What do you miss the most?
Moms View Message Board: General Discussion: Archive June 2006:
What do you miss the most?
I was thinking tonight about something from my childhood that I miss that isn't around much anymore, and I thought it would make a nice thread. When you think about something from your childhood that you miss that isn't around anymore, post it here.
I miss Ritzee Hamburger stands. There is still one open in Battle Creek, but I think it's the only one left. There were several in Battle Creek, Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids. I remember going in there as a little girl in the 70's and getting our food and eating in the car. I loved the atmosphere in there.
click here for a pic of the Grand Rapids location
pic of the sign and restaurant frontage at the one remaining Ritzee in Battle Creek (go to the bottom of the page)
I also miss A&W drive ins. We also used to go there and get our food at the car. My favorite thing was batter dipped onion rings and a frosty glass mug of A&W Root Beer. There are only 4 locations left in Michigan, and they are all a 3 hour drive from me. At least I can still buy the root beer.
I grew up with an A&W drive-in 
I miss the innocence that I grew up with. The safety I felt. Growing up with and graduating with the same group of kids. I wish my children could have the same childhood I did.
As far as a particular thing, I would say drive-in movies. It was so much fun to go as a family (and later as a group of friends) and watch a movie at the drive-in.
Besides being to pick on my older brother and get away with it? hhhmmm....
Besides jelly bracelets?
And, besides big bangs? tee hee jk
I guess pudding pops!!!! Here's the petition to get them back!!!
Pudding Pops Petition
OMG! Pudding Pops are no longer made???? I had no idea! I thought I bought some just a couple of years ago- or was that some knock-off brand?
I found them!!
I don't know for sure, but I think they started making them again in 2004. they are made by Popsicle, a division of Breyer's.
http://www.icecreamusa.com/products/ind_product.asp?upc=77567-02023&brand=popsicle&type=
I'm not sure what I miss necessarily, but what I LOVED was the Coke machines with the little bottles in them. My dad ran a gas station when I was very young but I remember going there and him ALWAYS putting the money in and opening the little door on one side where you could see all the little Coke bottles. I loved those!
The pudding pops they have now just aren't the same! I miss the jello-pops...Did anyone ever eat those? Mmm mmmmmm!!! They were delicious!!!!
I also loved those tall bottles of Pepsi! I'm a Coke girl now (or I was until my medication stopped me from drinking it!) but the memories I have of sharing one of those bottles of Pepsi with my dad....
I miss walking to the park with my friend and riding "around the block" on our bikes together.
And spending our evenings in the alley that ran between my house and my friend's house.
And being able to go the pool with my best friend and spend the entire day there without our parents when we were in the fifth and sixth grade....
I guess what I miss most was the small town innocence and safety so that we were able to do those things, play outside till it was dark at the park a block away from my house....
Walk to the store on the corner a couple of blocks away with my favorite cousin and be amazed at the small paper sack of candy we came away with when we each only had a dollar!
Things that my children will never get to experience. That makes me sad. But time changes everything and I am doing everything I can to make plenty of memories for them to look back on and say "I sure loved.... and I sure miss...."
Oh! I just remembered! I used to get Chipper Sandwiches from our local Dairy Queen in OH where I grew up. It was Vanilla Ice Milk between two huge chocolate chip cookies and rolled in tiny chocolate chips! My favorite ice cream ever! And you could only find it at certain Dairy Queens.
And then the Dairy Queen there burned down, and when they rebuilt it, they rebuilt it all fancy, and they didn't get back all of their "specialties" that made it unique (the smaller one was only open during the summer months!) and so no more Chipper Sandwiches.
I haven't ever seen them anywhere else. The ones you occasionally see prepackaged in ice cream coolers just don't compare. I sure do miss those!
There is a drive-in that opened near us (20 miles or so) about 3 years ago. DD loves to go to the drive-in. Dh turns the seat around in the back of the van and we watch in comfort. Or we go with a bunch of families with blankets and lawn chairs. It takes me home.
What do I miss? Sundrop or Dr. Pepper in a glass bottle. The old Moon Pie (the one they have now just isn't the same). The Sweettart that was about the size of a child's fist. Sitting in the balcony at our town's one and only movie theater. Sir Cecil Creep and the Creep Show. Dial telephones--I loved to play with them. Mutual of Omaha's Wild KIngdom with Marlin Perkins (was that his name?).
We have a drive-in restaurant, about 10 miles away, that serves rootbeer in frosty mugs. They used to be affiliated with A&W, but liked using local suppliers. A&W wanted them to get their supplies from the corporate suppliers, so they dropped the franchise. It's just called Chester's now, but is like the A&W restaurants you knew as a kid.
I miss when chocolate bars were a dime, and bigger than they are now at sixty five cents. I miss when a pound of coffee was a true sixteen ounces. I miss when comic books were a dime and a quarter for the big annual edition.
I miss reading comic books on the porch on a summer night with my best friend, and my Mom letting us "camp out" on the porch all night, with the kitchen door open so she could hear us if we needed her. I miss staying out playing badminton or volleyball until the street lights came on. I, too, miss bike riding and going to the drive in. I miss going to my Grandma's for Sunday dinner after church. The grown ups would all sit out on the porch or in the yard, and we kids would go for a walk, or wade in a stream,or catch ladybugs.
I miss the simplicity of life in the fifties. As already mentioned, the safety and innocence. All of the neighbors knew you and looked out for you. If you were where you shouldn't be, your parents got a phone call before you could even make it home.
I miss the standards of propriety. There were subjects and products not discussed on TV, or in mixed company. Movies entertained, and you could bring the whole family. A family vacation consisted of a car trip to a nearby state, with lunch being a picnic on the side of the road, instead of a fast food place. We stayed in a two room cabin in the mountains, with my parents in one room, and my sister and I in the other, telling each other ghost stories before we went to sleep.
I miss my Dad reading me the comic pages of the newspaper. He always smelled like sawdust and fresh tobacco. I miss feeling completely safe, knowing that as long as my parents were around, nothing bad could happen.
Life SEEMED simple then. Of course, I viewed it from a child's perspective. Now that I am a parent and grandparent, I am sure that my parents struggled, as they did not have as much, financially, as DH and I do. I'm sure that there were still people whose intentions were harmful. We didn't have the advances in medicine that we have today. In fact, we had one doctor for everything. He treated all of us, and even made house calls. I remember my parents paying him in cash.
Someday, our children will look back with their own memories, with the rough edges blurred by time, as ours are.
Deanna - I remember the Coke machines that were really a huge ice chest, and it was on the honour system. You paid your money, opened the top of the cooler, where the glass Coke bottles sat in ice and water. You pulled one out, and opened the bottle on an opener attached to the front of the cooler.
I miss my childhood house and all the land around it we could explore.
I also really, really, really miss my family's ColecoVision video game system. I downloaded an emulator and we can play the old games on my daughter's PC (she loves them) and the memories the sounds of those games bring back...I'm considering buying one on Ebay.
Yes Holly! Those are the ones I'm talking about!!
Adena, I know what you mean about the small town innocence. The town where I grew up was small but full of Civil War history. It had a little general store where you could buy penny candy and fill a little bag for about a dollar. My friend and I could explore the town and be gone all day and at night we would play kick-the-can at her house with our friends. We would be out playing until real late, sometimes not until 10 or 11 at night. At Halloween, which was perfectly innocent when we were little and not considered worshippping satan if you went trick-or-treating, we would start at sundown and walk the entire town filling our bags to the brim with candy, and there was a lady in town who used to give out whole candy bars. (I loved that so much that if we get trick-or-treaters, I give out big candy bars. We never get more than 12 anyway.) We felt perfectly safe. I miss that. I also remember exploring my friends house which was old and found a very old gun & sword, which we were careful to give to her dad and lots of secret passageways. They suspected the house was part of the Underground Railroad.
I hate that there is such a stigma against Haloween these days.
What I miss the most is the things that I never did. Parks, spend the night parties, going off with friends, vacations to the beach and so on. I grew up in a very strict house and I was not allowed to do much of anything. I guess I try to make up for it by doing it all with my kids. I do my best to cram as much fun into their lives as I can. I think they enjoy it!! I know I do.
Kresges or Woolworths - the Five & Dime stores, where you could buy sewing needles & thread, stockings, candy, pet supplies, toys, and almost anything you'd need, all under one roof and all cheap.
Wow, I am almost in tears- I am such a sentimental fool!
I, too, miss the innocence. There was no such need for parents to teach their kids about "stranger danger" and keep them in after dark.
At the church I attended as a girl, they had an old Coke machine. For 35 cents, you opened a small door and the bottles were in slots, a row of 8 vertical slots, and you pulled the bottle out of the slot. I used to drink Pepsi out of the glass bottle, too, and when I went to grandma's house, she always had Red Pop and we'd have ice cream floats.
I miis the cats that always hung around grandma. She was known as the "Cat Lady" because it seemed that stray cats always knew where to find her. She had 14 cats at one time, including a litter of 4 kittens. One summer I went to play at her house for 2 weeks, and it was the most fun I had ever had. Then the following year, one of the mama cats had a litter of 8 littens, and she said NO MORE and found a farm for them to go live on. She kept 2 of them until she died.
I've been thinking of this since it was first posted. The first thing that came to my mind was my dad. Truly, all I really miss is the people who are now gone. We have such a close family, and I miss them all so badly.
We still have a drive in a few minutes away, and we took the kids for the first time last year. They loved it! We still have A&W in the next town, although I think it's drive thru instead of drive-in. We also have pop in glass bottles again, but I don't think my kids have had it. We're not big pop drinkers. Although the candy isn't as cheap, my kids love going to the dollar store to fill their little bags and carry them around with them. They can walk around town with their friends, and always have kids over to play with. I love that we live in a fairly small town. Although I am a huge worrier, I do believe they are safer here than a lot of other places. I'm sure my mom and dad felt the same way when we were kids in the 60's.
I miss Slush Puppies. Slurpees just don't compare to those!
Mmmmmm.... We can still get Slush Puppies around here! And we even get to make our own, so you can control how sweet you make them. Nope, slurpees don't compare! We love those little teeny ice balls in the slush puppies!
Dannon Chocolate-covered Raspberry Frozen Yogurt Bars.....
I know what you guys mean about the small-town thing. We are raising our children in the SAME small town we grew up in ----but it's NOT the same world it used to be, and the innocence has slipped away  I can't let my kids do most of the things I used to do, because it's just not SAFE anymore
I miss the freedom that children had to be on their own. I miss that chance to discover your strengths and weaknesses, without an adult there to lean on. I miss being able to satisfy the spirit of curiosity that was part of childhood.
It was NEVER safe. I sincerely believe that the world holds no more threats to children than it did decades ago. The only difference is that we now know of every incident. Molestations were handled in house, by an uncle or big brother who beat the crap out of the perv. The families didn't go to the police, call the newspapers or hire lawyers. Maybe it wasn't the best way, but it did allow us to run and play without frightened parents clutching at us. We were more street smart and knew better how to avoid some people who might hurt us. Children are so protected today, they are sitting ducks if their guardians glance away. We knew better how to read people, because we were exposed to all sorts of people. We learned how to spot the bad guys. I'll get off my soap box now. It just kills me to see the way children are restricted today.
I wanted to add this, I subscribe to two wonderful magazines that maybe some of you are familiar with or not. But one is Reminise and the other is Reminise Extra, they are two of the most wonderful magazines and feature all of the things from the "good old days" that we all miss, I would never be without a subscription to either of these magazines! They are put out by Reminen Publications, who also publishes Taste of Home, Birds and Blooms, etc. Just wanted to pass that along. I enjoyed reading all of your stories!! And Bea, I agree with you and the others about the restriction on our children, we are so fearful and with good reason, and we watch our children like a hawk because you can't trust anyone these days...
I was a city kid. We played on the block and "Up the alley". Our lawns and yards were smaller than most living rooms today. We cut a rubber ball in half, and played box ball in the alley, or skated on the sidewalks with our metal skates. We played Red Rover and Stone School and Pony Express with our wagons. On Saturday mornings, we'd be up and out before our parents were awake. We'd get called home for breakfast and chores. I had to scrub the basement steps, and the enclosed porch out front. Then, with a quarter in our pockets, we'd walk about a mile to the movies to see about 5 cartoons and a "B" movie. We rode buses and subways without our parents, and walked to school alone from kindergarten on. There were no seat belts and the windshield on our car was in two pieces with a seam in the middle, a pain when you ended up in the middle seat at the drive-in. We adored horror movies, and thought waking up from a nightmare was the price you paid for such a great scare.
We made our own fun back then. We created a circus, using sheets and old blankets stretched from porches to the concrete. We performed tumblesaults, and sword fights with trash can lids for shields, and broomsticks as weapons. We rigged a swing, and hung upside down. We trained our pets to do tricks, and charged our peers a nickle to view our talents. We created worlds in a vacant lot with craters blasted in the dirt, to remove trees for a building that never rose. Now it was ours to control The craters were fox holes, and we commandos, or brave explorers of a comet-pocked planet. We pulled sleds to the park in winter, often returning with noses bleeding or teeth missing from another failed attempt on suicide hill. When weather forced us inside, we had games like Chinese Checkers, War and Fish, comics to read, records to play, and brothers to wrestle. Our bikes were mighty stallions. Our mutts were Rin Tin Tin. Our wagons braved the distant west, and circled to fight the Indians attacking us. We sold Kool Aid on summer days, raked leaves in autumn and shoveled walks in winter to supplement our meager allowances. We pulled orders in our wagons for women who walked to buy groceries, before a two car home was normal. We jumped higher in our Keds, sweated under coonskin caps, ate Wonder-bread, Fluff and Skippy sandwiches, smoked candy cigarettes and said "Yes Ma'am" and "Yes Sir" when addressed by adults. I wish I could give all that to my grand daughter.
Ahhhh, Those were the days bea!!! Boy I wish I could give those times to my children, and my new grandson who is 12 months old. I love reading those stories, I could listen to them all day!!! I guess that's why I subscribe to reminise!!
My son does a lot of the same stuff I did - go to the public pool or someone's backyard pool, hang with the neighbor kids, catch wasps in jars, sleep in tents, make a fort under the trampoline (granted today there is an extension cord that hooks up the Xbox in the fort), play marathon games (although instead of Hearts or Monopoly, it's Runscape or Star Wars Battlefront II), stay up all night, buy ice cream from the ice cream truck, ride bikes, explore creeks and get extraordinarily dirty.
Probably the only thing I did that my son doesn't do is walk home from elementary school and some days we even took the city bus the 8 blocks home much to the horror of the city bus driver who hated us. There is a city bus stop by my son's private school and some of the high schoolers ride it (it goes to the train station and the kids then take the train home). Maybe someday my son will ride it although we are close enough he would get off well before it got to the train station.
Oh there is another, we used to jump off the roof to the trampoline which my son would never do, if we had a trampoline. I have seen the neighbor boy jump off his roof into their swimming pool though so I guess jumping off the roof is still alive and well.
I can really see the difference when we go to this one park though. My son and his friends love this park because along the side of it there is a creek with trails all around it in a forest. The creek is the only reason my son goes there. He doesn't care anything about the playground equipment. But when we go I see the majority of the parents don't allow their kids to play near the creek even though it's perfectly legal to do so. I hear the parents say, "I don't want you to get dirty. I don't want you to get wet. I don't want to walk around the trails with you..." That's more the parents deal than a loss of the good ole days.
Bea, that was beautiful! I had family who lived in Baltimore City and there was a store a few blocks down where we used to buy candy and soda. My parents had no problem letting us do that by ourselves. I would never in a million years let my daughter do that. It is a shame.
Playing after dark on my street (I can't imagine EVER letting my DD do that), and like Mommmie mentioned...walking to and from school! I went to a neighborhood elementary so I walked to/from school everyday. I also could walk home for lunch, which I did often, and had lunch with my Daddy and watched Perry Mason.
Those were the good 'ole days, that's for sure.
well the first thing that came to mind was my Dad. He died when i was 14, i miss him the most of course.
I also miss riding my bike to the corner drug store with my 4 friends and buying all kinds of candy.
Playing kickball in the cul de sac with the neighborhood kids
staying up and catching fireflies
Camping with my family, especially dad. Waking up in the camper to the smell of bacon cooking. Sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows, dad singing silly camp songs.
Summer Day camp at the park. My 4 best friends and i went every summer. We spent the entire day at the park, every day for six weeks in the summer time. We didn't have parents telling us what and what not to do...just some teenaged camp counselors who were not nearly as worrisome as our parents were. We would arrive by 9:00a.m, fish in the pond, play sports, go for walks, eat lunch, swim at the pool for hours and pretty much just hang out all day by ourselves. We'd buy candy and snacks at the concession stand too. Once a week we would have a field trip to Geauga Lake (amusement park), or putt putt or some other fun place. It was the best time.
Someone mentioned soda in glass bottles, I have a nice reminder of a glass bottle of root beer, I dropped it on my foot and have scars on 2 toes. LOL! So, things that I miss... playing in the treehouse for hours, running through the woods looking for the Jersey Devil, all-night diners, and cheesesteaks. These are all things from my hometown and childhood, so I guess they aren't truly gone, but very distant to me now. Here are two blast from the past... Pepsi Crystal (or something like that) and Pepsi Kona, I remember both of those drinks briefly on the market. There also used to be these drinks (I just looked it up, it was called Orbit) with little orbs of goo (think lava lamp) in them, they were pretty gross, but still cool!
Bellajoe, I went to Geauga Lake once with my cousins when they were taking care of me while my dad was having back surgery! We also went to Sea World, which at the time wasn't too far away. I don't think either one still exist there, now....
I agree with Mommie - my son does many of the things I did at his age and more! He gets extra dirty most days (that's how we rate how fun the days are!), swims, plays with friends until after dark, etc.
The one thing I'm going to allow him to experience ths summer that I did as a child is BEING BORED a little bit. He needs to have some very lazy, do nothing, days. My mother never would have kept as busy as we often do. Those times really allowed us to savor the summer and we didn't even realize it!
Adena,
Sea World and Geauga Lake were bought out by Six Flags several years ago. They made the entire area a Six Flags Worlds Of Adventure. I never went there, but i have heard that it was pretty crummy and dirty.
I think the people who own Cedar Point bought that Six Flags and made it back into Geauga Lake. The Sea World area is now a water park (part of Geauga Lake).
I miss Sea World, it was so fun and would have been a great place to take the kids.
Thanks for letting me know! I used to live in OH. I went to Cedar Point several times every summer. Another thing I miss so much!!! No amusement park tops it in my book! I'm glad that it's back to being Geauga Lake, though I miss Sea World, too, and would have loved to have taken my kids there, too. I have family we visit in OH often, and we visit Toledo Zoo some. Another of my missed things. Going to Toledo Zoo every summer, and as a field trip with my school.
We used to have such wonderful field trips with school. Now they don't have such great field trips anymore. I wish my kids could experience the excitement of a great school field trip like the bus ride an hour and a half away to an all day trip to a fantastic zoo!
I had a long response for this last night and my cable connection burped or something. GRRRRRRRRRR
Anyway..................much of what I miss has already been posted, but I'll just name the most important ones...........
I miss neighborhoods being safe enough for kids to play in their yards, down the street, around the corner.
I miss neighbors who genuinely cared for your family and would look out for you and your kids as though you were part of their family.
I miss catching fireflies in jars at dusk.
I miss lazy summer days on summer break after school ended for the year.
I miss going to the beach before all the major beaches of the country became so commercialized with high rises, attractions and motorized beach toys. I used to go to the beach every summer - and I'm talking 45 years ago - when the beaches were clean and the native grasses, etc. were undestroyed. You rented wooden beach houses with screened porches, and huge rooms with bunk beds, and ceiling fans, and had a boardwalk from the beach house to the beach, so you didn't get those sticky/thorny things in your feet. *Garbage* trucks rode the length of the beach at sunrise to pick up the jelly fish that had come in at high tide during the night. You had to drive *into town* to get to the local amusement park, which was similar to what you find at a fair nowadays, so the area on the beach was as it was originally intended to be - unspoiled.
I miss drinking cokes out of a bottle, slightly frozen.
I miss the safe feeling I had when the whole family vacationed, or went boating on the weekends - time didn't matter, and it was OK for Dad to let you drive the boat at age 8 or 9 or 10, because there wasn't a lot of boat traffic, and all your friends' dads were letting them do the same, so all of them made sure you never got too close to them in the water.
I miss going to the movies with $.50 - $.35 to get in, and $.15 for snacks, which bought popcorn, a coke and a big box of Junior Mints. You could also stay and watch the movie again and not have to pay again.
As Bea posted, "I miss the freedom that children had to be on their own. I miss that chance to discover your strengths and weaknesses, without an adult there to lean on. I miss being able to satisfy the spirit of curiosity that was part of childhood." When I was a child, I had an adventurous spirit, and I'd get up early on a Saturday morning, pack a lunch, and go *exploring* for the entire day in the woods and hills in our area. It was totally safe for me to be gone from 8 AM till the sun started to go down. I'd climb trees, cross streams, etc. I had nothing but my own thoughts and curiosity with me, there were no worries about being abducted, I'd run into other kids doing the same. It was a peaceful/personal growth sort of time.
I miss skating with friends till it got dark - and I'm talking the kind of skates that had keys to tighten, and metal wheels!
I miss lemonade stands, and all the neighborhood kids having *talent* shows in someone's back yard in the summer and inviting the neighbors to watch. And they came!
I miss spending the day at the country club pool with my friends. There was also a dock platform at the lake at the same club, and you could swim there too. A lifeguard was present so it was totally safe.
I miss canoeing in the lake that we lived on. Friends' families had their own canoes and we'd go out on our own.
I miss kids being taught basic survival skills and being expected to be responsible, and trusted to use their common sense, so they COULD go do things by themselves, use their minds and draw on their own imaginations and creativity.
As Hol said, "I miss the simplicity of life in the fifties. As already mentioned, the safety and innocence. All of the neighbors knew you and looked out for you. If you were where you shouldn't be, your parents got a phone call before you could even make it home.
I miss the standards of propriety. There were subjects and products not discussed on TV, or in mixed company. Movies entertained, and you could bring the whole family. A family vacation consisted of a car trip to a nearby state, with lunch being a picnic on the side of the road, instead of a fast food place. We stayed in a two room cabin in the mountains, with my parents in one room, and my sister and I in the other, telling each other ghost stories before we went to sleep."
As Adena said: "I guess what I miss most was the small town innocence and safety so that we were able to do those things, play outside till it was dark at the park a block away from my house....
Walk to the store on the corner a couple of blocks away with my favorite cousin and be amazed at the small paper sack of candy we came away with when we each only had a dollar!"
I miss living in a place where all the local merchants knew you, and spoke to you and called you by your name.
I miss that going out to dinner was a special event, you dressed appropriately and were EXPECTED to use your best manners and behave. And you did.
I miss the school Halloween fair we had every year. Every classroom had a theme or an *attraction*. There were cake walks and hay rides, all of your friends were there and so were their parents.
I miss staying in a tent in the back yard overnight with friends (and no yards were fenced then, and they were HUGE}. We had snacks and flashlights and literally talked and told stories until we fell asleep.
I love modern conveniences and electronics and many other things, but I miss the way life was back then, when kids were expected to be responsible, could handle themselves in simple situations, and it was safe for them to be outside, and even places other than their own neighborhood in a group, because someone always knew what to do if something happened. The world has changed, the family structure has changed, life has changed. Nothing will ever be the way it was. It makes me feel sad for kids today, and even my kids, who are grown now, because they could never experience so many things I did while growing up.
I'm sure our kids will have memories of their own, but it doesn't seem quite the same.
Kelly - I LOVE "Reminise" magazine!!! It brings back so many memories! I also have two video tapes of old TV commercials. They are a hoot!
I miss my summer vacation at Grandma's house. My sisters and I would go every summer to Friona, TX. My Dad's parents lived on a farm to the North of Friona and my Mom's parents parents lived on a farm to the South of Friona... We would stay several weeks with each set of granparents every summer. I have so many memories with them on the farms. Riding the tractors, combines and grain trucks. Hoeing cotton and getting paid for it. Mowing grandma's yard on the riding mower and many times we wouldnt even be mowing she would just let us drive it around. lol Helping in the gardens which were always about an acre or 2- so lots too do!! Eating corn on the cob picked fresh that day or okra or squash!!! Yum!!! Eating watermelon fresh from the garden. mmmmmm They always took us to the public pool, the library, vacation bible school, and shopping. One grandma always had crafty projects or sewing projects to teach us how too do each summer.
I miss those days so much it hurts inside. lol So many happy memories with them.
I do many of the same things with my kids. We even tried to have a garden last summer- but my puppy destroyed it. So we will have to fence off an area and try again soon!
I miss being with my sisters too. We had so much fubn together as kids. I also miss pudding pops!!!! Those were the best.
Bea - All the activities that you mentioned brought back SO many memories!! Why don't our kids and grandkids play that way anymore? We didn't have fancy gadgets and electronics, but I think we made better use of our imagination and creativity.
Yikes- when I started this thread I had no idea how much of an impact it would have. I just wanted it to be fun, and instead I'm sitting here bawling! 
But please, keep going!
Had the wierdest dream last night. I was one of those kids in one of those olde time small towns with one of those care free childhoods. I know it was set in 1964, and I knew that I was back in time as a kid from the future. I looked down the street at the stores- the general store, the 5 and dime, the ice cream and soda shop, the toy store, the gas station, the auto repair shop, the police station. It was like Mayberry. I was running around with some friends, barefoot and fancy free. We had gotten ice cream treats, and then we had money left over to pick out a toy. I saw a set of jacks, wooden airplane kits, and best of all, model cars. Not the kind you put together, but they were like Matchbox cars, and they were models of real cars, like the 57 Chevy. They were all vintage and brand new. You could have gotten a fortune for them on ebay! It was SO REAL!
Then all at once, I woke up.
Weird!!!!! But reading these posts will stir up memories of the past.
But I was born in 1969 and I never really lived in a Mayberry-type small town!
Debbie, Oh I wish I had known that you liked those sodas. Over Memorial Day Weekend when I went to NC to visit family, I have a dr. Perrper in the bottle but the Sun Drop( my first timeever hearing of it) I'm used to Mello Yellow, I could only find in the long neck plastic 20oz bolltes.
Melissia. Oh girl you now thats right. A slurpee ( we drink htem when we have too) but now that the gas station on the corner from our house ( I mean literly across the street) we can get a slush puppy, thats what the cold beverage of choice is in ym house . My son is 2 yeas old he doesn't even knwo what a slurpee is . a cousin offered him some he said noooo. But he took the swig slush puppy that DS was drinking on. Oh and did I mention that htey coem inthe original slurpee cups with the white ( what is he a dog) on them , and you can still collect the points liek the old days for stuff.
But as far as what I miss, I guess that I would just have to say the sense of freedom, innocence. Folks didn't hurt one another back when I was littel liek they do know.
Going to house parties with my mom( family and friends' of cousr) the adults would cook, play card adn dance, while you and too many cousins to count on your hand would be outside enjoying a game a tag , where I had this one cousin that could always find the best hiding places that he sometimes werent' found during the whole game.
I was born fairly close to the 80's so here in the Nation's Capital things changed fairly quickly for me.
BUt I loved playign hopshotch, dodge ball, mother may I and just being able to go out and ride your bike with friend's and being allowed to explore the neighborhood with out your mom's worrying out of her mind.
And most of all, all thought I was 27 years old when she said good bye. I miss my mommy so much that it still hurts my heart to say anything about her. I'ts been 5 will be 6 yrs. this October but it just still hurts. I'm not sure if it's becue I'm a only child all Ihave is my own kids now no one else, or is it becaue I found her .
Oh I'm so sorry ladies This is a wonderful, beautiful, exciting, and fun topic, I do hope I didnt' ruin it. I'm sorry. But thanks for lettign me reminince.
|
Members
