It was hilarious listening to all the kids commenting on each run...
"hey! I want a sled like that!"
LOL!
Posted on 03/03/2013 8:02:30 AM PST by Doc Savage
Waking up to the news these days can not only ruin your day, it can make you irritable, frustrated, and sad. That's when I like to spend a few moments remembering the things that made America such a great place to grow up when I was boy. Here are just a few golden memories:
1. How excited I was when I put on my new Cub Scout uniform for the very first time and my mom was so proud of me.
2. How my friends and I would spend the long hot summers fishing down at the North Side Park lagoon with bamboo poles, safety pins for hooks, and bread dough for bait. Caught some good sized Carp in those days!
3. The great feeling of putting on my Little League uniform, and fixing my socks just like the Big Leaguers, and getting ready to play the big game. The uniforms were wool and weighed about 100 pounds but I didn't care. I was walking two feet off the ground every time I took the field.
4. The excitement of opening my Christmas present and finding a Daisy BB gun. Wow! It was incredible.
5. The first time I was old enough to sit at my grandmother's Thanksgiving table with the grownups. I was so excited I could hardly eat!
6. My parents bought me an English Racer bike for Christmas and I put multi-colored streamers on the handle grips. Talk about flash!
7. First time my mother took me down to the Loop in Chicago on the streetcar and we went to see Santa Claus at Carson Pirie Scott. I want to tell you I was a little nervous and could only tell him what my younger brother wanted for Christmas. If you were never in a large department store at Christmas time you really missed something. It was beautiful!
8. Playing baseball every day in the summer at the Little League field. Everyone pretended they were a famous baseball player. I was always Ernie Banks. I used to dream about someday buying a Wilson A2000 glove. I used to rub neatsfoot oil into my old glove and go to bed each night pounding the pocket so I'd be able to make a great catch! I think I wore my knuckles out on that old glove.
9. I remember when they made me a crossing guard in 6th grade and I got leave class a few minutes early and get to my corner station wearing my white safety belt. Pretty neat.
10. I remember that late in August every year Dad would take us down to the Wheaton Sports Shop where all the gym teachers in town worked during the summer, and we'd get a new pair of gym shoes. I can't even describe how excited I was when Chuck Taylor introduced not only Low-Cuts, BUT WHITE!! I felt like a million dollars wearing them that first day in gym class.
Anyway, after spending a minutes down memory lane, I always feel better. Yet also a little sad. America has lost so much of it's wonderfulness. But I'm so glad I had a chance to experience it before it vanished.
Perhaps you'd like to reminisce with some of your favorite boyhood or girlhood memories. Have at it!
Don’t get sad, get mad!
I remember when I could get a box of .44 mag rounds for $18.
Why? Because it was just five years ago!!!!!
we grew up down the street from the Biden’s we allways had to worry about playing near there front yard, afraid we might get hit with a shotgun blast thru there front door!
I remember changing the back tire on a hand me down bike to an older fat balloon tire because it tracked better in the snow. It worked great for weeks, until one day I was doing about 30mph down this long down hill path in Kearny Park and it blew,I lost control, hit the base of a lamp post so hard it split the front forks like a wishbone.....if you wore a helmet back then, people felt sorry for you...*smiles*
When I was playing little league baseball, there were so many kids there wasn’t enough ball fields for everyone. Now I see empty ones. It’s a sad sight on Saturdays in the summer.
One thing that has changed, is how casual and common cussing is in public, even in the written word, and even from conservatives.
And you try to tell that to the kids today, and they won’t believe you.
It was hilarious listening to all the kids commenting on each run...
"hey! I want a sled like that!"
LOL!
Sixth grade.
I don't know why but your post just brought these thoughts to mind , and it's really depressing.
My paternal grandfather was a news junkie in my childhood, and could often be heard muttering, "damn country's going to hell in a hand basket."
“Riding my bicycle, at the age of nine, through all of the alleys of West Whittier, Calif., often traveling more than a mile from home, and sometimes shopping for groceries for my family. To do so in that neighborhood—or just about anywhere else in America nowadays would be unheard of.”
And doing it without a helmet.
I remember ice cold winter mornings and my father wrapping a heavy blanket around me and carrying me into the skating rink to play ice hockey.
I loved reading about your recollections. Here’s a few from my childhood.
I remember playing outside almost every day as a child, and used my imagination when I didn’t have store-bought toys. My sister & I took an old pot that was past it useful life, and pick leaves and pods off of plants, and pretended that we were cooking a meal for the family. We made forts with old rag towels and sheets that Mom was ready to discard. We went on treasure hunts when the mood struck, and sometimes found little treasures as a button or charm or broken piece of pottery.
My Mom used to take us to the bookmobile every so often, and I developed a great love for reading. At one point we moved to a new town, and I loved going to the public library there. My older brother would take me whenever I requested a trip, at least once a week. So now I had adventures in books to go along with my adventures in the outdoors. (Little did I realize at the time that he was falling in love with the cute librarian there, who he later married, but I digress.)
I remember when we visited our grandparents or when they visited our home with special affection. Sitting in Grandma’s lap as she had conversation with other adults after dinner or when she needed to sit. I didn’t care what anyone was discussing. Sitting in her lap was Heaven to me. Grandpa always told the best stories, and drew great pictures (cartoons) for us.
I remember getting an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas from Santa and a doll called “Hi Heidi!”. You pressed a little button on her tummy and her arm raised up. I was fascinated! Two toys, a new outfit for school, a new outfit for playtime, and maybe a few other small things in my stocking. That was pretty much my favorite Christmas ever!
Going swimming in the lake that was located behind our home was wonderful. I loved the way the sand squished between my toes. We would jump off the dock into innertubes, and battle to see who could successfully jump the furthest. We would catch frogs and guppies in our hands. It was fun stuff to feel them wriggling in our palms, and then release them back to their homes.
Ahh, what great and simple times they were! Thanks for helping me remember!
Bicycle! I used to ride my Huffy ( they’re named after the effect they produce on the body just walking them, I’m pretty sure. They are heavy!) down our gravel road three or so miles to the blacktop. If you turn right, you go up a long, long hill. Once you get to the top of the hill, you turn around and coast at high speed down this hill, with a gentle curve at the bottom. I used to do probably 35 MPH or so, with no hands! Lean at the bottom to make the curve, and coast it out to the end of the blacktop. Oh, yeah!
Riding my bike to town about 4 miles the other way, collecting bottles from ditches for the $.02 deposit. 13 would get you enough for the biggest ice cream cone you could ever imagine. I’d spend all afternoon in town, and ride home into the sun before mom and dad got home.
We lived in the country, had hills all around, lots of climbing and exploring to do in all the woods around us. climbing a hill and following crest until it ended and finding ourselves a long way from home. We could hear mom yelling for us from a mile away. Sometimes we could not hear her!
Catching HUGE frogs out of the same creek we’d drink from, crawdads and all. I learned to swim in that creek. It would flood and we’d ride the flood water down, freaking mom out! Woohoo! Too much fun.
Remember spending hours on the roof tweaking the TV antenna to get that far off signal from Cleveland so you could watch Hoolihan and Big Chuck? or The Ghoul on Saturday nights?
Remember when Tim Conway and Ernie Anderson (Ghoulardi) worked for Channel 8 in Cleveland?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6k5nael9RA
I don't see many kids out now days. They still make them don't they?
I remember riding our bikes without helmets and gasp...no hands. We lived across the street from a prune orchard (San Jose) and we’d shoot BB guns at the prunes, swing from the trees and have mud fights in the irrigation moats. We were outside running around until the streetlights went on then we headed home. Rarely did we watch TV, no computers, no cell phones...if we wanted to talk to our friends we just ran down the street.
Oh yeah, another source of entertainment you can’t do anymore without getting busted was the telephone pranks. Got Prince Albert in a can? Is your refrigerator running. Ah, the good old days. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Local TV was a hoot when I was a kid.
Local radio rocked when I was a kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TcPI-vCDI
playing army for all daylight hours while picking honey suckles n blackberries. building forts. catching pet salamanders. riding my neighbors shetland awnry pony. building jewlry boxes from shells. beating up the neighborhood bully. riding my purple banana handle bar bike. playing kickball til dark. teaching myself to play piano. taking in orphaned cats. cleaning stalls. riding down snowy hills on the top of a car hood. days long gone
Yeah, they do. At least in my family. My wife and I have four, but sadly, they've never enjoyed the freedom of movement that I took for granted when I was a kid.
My childhood was from the early 50s through the late 60s. What a time to be a kid in America. I could talk for hours about all the fun and adventures I experienced. Kids today don't have the slightest clue what that life was like. It saddens me that they've been robbed so badly because of what our nation has become.
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