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Rex Allen McCoy
Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863
Sippin a Timmy's in London

0 posted 2001-02-25 11:43 PM



Close your eyes.....And go back in
time......Before the internet or the
MAC, Before semi automatics and
crack....

Before SEGA or Super Nintendo.....

Way
back.....

I'm talkin' bout hide and go seek at dusk.  Sittin' on the
porch, hot
bread and butter.  The Good Humor man, Red light/Green light,
Chocolate
milk, Lunch tickets, Penny candy in a brown paper
bag.

Playin' Pinball in the corner store.  Hopscotch,
butterscotch,
Doubledutch, Jacks, kickball, dodgeball.  Mother, May
I?

Red Rover and Roly Poly, Hula Hoops and Sunflower Seeds, Jolly
Ranchers,
Banana Splits, Wax Lips and Mustaches. Running through the
sprinkler.

The smell of the sun and lickin' salty
lips......

Wait......

Watchin' Saturday Morning cartoons, Fat
Albert, Road Runner, He-Man, The
Three Stooges, and Bugs....

Or back
further, listening to Superman on the radio, Catchin' lightning
bugs in a
jar, Playing with a sling shot.

When around the corner seemed far away,
and going downtown seemed like
going somewhere.

Bedtime...Climbing
trees....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.

A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers, Cops
and Robbers, Cowboys
and Indians, Sittin' on the curb, Jumpin down the
steps....

Jumpin' on the bed.....Pillow fights, runnin' till you were out
of
breath.  Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.....Being tired
from
playin'.....Remember that?

ain't finished just
yet....

Eating Kool-aid powder with sugar.....  Remember
when.....When there
were two types of sneakers, for girls and for boys, (Keds
& PF Flyers)
  

When it took five minutes for the TV to warm
up, if  you even had one?
When nearly everyone's mom was at home when
the kids got there?  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 girls neither dated nor
kissed until late high school, if then.
When your Mom wore nylons that came
in two pieces.
When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female
teachers had
their hair done, every day.

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 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 it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to
dinner at a
real restaurant with your parents.  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 'em!

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 going
"eeny-meeney-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."

It wasn't
odd to have two or three "best" friends.
Being old referred to anyone over
20.
The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was
cooties.

It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
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.

Getting a
foot of snow was a dream come true.
Olly-olly-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.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.

Taking drugs
meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
Older siblings were the worst
tormentors, but also the fiercest
protectors.

If you can remember most
or all of these, then you have really
LIVED!!!!!!

Pass this on to
anyone who may need a break from their "grown up"
life....

I DOUBLE
DOG DARE YA!


© Copyright 2001 Rex Allen McCoy - All Rights Reserved
Rex Allen McCoy
Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863
Sippin a Timmy's in London
1 posted 2001-02-25 11:50 PM


Found this in my E-Mail ... Dear God ... I don't think it's De Ja Vu!

Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648

2 posted 2001-02-25 11:50 PM


Thanks for the memories, Rex! You bought a smile to my heart! Yes, I sure do remember those days!
Elizabeth Cor
Senior Member
since 2000-10-13
Posts 879
Over the river and through the woods
3 posted 2001-02-26 12:09 PM


You know how in elementary school, at some point during the class, the teacher will take out this lengthy laminated time line of the Earth? And show you the eras, and the millions of years in each? And the kids all gather round and look at the amount of ages that the Dinosaurs existed, and how loooong the Earth has been around...
and then the teacher points out this itty bitty little space at the end that marks how long humans have been around. And all the kids get wide eyes and you can just hear the wheels in their heads spinning, trying to comprehend the insignificance of that frame of time? Well that’s how I feel now LOL

Geesh, I don't even remember record albums...



[This message has been edited by Elizabeth Cor (edited 02-26-2001).]

Elizabeth
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Moderator
Member Ascendant
since 1999-06-07
Posts 6871
Minnesota
4 posted 2001-02-26 11:22 AM


I know Elizabeth...my childhood was Care Bears and Muppets, playing Star Wars with my cousins and sister, them playing Pac-Man, etc....*sigh* what can I say, I was an '80s child!
Alicat
Member Elite
since 1999-05-23
Posts 4094
Coastal Texas
5 posted 2001-02-26 11:45 AM


Heh...thanks Rex for the wild ride. And believe it or not, despite my 'young' age, I still recall fondly many of the things mentioned...even played all those games. Despite how I feel about the 70's as a whole, which I consider to be the ugliest, tackiest, most tasteless decade ever to be pertetrated upon mankind, it was still the decade I started out in, 1970, to be exact. Lucky for me, and I even viewed it this way back then, I was raised on a prison farm (dad was a guard) some 14 miles out of town, and grew up surrounded by the sheer beauty of Nature. And my dad, born in 30, brought to our little lives the things he enjoyed when he was our age. Shoot, he still has a huge record library...33 1/3 and 78 RPM's, and his turntable, with a penny taped to the stylus arm to prevent skipping. I grew up on slides of far away places, and reel-to-reel recordings (before us kids ruined them by rolling them down the hallway....I still remember the lickin and lecture, but deserved it). The threat which carried the most weight was indeed, 'Wait until your Father gets home.....', and unlike today, it wasn't an empty one. But all things change, not always for the better. The woods I haunted have been cleared for waterfront housing. The blackberries died off from over-pruning (they looked too cluttered and lowered property value, so they said). The tree which always held a fort, or at least a few nailed up sticks of rickety wood, was hit by lightning and cut down...not even the stump remains anymore. So though I hear, from time to time, 'Oh, how wonderful it would to go back,' some places exist only in memory, though it's sad to say.

Thanks again for the smiles and memories, Rex.

Alicat

DancinQueen
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Senior Member
since 2000-07-29
Posts 1092
Kokomo,IN,USA
6 posted 2001-02-26 03:36 PM


well i remember most of them...but the rest i wasnt born yet

¤Sometimes the hardest thing to get over, is something you never really had¤

LoveBug
Deputy Moderator 5 Tours
Moderator
Member Elite
since 2000-01-08
Posts 4697

7 posted 2001-02-26 07:15 PM


I guess I'm just too young... my childhood consisted of Mario Brothers (THE FIRST ONE!), Disney Movies, and Little House on the Prarie books. We never had an ice cream truck, either!
warmhrt
Senior Member
since 1999-12-18
Posts 1563

8 posted 2001-02-26 08:58 PM


Yes, thank you, Rex, for a very warm, nostalgic trip...chasing lightening bugs on a warm summer evening, dew on the grass, the moon and stars above...delightful!
Kit McCallum
Administrator
Member Laureate
since 2000-04-30
Posts 14774
Ontario, Canada
9 posted 2001-02-26 10:59 PM




Oh, I needed that Rex ... not only are we from the same town,
but definately the same era! I remember pretty much every single one
of these so very fondly ... smiles, smiles, smiles ... thank you for
the wonderful trip down memory lane!



[This message has been edited by Kit McCallum (edited 02-26-2001).]

Dopey Dope
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Moderator
Member Patricius
since 2000-08-30
Posts 11132
San Juan, Puerto Rico
10 posted 2001-02-27 06:29 PM


Ah yes, memories that I too had......

I may be almost 18....but I watched He-man too!



I was born myself, raised myself, and will continue to be myself. The world will just have to adjust.

I'm in love with my shadow
I admire it daily

Isis
Member Ascendant
since 1999-09-06
Posts 6296
Sunny Queensland
11 posted 2001-02-27 06:57 PM


This is absolutely brilliant Rex!!!!! The good old days, life was simplier and had more value.... I pity our kids, won't have these memories, or ones nearly as good.
I try with my five year old son, to teach him these sort of values and play these games etc, but videos are much more fun Mum!!

I've been known to say this before, (but can't resisit the opportunity now), the world back then had values, values that are lost today.. We focused on the good etc, not on our ourselves so much as we do today.. And in doing so we've lost so much...

Thanks for sharing those Rex, it's a keeper!!

Isis

*War produces one thing - Cemetaries. And in cemetaries there are no enemies!*
~Isis~~Sovereign of the Spirit.



Acies
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Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 2000-06-07
Posts 7665
Twilight Zone
12 posted 2001-02-27 07:00 PM


I don't think I'm old enough for all that
I do remember a song from the past though
it goes:
Let's do rex
rex rex bo bex
bananafana fo fex
me mi mo mex
rex


"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this give life to thee." W.S.

mini poet
Member
since 2000-02-06
Posts 56
Canada
13 posted 2009-05-13 02:37 PM


"Olly-olly-oxen-free"?
Someone care to explain ?

latearrival
Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499
Florida
14 posted 2009-05-14 12:20 PM


Rex.I think I am the only one who remembers all of it. I played every one of those games plus more. We used jack knives to play  property lines. We all had a jackknife to throw at the ground and mark off our land. I can not imagine any kid today being allowed to have a jackknfe because of the damage  it could and does cause. We never thought of doing anythng but whittle or play that game. We played  marbles, add Buck Buck, Old Mother Witch, Red Rover Red Rover, jump rope, Hopscotch, and we read books and rollar skated. We made race cars out of tomato boxes. They were long and more round at the top and narrow at the bottom. My dad had a car with a rumble seat and running boards. Boy those really were wonderful days to grow up in. And that  was  during the depression!  We used any kind of round tub for a sled and rolled down hills encased in old tires when there was no snow. Thanks for  adding this.I have  had it in my e-mail a few times and going back a few years but it is always a good reminder.   latearrival
Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
15 posted 2009-05-14 03:40 PM


Nah, late, move over on the bench, because I remember it too!




sewasham
Senior Member
since 2006-09-11
Posts 714
Oklahoma, USA
16 posted 2009-05-15 11:08 AM


Thanks for those great memories Rex, I enjoyed that trip down memory lane. Take care and Have fun. Steve


Titia Geertman
Member Ascendant
since 2001-05-07
Posts 5182
Netherlands
17 posted 2009-05-15 07:59 PM


I'll join Late and Karilea on the bench, geez, I must be getting old remembering all those things LOL.

Like scattered leaves...my words will flow

Klassy Lassy
Member Elite
since 2005-06-28
Posts 2187
Oregon
18 posted 2009-05-16 01:33 AM


I remember, too....saddle shoes and anklets, home sewn dresses to wear to school, taking lunch in a square tin box or hot lunch with a ticket. I wore my hair to grade school in braids. Mom made my brother wear a piece of one of her nylon stockings on his head at night, trying to tame his unruly cowlicks.  

I remember playing outside after dark on summer nights, weeding the entire garden for a nickle, picking up buckets of rocks from the soil, and catching grasshoppers to be used as fish bait.  (I still think my brother and I did that because the handyman wanted us out of his hair!) We had roller skates that attached to the bottom of our shoes with a key. There were a couple boards across two limbs in a locust tree that was our treehouse, and we played there near the highway for hours, with hardly a car going by.  We rode the bus to school and walked a mile after we got off coming home. Stamps were 2 cents, and I remember wondering what the red flags on the boxes were for when I was very small.

I remember tomato soup and cheese sandwiches on cold winter nights while my mom knitted mittens and whistled under her breath.  We didn't have a tv, but sometimes we listened to Glen Miller or "The Syncopated Clock" on the phonograph.  My mom read stories to us at bedtime.

I remember, too, being told to mind my manners, not to interrupt, and to be seen and not heard around adults.  We used, "Ma'am" and "Sir" or "Mr.", "Mrs." or "Miss", please and thank you, and boys and men held the doors for women. I like now, the gentility when that happens, and being able to smile at someone during the day who has done that for me.

Recently, a friend of mine asked me to come have tea at Mc Donalds.  He's 80 years young.  We had lunch, and he paid.  I was almost embarrassed that he would not let me buy my own, but he said, "I've never let a woman pay in my life; this is how it's done!"  He walked me to my car.

He would remember all those things of yesteryear and some I can not, too.  We have quite a heritage, don't we?  I am a little sad that we did not hold on to some of it better.

Oh, yes... and I remember outhouses and Grandma plucking chickens on Saturday to fix for Sunday dinner after church.  She had an ice box, not a refrigerator.  There was no plumbing in the house...and the telephone was a square black box on the wall with a bell shaped ear piece.  You spoke into the box, and operators placed your call, when the line was not being used by your neighbors.  I inherited their 8-day wind up clock which chimed on the hour and the half hour ... Yes. I remember.

Thanks for sharing!    


latearrival
Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499
Florida
19 posted 2009-05-16 09:34 AM


---------------------------------------------Klassy Lassy We share a lot of the same memories,along with Karilea and others.Here's one I had posted a while back

Simple Things

I remember the smell
of tangerine skins
slowly baking on top
of kerosene burners
Where W.P.A. workers
warmed their cold frostbitten hands
I passed them every day
on the way to school
yes, I remember
simple things.


[This message has been edited by latearrival (12-31-2005 07:53 PM).]

Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296
Purgatorial Incarceration
20 posted 2009-05-16 12:16 PM


One could point out that it is likely that these days no longer exist because those who remember/lived it failed to adequately pass it along to their children.
Klassy Lassy
Member Elite
since 2005-06-28
Posts 2187
Oregon
21 posted 2009-05-17 01:20 AM


That could certainly be part of it Christopher.  But, too, most generations look at their parents and declare they wouldn't be caught dead doing what their parents did.  Somethings don't change all that much.  LOL  I was simply remembering with a little nostalgia, life as I knew it in my younger years.  Can you go home again?  Maybe... in your mind, at least for a visit.  I enjoyed this.
nakdthoughts
Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200
Between the Lines
22 posted 2009-05-17 05:24 AM


I enjoyed this Rex and Alicat's  memories too...and remember it all.

And sad to say I agree some with Christopher's response that the need/ want for more material things in life from ours and the next generations' children and those parents wanting to give their children more without many of them "earning" or  knowing what working for them was like, whether by having good grades or allowances for "doing" not just because you think you are entitiled to it, or the keeping up with the Jones clich', etc has helped  to be the undoing of a simpler and slower pace of family life.

Of course "progress" and technology, though having its good points, has also changed the focus of family life.

M

Rex Allen McCoy
Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863
Sippin a Timmy's in London
23 posted 2009-05-17 10:55 AM


I think you've hit the nail square on Maureen ... My sons and daughter have experienced a few of these old traditions, but more so from their cousins on the farm where they spent many sleepovers for weekends and holidays ... These traditions are passed on, more frequently in our rural communities and somewhat ignored in big city cultures ... sad

sandgrain
Member Elite
since 1999-09-21
Posts 3662
Sycamore, IL, USA
24 posted 2009-05-18 12:14 PM


Well, I just turned 74. Northern Wis. is where I grew up. I recall sliding down the dirt road hills on our metal lunch boxes in the winter walking home from our one room, 8 grade school. (about 5 miles) We always had home made bread sandwiches, and I envied kids with that beautifully textured, evenly sliced boughten bread. LOL

There was a bubbler for drinking water that was pumped and hauled from the school yard. A giant jar held the peppermint smelling paste that some kids ate. Our desks had inkwells but I don't recall having ink in them. My teacher lives there and still writes to me. That school closed when I was 9, but I'd gone to one in town that last year.

Because we were on 40 acres, about 7 miles from town,  my dad would've had to pay for the line, poles and labor to have electricity and phone installed.  So instead, we had lamps. Alladin lamps had mantles (not wicks) and burned quite bright.  

Our big dome top console radio brought Fibber McGee and Mollie, Intersangtum, and  my brother had a Captain Midnight badge. Capt. Midnight  was sponsored by Ovaltine, made in Villa Park, Il. where I lived for 30 years (1974-2004).

When I was 13, my dad built a home fronting a highway, where we had all the modern utilities (party line phone) and a snowplowed road in winter. That was the primary reason for our move.

I learned to drive an old car we had with a rumble seat.  I don't remember my dad ever driving it, but I drove in a figure 8, on the 5 acres next to our home.  The clutch grabbed, so it never started rolling, it lept.

Yep, I'm older than dirt and had a lot of fun getting here.

  God bless,
   Rae

Mysteria
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Member Laureate
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328
British Columbia, Canada
25 posted 2009-05-18 04:01 AM


I remember all that, and drinking from the hose, lighting bullrushes down at the passion pit, wearing my roller skate key around my neck with my steady's ring, wearing two different shoes, wearing my sweaters backwards down to get a cherry coke at the local hangout.  I remember being a carhop at the "Dog and Suds" and rollerskating to the cars to take their order.  I remember swamp water, which I stil love to this day.

Oh but those really were great days.  I am sure my Mother, and her Mother before her had a completely different list, and said the exact same thing as I am saying today.

Great post Rex.

latearrival
Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499
Florida
26 posted 2009-05-18 08:55 AM


Enjoying everyone's memories. latearrival
Rex Allen McCoy
Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863
Sippin a Timmy's in London
27 posted 2009-05-18 09:17 AM


Mysteria ... I trust, no frogs are harmed in the makings of your "Swamp Water"


Falling rain
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Member Elite
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178
Small town, Illinois
28 posted 2009-06-04 01:11 AM


Oh I can remember sitting on my grandpa's lap as he told his stories of his childhood. This just took me town memory lane. Thank you for putting a smile on my face.

-Zach

crosscountry83
Member
since 2009-07-30
Posts 345

29 posted 2009-08-04 05:48 PM


I'm only 15, so I can't say I've known of any of this.  I wish I had though, it seems like a much better world.

Rileigh

N|D|N|C|Lost-Poet
Member
since 2009-07-30
Posts 360
New Orleans
30 posted 2009-08-04 09:23 PM


I remember sitting on my porch with my grandfather, listening to the tales of old.

The grandfathers of the neighborhood drinking beer, smoking and forever bold.

I remember the tales of the 'True childhood'

The- Walking a mile just to pick cotton, a nickle a day.

To going down to the corner store to buy a gallon of gas, a soda pop and a candy bar for one dollar.

They all say "Those where the days, kids these days have no respect, no sense of loyalty or dignity.'

I grew up with Sega, Nintendo, where you went to the principal office it was a joke.

Where in middle school you were offered a smoke.

Gameboys and Ipods, electronic toys oh the joys

Days of my old? Complaining that the cables out.

Suns too hot, and the parents shout. Leave the house, no girls around.

'Cause they all with the older boys. That's my childhood, always will be. You'll never see. Those of us that lived those days? Lived a real childhood, in the new generation ways.

-LostPoet

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde

Huan Yi
Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688
Waukegan
31 posted 2009-08-20 07:19 PM


.


Oh the time before personal computers
when accountants used to sleep on their desks
while closing the month's books.

When a man did the "right thing" forever
even though it was by the wrong woman.

When death before fifty was a lot more common . . .
Even children.

When a black man or immigrant Eastern European
had to watch himself a half hour south of town
in the land of KKK.

The arms race, the USSR.
Duck and cover.

Care to add to this list . . .

The good old days were good
because you were young and dumb
and had no idea what was going on
around you.

If it meant I could be young again, of course I would go back,
otherwise good riddance.

.


[This message has been edited by Huan Yi (08-20-2009 07:55 PM).]

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