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Memories!!
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Memories!! |
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Rex Allen McCoy Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863Sippin a Timmy's in London 
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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! |
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| © Copyright 2001 Rex Allen McCoy - All Rights Reserved | |||
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Rex Allen McCoy Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863Sippin a Timmy's in London |
Found this in my E-Mail ... Dear God ... I don't think it's De Ja Vu!  |
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Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648 |
Thanks for the memories, Rex! You bought a smile to my heart! Yes, I sure do remember those days! |
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Elizabeth Cor Senior Member
since 2000-10-13
Posts 879Over the river and through the woods |
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).] |
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Elizabeth
Moderator
Member Ascendant
since 1999-06-07
Posts 6871Minnesota |
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!  |
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Alicat Member Elite
since 1999-05-23
Posts 4094Coastal Texas |
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 |
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DancinQueen
since 2000-07-29
Posts 1092Kokomo,IN,USA |
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¤ |
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LoveBug
Moderator
Member Elite
since 2000-01-08
Posts 4697 |
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! |
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warmhrt Senior Member
since 1999-12-18
Posts 1563 |
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! |
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Kit McCallum
Administrator
Member Laureate
since 2000-04-30
Posts 14774Ontario, Canada |
 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).] |
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Dopey Dope
Moderator
Member Patricius
since 2000-08-30
Posts 11132San Juan, Puerto Rico |
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 |
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Isis Member Ascendant
since 1999-09-06
Posts 6296Sunny Queensland |
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. |
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Acies
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 2000-06-07
Posts 7665Twilight Zone |
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. |
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mini poet Member
since 2000-02-06
Posts 56Canada |
"Olly-olly-oxen-free"? Someone care to explain ? |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
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 |
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Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354Listening to every heart |
Nah, late, move over on the bench, because I remember it too!  |
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sewasham Senior Member
since 2006-09-11
Posts 714Oklahoma, USA |
Thanks for those great memories Rex, I enjoyed that trip down memory lane. Take care and Have fun. Steve |
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Titia Geertman Member Ascendant
since 2001-05-07
Posts 5182Netherlands |
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 |
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Klassy Lassy Member Elite
since 2005-06-28
Posts 2187Oregon |
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! |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
---------------------------------------------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).] |
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Christopher
Moderator
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-08-02
Posts 8296Purgatorial Incarceration |
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. |
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Klassy Lassy Member Elite
since 2005-06-28
Posts 2187Oregon |
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. |
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nakdthoughts Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200Between the Lines |
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 |
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Rex Allen McCoy Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863Sippin a Timmy's in London |
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 |
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sandgrain Member Elite
since 1999-09-21
Posts 3662Sycamore, IL, USA |
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 |
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Mysteria
since 2001-03-07
Posts 18328British Columbia, Canada |
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. |
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latearrival Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499Florida |
Enjoying everyone's memories. latearrival |
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Rex Allen McCoy Member Elite
since 2000-01-30
Posts 2863Sippin a Timmy's in London |
Mysteria ... I trust, no frogs are harmed in the makings of your "Swamp Water" |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
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 |
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crosscountry83 Member
since 2009-07-30
Posts 345 |
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 |
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N|D|N|C|Lost-Poet Member
since 2009-07-30
Posts 360New Orleans |
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 |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. 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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