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