Got this in an email today. Thought this forum could use it. Long, but good memories.........

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Close your eyes.....And go back in time....
Before the Internet or the MAC,
Before semiautomatics and crack
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back........
I'm talking about hide and seek at dusk.
The Good Humor man, 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.
The smell of the sun and licking salty lips....

Wax lips and mustaches.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night.
Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe butter pecan.
A cherry coke from the fountain at the corner drug store.

Wait......
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.
Walking to school, no matter what the weather.
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.
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...
Eating Kool-Aid powder.

Remember when...
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 you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, for free, every time. And, you didn't pay for air.
And, you got trading stamps to boot!
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.
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 all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done.

When any parent could discipline any kid or feed him or use him to carry groceries, and nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it.

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!!!

Didn't that feel good just to go back and say,
"Yeah, I remember that!"

Remember when............

Decisions were made by going "eenie-meenie-miney-mo."
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-dog-dare."

Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors.

If you can remember most or all of these then you have LIVED!!!!
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from his or her "grown up" life...

I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!!!

-- Patricia (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), January 25, 2001

Answers

Patricia,

With the exceptions of the snow references (LOL), I could SWEAR whoever wrote this was the my twin of experiences! Great thoughts- thanks for sharing! I think we should do it again, IRL, each and every one of those experiences/remembrances (although I think I just did a fast-forward in my mind when I read them!). Though the ominous death stares from those parental figures are lost on the young of the present day, there was nothing like them for "keeping you in line" and turning on that "switch" of family expectations within, and thus your behavior. Gee, now I'm able to let that go and put it into the perspective of the times. Maybe that's why we can now be outrageous if we wish? Because it feels so GOOD to be ourselves, knowing what we know!

-- Aunt Bee (Aunt__Bee@hotmail.com), January 26, 2001.

Patricia, it's too bad we can't turn back the clock to these days of yesteryear. I might be livin out here in the country but all these things and occasions have left a lasting impression in my memory. I think about many of these things and thank you for making my day a little happier.

-- Boswell (fundown@thefarm.net), January 26, 2001.

sniff, sniff...

Thanks for the memories!!

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), January 26, 2001.

snif snif....honkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

waxed lips and cupie dolls, oh my thanks Pat.

Passes the kleenex to Peg Oh, its a clean one :-)

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), January 26, 2001.

How wonderful. I needed something like that today. Thank you.

Mar.

-- Not now, not like this (agentsmith) (m3write@aol.com), January 26, 2001.

Patricia, you've got me just in breathless wonder and completely lost in reverie. It seems almost every line opened up new vistas of "lost" memories that came flooding back.

Just a tidbit to add -- I remember the open-sided fruit and vegetable truck that used to come down my block in Detroit in the late fifties. You know, I feel kinda guilty now as I remember that once in a while I'd run and hop on the back when the driver wasn't looking -- the truck was still goin' sometimes -- and grab and eat a few of the raw green beans, then jump off...

Thank you for sharing this, Patricia; ya made my day. :)

-- eve (eve_rebekah@yahoo.com), January 26, 2001.

Yeah, pass the Kleenex here, too :-) I lost it when I was posting this........

eve, we had the milkman (glass milk bottles!), the guy who sharpened knives, and the soda delivery man. And don't think that the driver of that fruit and veggie truck didn't know you were doing that ;-)

But that was at a time when it was OK to do stuff like that. When kids were just kids, not little robots. Adults were authorities, not celebrities.

It was a time when TV was a treat, not a routine. You listened to the radio or the record player and swore you saw little tiny people in the speakers.

Every block or neighborhood had the "nosy neighbor" who told the parents every stupid little thing their kids were doing (but whose own kids were the worst on the block); the "crazy lady" with hundreds of cats (ours was Crazy Marie, and she used to be a Rockette). There was a candy store/fountain on the corner and Ann (the lady who owned the place) would NOT allow kids to buy candy before lunch time.

And we all listened to her.

I remember going to the grocery store with ten cents and getting the GIANT loaf of Wonder Bread; when a slice of really good pizza cost a dime; when the worst that could happen was that one of your three best friends told one of your secrets to another.

You can still find alot of these sentiments; if not, you can make them, I guess.

Glad you all liked it.

-- remembering "pixie stix"..... (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), January 26, 2001.

Thanks for the clean tissue sumer :)

Pat,

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), January 26, 2001.

Thanks, Peg........I needed that :-)

-- pass more kleenex please....... (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), January 26, 2001.

And the corner store was NOT abouds RIPOFF mini mart/pager/cell phone/food stamp scam place....

IT WAS a place to get penny candy the buttons (remember them?) on paper and soda in a Glass bottle and kit kats were not chocolate they were some sort of taffy and eskimo pies had an eskimo on them and they were good.

The playground had the old horsies and ohhhh how excited i got to run to the horses and the joy I felt when nobody else was on them!!!

Oh my (wailing now, banging head and OUT of kleenex)

wipes nose w/sleeve.........ewwwww

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), January 26, 2001.

Good lord girl, don't use your sleeve...

Here ya go..

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), January 26, 2001.

oops...didn't mean to forget you Pat..

-- Peg (pegmcleod@mediaone.net), January 26, 2001.

You people are really old. A few more---

* The mailman arriving twice a day, walking his route, a big leather satchel over his shoulder.

* The front door never being locked

* Occasionally a "bum" would come to the door asking for food. My mom would letting him in and feeding him in the kitchen.

* Saturday matinees at the movies; buying ju-ju beans to throw once the lights dimmed

* walking to and from grade school four times a day (we came home for lunch)

* playing indoor games on rainy days

* doctors that made house calls

* knowing the policeman by name

* No A/C, except in movie theaters, bowling alleys and bars

* one-car families

* flipping baseball cards against the school wall. The kid who got the closest won everyone's cards. Carrying an inch thick bunch of cards in my pocket (along with my penknife)

* organ grinder monkeys (infrequently)

* standing in a doorway and pushing each hand upward against the door jamb, then walking out of the doorway and letting the hands float upward.

* bubble gum contests

* yo-yos

* Flexible Flyer sleds

* "don't slam the screen door"

* not liking girls

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 26, 2001.

Lars, I remember the double-features at the movies. I also remember alot of what you wrote, but as I grew up in Brooklyn and lived on the third floor of a three-family house, we didn't have a screen door (and you had to "buzz" in any guests).

If I could just have my baseball card collection back.....(I also remember when every pack came with a stick of bubble gum.....)

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), January 26, 2001.

Yes, double feature and cartoons and a newsreel. The main feature plus a B movie 2nd feature, usually a Western. I understand some countries like India still grind out thousands of B movies every year.

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 26, 2001.

Thanks Peg....wipes nose, takes extras and...

Passes box to the rest of the forumites. :=)

-- sumer (shh@aol.con), January 26, 2001.

* when we used to wipe our noses on our sleeves

-- Lars (larsguy@yahoo.com), January 26, 2001.

For any of you who liked to watch Saturday morning cartoons in the 70's, an excellent book on it is "Saturday Morning Fever", by Tim Burke. Well recommended.

It doesn't, however, shed any insight on how Sleestaks were always able to capture Will, Holly and Chaka when they could only move one MPH and shoot rubber-band crossbows. But some things should always remain a mystery.

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.people), January 26, 2001.

Great lil' trip down memory lane!!!

Pat - I bought a box of 1989 Topps Baseball cards at a sportscard shop a few weeks back AND THEY STILL HAD THE GUM IN THE PACKS!! Terribly overproduced set that is not worth squat but 1989 was the last year they put gum in the packs.

BTW - the sticks of gum had morphed into something else. Left a mark on the card it was next to. AND they were hard as bricks.

"When it took 5 minutes for the TV to warm up." I remember being the 'remote control' for dear ol' dad too........

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), January 26, 2001.

Deano, that bubble gum was hard as a rock in the 1960s (dentists just *loved* that stuff -- it's what helped send most of their kids to graduate school).....what you got was probably "fresh" ;-)

-- (PatriciaS@lasvegas.com), January 26, 2001.

Here's to all the Baby Boomers!

1970: Growing pot. 2000: Growing pot belly.

1970: Popping pills, smoking joints. 2000: Popping joints.

1970: Long hair. 2000: Longing for hair.

1970: The perfect high. 2000: The perfect high yield mutual fund.

1970: Keg. 2000: EKG.

1970: Acid Rock. 2000: Acid Reflux.

1970: Moving to California because it's cool. 2000: Moving to California because it's warm.

1970: Douglas Street bridge. 2000: Dental bridge.

1970: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your parents. 2000: Watching John Glenn's historic flight with your kids.

1970: Trying to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor 2000: Trying NOT to look like Marlon Brando or Elizabeth Taylor

1970: Seeds and stems 2000: Roughage

1970: Our president's struggle with Fidel 2000: Our president's struggle with fidelity

1970: Paar. 2000: AARP

1970: Being caught with Hustler magazine. 2000: Being caught with Hustler magazine.

1970: Killer weed. 2000: Weed killer.

1970: Hoping for a BMW 2000: Hoping for a BM

1970: The Grateful Dead. 2000: Dr. Kevorkian.

1970: Getting out to a new, hip joint. 2000: Getting a new hip joint.

1970: Rolling Stones. 2000: Kidney stones.

1970: Being called into the principal's office. 2000: Calling the principal's office.

1970: Screw the system! 2000: Upgrade the system.

1970: Peace sign. 2000: Mercedes logo.

1970: Parents begging you to get your hair cut. 2000: Children begging you to get their heads shaved.

1970: Take acid. 2000: Take antacid.

1970: Passing the driver's test. 2000: Passing the vision test.

1970: "Whatever" 2000: Depends.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), January 26, 2001.