that good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems." it's truly blessed to have *lived* but don't forget to keep on *living now*!

 

[mudbug]

(chuckling ruefully) you make a darn good point, fireweaver. For many folks, these will become the good old days.

Sometimes I forget what an erstwhile guru from my generation said several decades ago - Be Here Now.

 

[jap1148]

never more profound words than those found here.....thank God I've lived...and keep living!

 

[texasgirl]

And the kids now days, think the world is ending if something happens to the T.V. or the Playstation or X-box LOL

 

[Dove]

TV ? What was that?

Played outside until bedtime.

Hit every house in the area at Halloween. No worries about that or the candy we scored.

Went to the movies every Saturday morning if we had the dime.Loved the Serials..remember Flash Gorden?

Put a man on the Moon? Don't be silly!

Roller skates had four wheels each ,,were metel and clamped on your shoes. Had to use a skate key to adjust them to your size shoe.

Babysat for twenty five cents and hour. Minimum wage was fifty cents an hour in the 50's But loved the ol Malt shop and the big Juke Box and the little ones on the counters..until I had to wash them after every shift.

Nuff said. except
Loved the Rumble Seat in the old car..Grandfather's car or was it Dad's???

 

[buckytom]

how 'bout these:

the average life expectancy was at a record 77.9 years

excellent quality fresh produce was available year-round, with far fewer seasonal variations than before

cancer death rates had a steady drop for 10+ years running

ethnic & fusion cuisine flourished alongside traditional offerings even in smaller towns

the internet provided artists of all types limitless low-cost opportunities to self-publish and get their stuff out in the world

we lived in a country (well, some of us do anyway) where fully half of us could be outspoken about our disapproval of the government and never risk arrest because of it

3 words: netflix, XM, tivo. technology is full of powerful tools, trade out those 3 for your personal favorites.

aw, heck, 2 more: INTERNET SHOPPING

you could buy a really great bottle of wine from halfway around the world, arrived safe in your hometown with no shipping damage, for under $15

and through the internet, you could contact with tons of friendly, like-minded people full of helpful advice FOR FREE

because that time is now. it's like the man said, "the good old days weren't always that good, and tomorrow's not as bad as it seems." it's truly blessed to have *lived* but don't forget to keep on *living now*!

lol fireweaver, i'm glad you posted this. whilst i have experienced most of the truely wonderful and nostalgic meanderings that everyone has posted, even marge's steel wheel roller skates with keys, a little voice popped up in the back of my head, louder than the rest, that thought "only if you were white"...

 

[Marishka_20]

Ah The Good Times!

Yeah times were a lot simpler back then, wish it was like that now. It sure would be a safer and sweeter world. Thanks for the remembrance.

 

[buckytom]

lol, you might say there were as simple as black and white.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I grew up in an area that to me was free of predjudice when I was young, simply because there was no one to be predjudiced against. As I grew to adulthood, and made freinds with people of every nationality and race that I met, I was truly amazed at the real predjudice in my home town. There was never any violence, and yet, the bad feelings could be found.

I am ever thankful that I wasn't exposed to it as a child, and was able to find good people wherever I went. To be sure, there were people who hated me for looking white (though I'm more Native American than anything else). And I had to sprint with a freind away from some very large and mean looking characters from his "hood", after visiting with him and his family. But the majority of people were warm and freindly. I loved my time in some of Memphis's ethnic neighborhoods.

The "Good Old Days weren't always so good. There were bullies who made life miserable. There was prescious little money when you made a buck and a quarter an hour. But then, gas was 40 cents and my motorcycle got 100 mpg. And I could get a 3/4 pund cheeseburger for a buck-25. And I had freinds who were adventurous, and maybe a little crazy (Ok, canoing accross the St. Mary's river after dark, without so much as a flashlight, and having to outpace 1000-foot lake freighters might have been considerd a more than a little crazy ). But we had a blast and bode no ill will toward anyone. And outrunning lake freighters built strong muscles, especially when you knew they couldn't see you and would run you right over if you couldn't get out of the way.

And now, the streets are meaner, and the downtown commerce no longer exists. Most people eat at Mckey D's or some other fast-food joint. But I can still find the good stuff. And more importantly, I can make the good stuff, and I'm not just talking about food. Time spent with my family, doing anything, is amazing time. My children bring me more joy and fulfillment than anything else ever could. And yes, even though they range from 28 to 20, I still worry for them. But I know they are doing fine.

The good old days, as fireweaver said, are being crafted right now. I hope we all strive to be good craftsmen and women. And do I have to be pollitcally correct? Can't I just say good craftsmen and mean both genders, as I was taught in my old English classes?

I enjoy all of you. Like my children, you touch my life. You are freinds, and help me to craft the present.

Seeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North

P.S. I took a double-recipe cheesecake to the family of a freind who passes away. The funeral was yesterday and I was asked to bring a dessert for the gathering that was to take place afterword. It was suggested to me that I quite my current job and open a cheesecake buisness. The swelled head feeling, of which I am so fond, helped make saying goodbye easier. I wasn't looking for it, and of course played everything down. But it still felt good. And my freind, she introduced to me, and shared with me some home made cheese she had made from unpasturized milk from her milk cow. So I thought I would give my best, and it should contain cheese. It was fitting. My eyes are still misting up when I think of this special lady, who was an example to me by her steadfast example of how she lived her life, always maintaining her faith, in spite of multiple cancers and diabetes. She would have none of feeling sorry for herself and remained a very active lady to the end. She will be missed. Though she was ten to fifteen years my elder, we shared a spiritual connection through faith.