Join me in a trip down memory lane
Do You Remember When...
All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
It took five minutes for the TV to warm up?
Nearly everyone’s Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
Nobody owned a purebred dog?
When a quarter was a decent 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 to boot?
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 real restaurant with your parents?
They threatened to keep kids back a great if they failed...and they did?
When a ‘57 Chevy was everyone’s dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races and people went steady?
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?
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 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?
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.
Can you still remember...
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy,
Howdy Doody and the Peanut Gallery,
the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows,
Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk
Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games,
Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool,
and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
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
Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(Raymond 4-601)
Party lines - Peashooters - Howdy Dowdy - 45 RPM records
Green Stamps - Hi-Fi’s - Metal ice cube trays with levers
Mimeograph paper - Beanie and Cecil - Roller-skate keys
Corkpop guns - Drive-ins - 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
Decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney-moe”
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “Do Over!”
Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?
It wasn’t odd to have two or three “Best Friends”
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was “cooties”
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?
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 card game?
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their “grown-up life”
I double dog dare ya!
Author Unknown