Remember When
Close your eyes... And go back in time...
Before the Internet or the MAC, before semi automatics...
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back...
Hide and seek at dusk
The Good Humor man
Red light, green light
The corner store
Hopscotch, butterscotch, double Dutch, jacks, kickball, dodge ball
Mother may I?
Red rover and roly poly
Hula hoops
Running through the sprinkler
The smell of the sun and licking salty lips
Wax lips and mustaches.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry or maybe butter pecan
A cherry coke from the fountain at the corner drug store (Candy Kitchen)
Watching Saturday morning cartoons... short commercials
Fat Albert, Road Runner, He-Man, The Three Stooges, and Bugs or staying up for Gunsmoke
Or back further, listening to Superman on the radio
When around the corner seemed far away and going downtown seemed like going somewhere
A million mosquito bites
Sticky fingers
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 was cause for giggles
Being tired from playing.... Remember that?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle
Eating Kool-aid powder
There were two types of sneakers for girls and boys (Keds & PF Flyers)and the only time you wore them at school, was for gym
It wasn't odd to have two or three 'best' friends
When nobody owned a purebred dog
When a quarter was a decent allowance, and another quarter a miracle
When milk went up one cent and everyone talked about it for weeks
When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box
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
When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces
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 all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done
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 and some of us are still afraid of them
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"
'Race issue' meant arguing about who ran the fastest
Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly
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
Nobody was prettier than Mom
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin
Ice cream was considered a basic food group
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true
Abilities were discovered because of a double-dare