Remember When?

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I just got this and wanted to share it with you all... Enjoy! -------------------- Remember When?

Close your eyes...And go back in time

Before semi automatics and crack... Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...

Way back...I'm talking about

Hide and seek at dusk. Red light, green light. The corner store. Hopscotch, butterscotch, doubledutch, jacks, kickball, dodgeball. Mother May I... Red Rover and Roly Poly. Hula Hoops. Running through the sprinkler. An ice cream cone on a warm summer night... Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or maybe butter pecan.

Wait...

Watching Saturday Morning cartoons... Short commercials. Fat Albert, Road Runner, The Three Stooges, Bugs & Daffy.

Or back further...

When around the corner seemed far away, And going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Zorro. Climbing trees, building igloos out of snow banks Running till you were out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Jumping on the bed. Pillow fights. Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down... Being tired from playing...Remember that? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team. War was a card game. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon. Baseball cards held in the spokes with a wooden clothespin transformed any bike into a motorcycle.

I'm not finished just yet...

When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped without asking, for free, every time... and, you didn't pay for air. When nearly everyone's mom was at home when the kids got there. When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up, if you even had one. It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents. When girls neither dated nor kissed until late high school, if then.

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!

Didn't that feel good? Just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that!"

Remember when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do over!" "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest. The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties. It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event. Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin. Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare."

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

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from "grown up" life... I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!!!

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), December 05, 2001

Answers

Hey Gary! Not only do I remember those things I can go back even farther. How about the kerosene lamps and later the Delco system? GAsoline at .32/gallon, Empire State motor oil, Brylcreme, Rose hair oil, Joe Weider weight lifting stuff, Wizzer motorbikes, Red Ryder BB guns with the wooden stock, forearm and the little leather thingy on the ring, flooberts and .22 "shorts". I can also remember the "pest control" contests with a new single shot .22 rifle as first prize-- sponsored by the local FFA.

Gulf "Crest" hi-pro gasoline, 55 chevys with the 265 ci small block engines, barkin tires, shine runnin vehicles and smokin wild grapevine or corn silks and muzzleloader rifles and shotguns that we actually hunted with 50 years ago. Making gunpowder, bows/arrows and a host of other things.

Ed Sullivan, Ted Mack and Lou Thez the Heavyweight rasslin champ of the world. Rip Hawk and his little bro---Tommy. Both "dirty" rasslers that EVERYBODY in these parts hated!

Boy, I'm sure gettin old! OLD hoot. Matt.24;44

-- hoot (hoot@pcinetwork.com), December 05, 2001.


Hoot, I remember gas wars with gas under a quarter per gallon and one place actually going into the teens on their per gallon price. I actually have a .22 single shot rifle I ran a lot of .22 short through as a kid. The old gasoline brand I remember was Sinclair with the green dinosaur as their logo and Phillips 66. My first car was an old Chevy with a 235 CID 6 cylinder with a three speed manual on the column (Three on the tree), no power steering or brakes and no radio, just a metal plate where one would have gone. I actually climbed through wrecked cars stacked five and six high in a salvage hard to retrieve an AM radio, antenna and speaker as a teen (Can you imagine the liability fears today?). I had one of those really aging experiences when I first said something to my son about a three speed on the column... he didn't believe me. I remember paper straws (something else no one in today's generation will even believe).

My Dad, a mechanic by trade, had quite a following among some 'good ol' boys' down south for whom he build cars with hot engines, shine tanks in the trunk and back seat, extra suspension, sway bars and a bank of toggle switches to control front and rear lights in case someone was chasing you. I also remember there always being a case of mason jars with a clear white liquid under the workbench in his home garage. LOL

I remember 'All Star Championship Big Time Wrestling' that was always broadcast "from the armory" somewhere. Some of the names I remember best are Koko Brazil, Yukon Moose Cholak, The Golden Boy and Dick the Bruiser "The most dangerous man in wrestling." I remember seeing Wilt Chamberlain playing for his first professional team after he left Kansas. It wasn't the 76er's, it was the Harlem Globetrotters!

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), December 06, 2001.


Wonderful Gary. It actually brought a little tear to my eye. BUT we as parents can make this kind of life happen againnfor our children! When will people quit being carried along by the fads and fashions of this world, and do the RIGHT thing???? I know everyone here is trying to raise their children with old-fashioned values. If only the whole world was...

-- Melissa (me@home.net), December 06, 2001.

OK, do ya'all remember the dancing Old Gold cigarettes on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour? How about the Gillette commercials - Get Sharp!!!

-- Barb in Ky. (bjconthefarm@yahoo.com), December 06, 2001.

I am 35 years old. There is a thread going for favourite childhood memories, but I think this one fits here.

One day when I was nine, my grandpa took me downtown (yes, this was a BIG event) and parked across from the drug store. We put a nickel in the meter for an hour's worth of time. Grandpa had business elsewhere, so he gave me 40 cents and sent me into the drugstore to get two double-dip chocolate ice cream cones (definitely NOT soft-serve). When I came back out, I waited and waited for Grandpa. The summer day was warm, and the ice cream was melting. I ate my own, but Grandpa's was dripping all down my hand. I kept licking at the drips, waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally I thought I had no choice but to eat it. When Grandpa finally came back, he asked where the ice cream cones were. I said I was sorry, but I had to eat them both because they were melting. He chuckled, gave me another 40 cents, and sent me back into the drug store for two more cones! I had three cones that day, without getting sick!

The drug store has since closed, but I remember the hard ice cream at 10 cents a scoop served at the soda fountain. Grandma taught me to play jacks. Marbles are making a come-back here at our house. Jumprope, hopscotch, Red Rover, and dodgeball are also popular. Tree houses, no-girls-allowed forts, tire swings, bubbles, snow men and snow angels...all are favourites.

Thanks, Gary, for your post. I loved it.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), December 06, 2001.



All of these posts are so great! We do have to create times like these with our kids. Does anyone remember games to play in the house, like Hide the Thimble (for Christmas we would use a small candy cane), or Puss in the Corner, or Musical Chairs, or the card game spoons. Does anyone make paper dolls anymore?

-- vicki in NW OH (thga76@aol.com), December 06, 2001.

Gary, I thought it was Bobo Brazil. My step-dad used to have coffee with Dick the Bruiser. I also remember some red headed twin wrestlers but forget their names. We used to go to those matches, they also had midget wrestlers. Much different the the WWF and whatever today.

-- Cindy (SE. IN) (atilrthehony@hotmail.com), December 06, 2001.

I am only 27 but I remember most of that. It's what I call the good old days. I grew up in a very small community. I remember going to the soda fountian with my grandpa and the man behind the counter let me "jerk"it!. I hope I can make my sons childhood as happy and memoriable as mine. Thanks for bring it to the front again!God BLess

-- Micheale from SE Kansas (mbfrye@totelcsi.net), December 06, 2001.

Lets go back a litttle farther, I remember being in Sunday school when they came in and told us about Pearl Harbor being bombed..And when candy bars were a penny and pop was a nickle...Going to the movie cost ten cents popcorn was a nickle...Coming home from school and turning on the RADIO and listening to Terry and The Pirates, Jack Armstrong the all American boy..Ilove to listen to the Heavy weight fights with Joe Lewis all the other great ones...Ahhh yes they were the good ol'days..With ration stamps and scrap drives...Radar

-- Robert (snuffy@1st.net), December 06, 2001.

Gary: Do you remember a wrestler by the name of Argentina Rocca..He used to antaginize his opponants with his toes...Radar

-- Robert (snuffy@1st.net), December 06, 2001.


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