When it was considered a great privilege
to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant
with your parents;
when the worst thing you could do at school was to
smoke in the bathrooms, flunk a test or chew gum;
when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car, to cruise,
peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races;
and people went steady and girls wore a class ring
with an inch of wrapped yarn so it would fit her finger.
And 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.
And you got in big trouble if you accidentally locked
the doors at home, since no one ever had a key.
Remember lying on your back on the grass with your
friends and saying things like"That cloud looks like a..."
Remember jumping waves at the beach for hours in that
cold water and playing baseball with no adults to help
kids with the rules of the game because baseball was
not a psychological group learning experience -
it was a game.
Remember when 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 wish, just once,
you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace
and share it with the children of today?
Remember 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! But we
survived because their love was greater than
the threat.
Go back with me for a minute...Before the
internet or the MAC...before semi automatics
and crack...before SEGA or Nintendo...
Way back...I'm talking about hide and go seek
at dusk, red light-green light, kick the can,
playing kickball and dodgeball until your
porch light came on and mother may I, red rover,
hula hoops, roller skating to music, running
through the sprinkler...And...Catching lighting
bugs in a jar; Christmas morning; your first day
of school: bedtime prayers and goodnight kisses;
climbing trees; getting ice cream off the ice
cream truck; a million mosquito bites and sticky
fingers; jumping on the bed; pillow fights;
running til you were out of breath; laughing
so hard your stomach hurt; being tired from
playing; your first crush...remember that?
I'm not finished yet...Kool-aid was the drink
of summer; toting your friends on your handle bars;
wearing your new shoes on the first day of school
and class field trips. Didn't that feel good,
just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that!"
Thers'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-meeny-mo" and
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. Catching
fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening;
and it wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.
Being old referred to anyone over 20 and the worst
thing you could catch from the opposite sex was cooties.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better;
it was a big deal to finally be tall enough to ride
the "big people" rides at the amusement park;
getting a foot of snow was a dream come true;
abilities were discovered on a "double-dog-dare";
spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down
was cause for giggles; the worst embarrassment was
being picked last for a team; water balloons were
the ultimate weapon; and older siblings were the
worst tormentors but also the fiercest protectors.
If you can remember most of these, then
you have lived!!!!!!!!!
Author Unknown