REMEMBER....
When the worst thing you could do at school was smoke in the bathrooms, flunk
a test or chew gum. And the banquets were in the cafeteria and we danced to a
juke box later, and all the girls wore fluffy pastel gowns and the boys wore
suits for the first time and we were allowed to stay out till 12 p.m.
When a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car. . . to cruise, peel out, lay
rubber and watch drag races, and people went steady and girls wore a class
ring with an inch of wrapped dental floss or yarn coated with pastel frost
nail polish so it would fit her finger.
And no one ever asked where the car keys were 'cause 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..."
And playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game.
Back then, 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 'cause no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.
And...with all our progress...don't you just wish...just once...you could
slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the children
of the 80's and 90's ......
Can you still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Howdy
Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie
Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as the sound of a real
mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, playing in
cowboy land, baseball games, bowling and visits to the pool...and eating
Kool-Aid powder with sugar.
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 all survived
because their love was greater than the threat.
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, Yeah, I remember that.
And was it really that long ago?
Seems like it, but they sure were the good old days!
Iron Mike
