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Are you old enough to remember:

When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

Candy cigarettes?

Coffee shops with tableside juteboxes?

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers?

The Fuller Brush man?

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe?"

"Race issues" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Party Lines?

I remember so well.



The tiny bottles of milk we had to drink at school, it was frozen in the winter and warm in the summer but we had to drink it whatever.

Plimsoles with cardboard inside to cover the hole and got wet through when it rained.

Old undies used as dishcloths and dusters

Wearing a vest in the winter that was tucked into your knickers

Lil~Basco wrote: Are you old enough to remember:

When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

Candy cigarettes?

Coffee shops with tableside juteboxes?

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers?

The Fuller Brush man?

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe?"

"Race issues" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Party Lines?


I remember several of these myself! What about - when going out to eat was a rare treat?

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and I used to eat it raw sometimes too, our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag not in icepack coolers, but I can't remember getting ecoli?

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.

We all took gym, not PE ... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training ath letic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries, but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now. Flunking gym was not an option. Even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

Every year, someone taught the whole school a lesson [and provided comic relief] by running in the halls with leather soles on linoleum tile and hitting the wet spot. How much better off would we be today if we only knew we could have sued the school system.

Speaking of school, we all said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the National Anthem and getting detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. I can't understand it.

Schools didn't offer 14 year olds an abortion or condoms (we wouldn't have known what either was anyway) but they did give us a couple of baby aspirin and cough syrup if we started getting the sniffles.

What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses? Ours wore a hat and everything.

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Stations, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations. I must be repressing that memory as I try to rationalize through the denial of the dangers could have befallen us as we trekked off each day about a half mile down the road to some guy's vacant lot, built forts out of branches and pieces of plywood, made trails, and fought over who got to be the Lone Ranger. What was that property owner thinking, letting us play on that lot? He should have been locked up for not putting up a fence around the property, complete with a self-closing gate and an infrared intruder alarm.

Oh yeah . and where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!

We played king of the hill on piles of gravel left on vacant

construction sites and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48 cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids called it "monkey blood" and liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $49 bottle of antibiotics and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked (physical abuse) here too and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

Mom invited the door to door salesman inside for coffee, kids choked down the dust from the gravel driveway while playing with Tonka trucks (Remember why Tonka trucks were made tough, it wasn't so that they could take the rough Berber in the family room), and Dad drove a car with leaded gas.

Our music had to be left inside when we went out to play, and I am sure that I nearly exhausted my imagination a couple of times when we went on two week vacations. I should probably sue the folks now for the danger they put us in when we all slept in campgrounds in the family tent.

Summers were spent behind the push lawn mower and I didn't even know that m owers came with motors until I was 13, and we got one without an automatic blade-stop and it did not have powered wheels. How sick were my parents?

Of course my parents weren't the only psychos. I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop just before he fell off. Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house. Instead she picked him up and swatted him for being such a goof. It was a neighborhood run amuck.

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family. How could we possibly have known that we needed to get into group therapy and anger management classes?

We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac! How did we ever survive?

Think about it before you laugh, this is not a joke, it's the way it was in the good old days...

LOVE AND HAPPINESS TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA.

Sincerely,

Jonathan St. Ives

Lead Teacher

Transition Academy

hahahaha....how true Jives! You just made me relive my childhood! :wah:

Trust you to come up with all that stuff Jives, doesn't it make you think. :-6

We would take the wax papers from our sandwiches, and wax up the slides on the playground. We could go faster, and higher, with that wax paper. Once we shined in up too much, and my little brother flew off the slide, and fell flat on the ground and broke his arm. We all got it that night...................just like they gave it to kids in the old days!

lol. I remember one Summer my friend's Dad got a load of sand. That's all, just sand. A pile about 12 feet high. We played in that sand ever single day for three months and never had a care in the world.

Boxes-big giant boxes. We would drag them up to the top of the hill, and get in them, and ride them down to the bottom! Oh what glorious fun, with the breeze whipping through our hair, dirt flying all around, and racing each other to the bottom of the hill.

Picking up coke bottles to trade in for money

Trading cards in bubble gum or bubble gum in trading card packets (depending on your point of view)

The ice cream man

The Stanley brush man

Saving up some sort of candy wrapper to send in for a prize and waiting for the mail man to deliver. I saved up Sugar Daddy wrappers and got a palm size camera that made better pictures than my polaroid.

Brain freeze from Icees or Slushies

Dressing up to go out to eat or go to church

Chewing pine sap from pine trees like it was gum

Granny beads

Not even noticing how hot it was

GOOD TIMES

Or how about the nights we played outside after dark, without fear, playing games like hide and seek, all over the block, or kick the can.

Sigh

Red Rover Red Rover Send Minksy right over!:wah:

Jives wrote: Red Rover Red Rover Send Minksy right over!:wah:


hey they always did that, cause I could never break their grip dang no fair.

lol! Do you remember "Mother may I?"

Yes you may! Take three baby steps.

Or how about "Red light Green light"?:D

chonsigirl wrote: Boxes-big giant boxes. We would drag them up to the top of the hill, and get in them, and ride them down to the bottom! Oh what glorious fun, with the breeze whipping through our hair, dirt flying all around, and racing each other to the bottom of the hill.




OMG, me too!! My Dad used to work for Southern Pacific Railroad and

brought home LOTS of really big, sturdy shipping boxes... like for

refrigerators and stuff!! You talk about FUN!!

riding my bike like a madman.. with NO helmet....

Treehouses and forts made from scrap lumber and nails that we straightened to use

snow forts and snowball fights

tire swings over the river.. then jumping out at the highest point...

the comic book swap at the general store..

fishing at the river

BB guns..

riding with the milkman on his saturday morning routes...way cool cuz in the summer he rode with the door open

cod liver oil pills at school (bleeeech)

white paste.. Yummmmm....

greydeadhead wrote: riding my bike like a madman.. with NO helmet....

Treehouses and forts made from scrap lumber and nails that we straightened to use

snow forts and snowball fights

tire swings over the river.. then jumping out at the highest point...

the comic book swap at the general store..

fishing at the river

BB guns..

riding with the milkman on his saturday morning routes...way cool cuz in the summer he rode with the door open

cod liver oil pills at school (bleeeech)

white paste.. Yummmmm....


I remember tyre swings over the river, they were brill.

We also blew frogs up with a straw til they burst. ( I know it was cruel )

Mumbletypeg in the barn when Dad wasn't looking, snowcream in the winter when Mom was looking, and catching lightning bugs in a mason jar at night with both of them looking (and smiling). :yh_bigsmi

Jives wrote: lol! Do you remember "Mother may I?"

Yes you may! Take three baby steps.

Or how about "Red light Green light"?:D


and simon says

Ever mindful of getting off to a bad start, I used to suck my candy cigarettes to a point rather than smoke them. In the interests of health and safety, I used to suck the end that wasn't lit

root beer floats in the summertime.............................

chonsigirl wrote: root beer floats in the summertime.............................




Seeing the words: Root, Beer and Floats all in the same sentence brings to mind a story told to me years ago by a workmate. He claimed that a friend of his had been fired from McDonalds for sh*tting in the Root beer. We all laughed and dismissed it as an Urban Myth until we were confronted with an article about the incident in the local paper. The Good Old Days? - Dirty bastard more like

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.

I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year old again.

I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle. . . . . . . .and make ripples with rocks. I want to think M&M's are better than money because you can eat them. I want to lie under a big tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summer's day. I want to return to a time when life was simple. When all you knew was colors, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, but that didn't bother you, because you didn't know what you didn't know and you didn't care. All you knew was to be happy because you were blissfully unaware of all the things that should make you worried or upset. I want to think the world is fair. That everyone is honest and good. I want to believe that anything is possible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and be overly excited by the little things again. I want to live simple again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness, and loss of loved ones. I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, justice, a kind word, truth, peace, dreams, love, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow. So....here's my checkbook, my wallet, my car-keys, my credit cards and my 401K statements. I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first, cause, "Tag! You're It."

Yes we did have fun. It seems a lot more fun than kids today do.

On reflection tho, my Mom would reminisce over 'her youth' and to hear her tell it, those could not be topped by the fun we experienced.

Do you think that our kids will say the same thing to their kids and so on.......:rolleyes:

I remember the game grandpa use to play on the grandkids....

at dark time, he'd send them off into the woods with a paper bag and a stick and told them to go snipe (bird) hunting. Suppose to rattle the stick in the bag which brought the snipes into you, then they were suppose to jump right into the bag for you. Adults would go back on the porch and laugh there butts off listening to all the kids smacking bags and hooting and hollering for those snipes to come to them. :wah:

A Moonpie with a Dr. Pepper. Wait a second... I still have that know. Am I in my second childhood? Come to think of it, I still put peanuts in my Coke.

Remember these? We used to have these just as much as the candy cigarettes I think......



And, oh, don't forget the Lik-A-Stick

freeze tag, mud pies, and playing in the sprinklers..

pina wrote:

We also blew frogs up with a straw til they burst. ( I know it was cruel )


we used to do this with firecrackers and sometimes the guys would just play baseball with a frog.

Surely that would damage the bat

When the only phones with screens to see people were in the science fiction movies.

When clothes pin were still used to do laundry.

Before AIDS.

How about a mangle...a machine with rollers for ironing. My mother used one for everything, even on dad's boxers! :wah:

I'm partial to a scrub board. I still play one from time to time. One regret... I never learned how to play spoons.

That's okay. I'm sure that still qualifies me as a "hick," "redneck," or other things to some on this forum. Wait. Please forgive me. I'm digressing into the serious.

P.S. - I'm working on gaining access to all the special sections (supporting member). Until then, I give this thread one million stars, as a rating. I'm limited to three claps. That won't last long. :yh_clap :yh_clap :yh_clap

And homemade cookies waiting for you when you came home from school!

I long for the days when Mother was Ma, Mom or Momma.

Not... a housewife, a domestic engineer, a stay-at-home mom or a soccer mom.

I long for the days when when Momma said "Come home, come home, it's supper time." Those days will come again.

*sigh*

But mine are grown, but I shall always be Mom..........................

I remember being the first family to get a TV and all the neighbors would come over to watch it.



All the neighbors congregated together to celebrate the children's birthday parties.



All the Mom's played bridge on Wednesday afternoons and got all dressed up in their best dresses, skirts and jewelry. We use to try and steal nuts and candy our of the candy dishes.



We could play outside anytime and take long walks to our friends houses.



We walked to school



We had Christmas plays and sang Christmas songs at school



When we went to the movies the best thing was to get a box of dots and a coke.



We wore knee high socks and saddle shoes. All the girls had to wear dresses or skirts. They had to be below the knee and of course no low cut tops!



We always had dinner together and a special dinner on Sunday. Usually Pot Roast and Potatoes.



We thought our local ice cream shop with 24 flavors was alot of different kinds of ice cream.



Mom use to make us milk shakes out of snow in the winter



Dad would cure our coughs with whiskey, lemon and honey



We even played cowboy and indians with plastic guns and never got frowned on.



I remember cutting out paper dolls to play with from mom's magazines.



Getting to ride in a car was a real treat, let alone driving one.



Watching the Wizard of Oz as an annual family event



Doing dishes by hand, making coffee on the wood cook stove. You actually had to cook food and not nuke it.



There was only one little store in town, one bank, one gas station and one doctor and dentist office.



Watching home movies on a reel movie projector and pull down screen



Kids just don't know how good they have it and what they have missed.

Watching Neil Armstrong take that "one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind." The flag gave me chills, too. :yh_flag :yh_flag :yh_flag :yh_flag

Clancy wrote: Looking at girls legs when they wore mini-skirts ....shallow, I knowno worse than 'checking' kilts!

Clancy wrote: Looking at girls legs when they wore mini-skirts ....shallow, I know
The only problem with that reflection is that I didn't think of it first... but then there's hip-huggers (I'm talking about the originals, not the retreads of today). :sneaky:

Man, you got me again. I miss going to see Skynard and the Allman Brothers in my salt-box Chevy van (and what was inside... but I'll never tell).

:driving: :-3

Clancy wrote: .....you people aren't going to give me a minutes peace with this plaid business, are ya !



.....ok, ok, ....but that pic is coming via private messages ...and if Bothwell finds out , I'll have to go into hiding ....or as you lot say ....on the lamb (which I always thought was kinda pervie) .... Bothwell's is the ONLY kilt i check! and he looks great in it too, ( hit my profile and see) he's also entitled to wear Black Watch. i think i have to stage another kilt contest in the pub, the last one was so popular!! ..and it's lam, not lamb, that would be porn in wales. :rolleyes:

I'm allowed to wear the, Wallace tartan {mothers side} that is so great!! i think a man in a kilt is a real man!