REMEMBER WHEN:

Mom was at home when the kids got home from school; when nobody owned a purebred dog; when a quarter was a decent allowance, and another quarter a huge bonus; when you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny; when all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done and wore high heels; when 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 or dishes to boot.

When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents;when the worst thing you could do at school was smoke in the bathrooms, flunk a test or chew gum; when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car, to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races; and people went steady and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped yarn, so it would fit her finger. And no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked. And you got in big trouble if you accidentally locked the doors at home, since no one ever had a key.

Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a .."

Remember jumping waves at the ocean for hours in that cold water;
and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game, because baseball was not a psychological group learning experience, it was a game.

Remember when 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 wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace and share it with the children of today.

Remember 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! But we all survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Go back with me for a minute.... Before the Internet or the MAC... before semi automatics and crack ... before SEGA or Super Nintendo...
Way back ....I'm talking about hide and go seek at dusk, red light, green light, kick the can, playing kickball & dodgeball until your porch light came on ... and mother may I? red rover, hula hoops, roller skating to music, running through the sprinkler...
And...
Catching lightning bugs in a jar; Christmas morning; your first day of school; bedtime prayers and goodnight kisses; climbing trees; getting an ice cream off the ice cream truck; a million mosquito bites and sticky fingers; jumping on the bed; pillow fights; running till you were out of breath' laughing so hard your stomach hurt; being tired from playing; your first crush...remember that?

I'm not finished yet....
Kool-aid was the drink of summer; toting your friends on your handle bars; wearing your new shoes on the first day of school and class field trips.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that! There's nothing like the good old days. They were good then and they're good now when we think about them.

Share some of these thoughts with a friend who can relate, then share it with someone that missed out on them. I want to go back to the time when............ Decisions were made by "flipping a coin" and mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do it over!"

Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly;"
catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening; and it wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends. Being old referred to anyone over 20 and the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better; it was a big deal to finally

be tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park;
getting a foot of snow was a dream come true;
abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare;"
Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles; the worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team;
water balloons were the ultimate weapon; and 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 their "grown up" life.

I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU

(Not my work, but well worth sharing...)

Garnet,

That was an absolutely lovely thread. Thank you so much for the fond childhood memories.

Fortunately, I haven't completely lost my "childlike" perspective on some things (although I'm too grown-up for my own tastes a lot of the time).

I have 2 boys (with a third on the way). They are currently 5 & 3.

Some of the things we've done together are:
1 - Caught fireflies.
2 - Dug in the sandbox.
3 - Played hide-n-seek.
4 - Gone to the fair for an entire afternoon.
5 - Played "cars" together (setting up the track and rolling cars down it).
6 - "Raced" from the car to the front porch.
7 - Played "chase".
8 - (And my personal favorite) Thrown rocks in the creek. I NEVER get tired of that!. We can go to the creek below our house and spend an hour just throwing rocks.

Another great tradition we've started are "Terry Stories". I made up a story one night about Terry, the Three-Horn dinosaur for bedtime - now I have to come up with a new story every night (what a challenge!)

Terry and his friends - Larry, the long-neck (brontosaurus) and Kerry, the club-tail (anklysauros) - live in LeafEater Valley and play in Blue Meadow. They are also friends with a super-sharptooth (named Sharpy). Some stories have a moral to them, some are just silly nonsense, and some end up having nothing to do with the dinosaurs at all (one day, Terry and his friends went to the river and watch odd-colored fish swim upstream and "jump" up the waterfall).

Oooops.....time to put my horn away (I've blown it enough). The point is this...anyone who has lost touch with these wonderful childhood memories can re-live them through their own children.


And - for those of you who don't have children - try these suggestions.

1. Lay in the yard and watch the clouds go by (or stars).
2. The next time you hear the ice-cream truck (if you're lucky enough to live where that still happens) go outside and RUUUUUUUUNNNN like a madman. Not only will you have a lot of fun, you should be able to outrun all the "little kids" and get your choice of ice cream.
3. Go throw some rocks in the creek. Especially if the creek is big enough to actually "skip" the stones across. (Yahoooooo)
4. Finally - take a good friend on an old fashioned "Snipe Hunt". If you don't know how to do that, I'll be glad to give you instructions (but don't let your friend see them).

<font color=skyblue>That was a cool post.

Thanks!</font>

Been there, done that. I guess that's the advantage of being a geezer... [img]smile.gif[/img] )

Well, modern kids still have fun that isnt done on a TV/Compurter screen.

When I am around other kids 60% of our time is outside. I still lay out side and "that cloud looks like a..." We still play games till the front pourch light comes on. Of course there not mother may I and such. We have our own games,hehe.

Well that applys to kids living in tiny rual towns anyway. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Great post, Garnet. I may only remember a few of those things, but hey, that I have lived is indesputable [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Miss Garnet FalconDance Ma'am, The O.L.D. C.O.O.T.S. salute you.
I have a personal theory about the moral decline of the American youth. It was not the taking of pray out of the schools.It was the '57 Chevy! Have you seen the size of the back seat? :D

That is really cool Garnet. But dont say "remember when". I am only 15 years of age, and I have done many of those things. Simple life like what you describe can still be enjoyed! [img]smile.gif[/img]

Scholarcs,

It's very much a 'remember when' for many, I'm afraid. We have always tried to teach our kids that while all the 'modern conveniences' (tv, pc, game consoles, whatever) are really neat, it's the simpler pleasures that in the end you remember. They're still talking about an *overnight* camping trip we did late last summer--and we didn't even get to stay 24 hrs! (Hubby got off work late Fri., got packed up Sat at lunchtime then back home relatively early--before dark--on Sun to get ready to start all over again)

Our daughter remains amazed that *mom* used to rollerskate--in a real rink with real music, none the less! (of course, they were only crude skates and not in-line)

I still recall with sadness buying a *big* piece of bubblegum for 2 cents and then being upset when it went to 5 cents and shrunk by half! When a quarter bought a nice candy bar with change left over. When a kid could go trick or treating, get homemade goodies from neighbors you didn't even know and it was perfectly safe to eat them!

And there is the night my cousin came to visit from out of state (we share the same first name--really cool since for years we were the ones we knew named Melody) and we captured a whole jarful of fireflies, put them on the back porch (with airholes, ofc) only to wake in the middle of the night to a blood-curdling scream as one got free and was blinking round my parent's bedroom! (still brings a smile to my face--I wonder what my mother *thought* it was?!)

Most of the simple pleasures listed are ones *we* still incorporate into our children's lives, right alongside the play station, the crpgs (it's even more fun to assume the identities in public and have people cast strange looks ;) ), and all the rest of the modern mechanical hoopla. We're lucky in that manner. Others have become lost in the tangle we call 'real life'.