Do You Remember? I Do!

It took five minutes for the TV warm up? (I think my Mom and Dad said they bought their first television in 1952).

Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school? (I remember my mom being home everyday waiting to hear about our day. And, there was always some kind of afternoon snack).

Nobody owned a purebred dog? (I only remember mutts or strays. The only exception I recall was Velvet who was a purebred black female Schnauzer we got in New Jersey and was a member of our family for many years).

That's me on the left with Velvet and Cotton while living in Brookfield, Georgia. And, then me above in the wheelbarrow with Velvet at the same home. Why I was sitting in the wheelbarrow in my houseshoes, I don't seem to remember. When Velvet died she was buried on the property.

When a quarter was a decent allowance? (I think my allowance finally made it to fifty cents).

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces? (Forget Mom...I wore nylons that came in two pieces as well as a garter belt).

All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels? (Maybe that's why I had a crush on Mr. Calvin Cowles in the 6th grade)?

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? (Yep, I remember all that).

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box? (Wow, I had forgotten about all that. That's how Mom collected our drinking glass sets).

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents? (I remember most of all the NCO Club in Japan. We used to go there every Sunday after church, if I remember, and I always had the fried rice. The best I remember ever eating).

When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady? (Well, we had the 57 Chevy stationwagon named Betsy - everything else I don't remember).

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? (I remember the cloud thing with my mom as one of my favorite memories. I even did the same thing with Corey and my daycare kids).

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 just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace,and share it with the children of today? (I certainly do. I remember coming home from school, changing into my "play clothes" and then heading outside to play. We always came running home though when we heard Mom ring the brass bell Dad brought back from Morocco)

(About the bell...it is now in the possession of Aunt Nancy since she had more children and now has more grandchildren).

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. (Amen)!

I remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Howdy Doody and the Peanut Gallery, Sky King (I had a crush on him), the Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with Trigger and Buttermilk and the original Bonanza when it wasn't reruns.
I remember Hula Hoops, mixing Kool-Aid powder with sugar containing Red Dye #40 and cyclamates and double dog dares. I remember candy cigarettes, wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles, diners with tableside jukeboxes, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.

Newsreels before the movie, telephone numbers with a word prefix...(PARK 35496 - the first telephone number I every memorized). Party lines, Hi-Fi's, 45 RPM records and 78 RPM records! Green Stamps, metal ice cubes trays with levers, Mimeograph paper, Roller-skate keys, cowgirl outfits, drive-in movies, washtub wringers and Reel-To-Reel tape recorders.

Also, Tinkertoys, Erector Sets, Lincoln Logs, 15 cent McDonald hamburgers (and a full meal with change from your dollar bill), Barbie dolls, 5 cent packs of baseball cards with that awful pink slab of bubble gum. penny candy, 27 cent a gallon gasoline, Jiffy Pop popcorn and decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe". (That's me (on the left) on Christmas Day about 1961 with my new Barbie Doll. You can't see her very well since she was dressed in her delicate pink peignoir robe and gown. I still have her and many of her clothes).

Remember mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!", catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening, the worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties", having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot and Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures.

I also remember "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense, spinning around getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles and the worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. War was a card game, baseball cards in your bicycle spokes transformed it into a motorcycle, taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin and water balloons were the ultimate weapon.

What else do you remember?