All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
Nearly everyone's Mom was there when the kids got home from
school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent weekly allowance?
You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers
had
their hair done every day and wore high heels?
You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped,
without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay
for air? And, you got trading stamps, too!?
Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes, or towels hidden
inside the box?
It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner
at a full-menu restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed.
. . and did?
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car to cruise in, peel
out, lay rubber, or watch submarine races . . . and girls
and boys actually went steady?
No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were
usually already in the car, in the ignition, and the doors
were never locked?
Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying
things like, "That cloud looks like a . . . "
and playing baseball with no adults around to help kids
with the rules of the game?
Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic
seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once,
you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace and
share it with the children of today?
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared
to the fate that awaited the 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! But we survived because their love
was greater than the threat.
Remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy
Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow
Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger, and Buttermilk?
What about summers filled with bike rides, baseball games,
Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid
powder with sugar. If your an older adult, doesn't this bring
back basic memories of innocent days?
And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old
enough to know better and too young to care.
How many of these do you remember?
Candy cigarettes . . . Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored
sugar water inside . . . Soda pop machines that dispensed
glass bottles . . . Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
. . . Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum. . . Home
milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers .
. .Newsreels before the movie . . . P.F. Fliers, and telephone
numbers had a word prefix like Raymond 4-601) and all lines
were party?
And that's just for starters:
How about Peashooters, Howdy Dowdy, 45 RPM records, Green
Stamps, Hi-Fi's, Metal ice cubes trays with levers, Mimeograph
paper, Beanie and Cecil, Roller-skate keys, Cork pop guns,
Drive in movies, Studebakers, Washtub wringers, The Fuller
Brush Man, Reel-to-reel tape recorders, Tinkertoys, Erector
Sets, The Fort Apache Play Set, Lincoln Logs, 15 cent McDonald
hamburgers, 5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful
pink slab of bubble gum, Penny candy, 35-cent-a-gallon gasoline,
Jiffy Pop popcorn
Do you remember a time when decisions were made by going
"eeny-meeny-miney-moe," mistakes were corrected
by simply exclaiming Do Over, race issue meant
arguing about who ran the fastest, catching the fireflies
could happily occupy an entire evening, and it wasn't odd
to have two or three best Friends?
What about these?
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was
"cooties"?
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot
or used for the monthly after-school gun club about the
safe usage of weapons?
A foot of snow was a dream come true?
Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials
for action figures?
"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause
for giggles?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?
War was a Saturday afternoon card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into
a motorcycle sound?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
____________________________________
Compliments Vina of WNC