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Thread: Remember

  1. #1
    Gray Haired Old Fart aeallison's Avatar
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    Question Remember

    Stroll with me... close your eyes... and go back... before the
    Internet... before bombings, aids, and herpes... before semiautomatics and crack... before SEGA or Super Nintendo ... way back!

    I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop... about hide-and-go-seek... Simon says, and red-light-green-light.

    Lunch boxes with a thermos... chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks, and Cracker Jacks, hula-hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, Mary Jane's, saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the names of cities on the bottom.

    Remember when it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids arrived home from school.

    When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent allowance. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.

    When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces.
    When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels.

    Remember running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, Spin and Marty... Dick Clark's American Bandstand... all in black and white, and your Mom made you turn it off when a storm came.

    When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyard shows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights, ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt... remember that?

    Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back... paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste and Evening in Paris.

    What about the girl who dotted her i's with hearts?
    (that was before that stupid smiley face)!

    The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops?

    Remember when there were just two types of sneakers for girls and boys? Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms.

    When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking -- all for free -- every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot!

    When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.

    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 flunk a test, or chew gum. And the prom was in the gym, or the lunchroom, and you danced to a real orchestra. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did! When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the 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 so much greater than the threat.

    Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car -- used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off, or watch the submarine races?

    When people went steady, and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger.

    When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked!

    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 needed to enforce the rules of the 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 just wish, that just once you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the children of today?

    So show this to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, 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, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool... and eating Kool- Aid powder with sugar from the palm of your hand.

    There, didn't that feel good? Just to lean back and say: "Yeah... I remember... "

    Show this to those who might remember, and to those who can see what might be missing.

    Author unknown
    I have a question; are you the bug, or the windshield?

  2. #2
    Old Fart
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    /me is feeling very very old right now...
    Al
    It isn't paranoia when you KNOW they're out to get you...

  3. #3
    Purveyor of Lather Syini666's Avatar
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    I may have not lived during that time, but I would certainly go back for the cars and the music. Chevelles, Shelbys and SuperBirds are some of the coolest muscle cars around.
    You're not your post count, You're not your avatar or sig, You're not how fast your internet connection is, You are not your processor, hard drive, or graphics card. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of AO
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    Brought a tear to my eye... here is a couple of more things that I rememebr from growing up... That saying a prayer in school was ok... watching the moon landings in class... Watching the entire drama of Appolo 13 as it happened... God do I miss being a kid sometimes...
    \"Nuts!\"- Commanding General 101st Airborne Division Dec 1944 in answer to German request that he surrender Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge
    Life has a certian flavor for those who have fought and risked it all that the sheltered and protected can never experience.- John Stewart Mill
    White, Hetrosexual, Christian male. I own guns, hunt, eat meat, burn wood, and my wife wears fur... Any questions?

  5. #5
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    Geez, aeallison, thanks for reminding me that I'm 57 yrs old/young (depending on the day). I remember just having to have a red nylon jacket like James Dean wore in Rebel Without a Cause, which is still one of my favorite movies. I remember .....oh, h**l, I think I'll go slip Rebel into the VCR

  6. #6
    Gray Haired Old Fart aeallison's Avatar
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    Really peeps, this one hit me in the ol mortality spot too. I was determined not to bear the weight of my thoughts alone. I just had to drag a few more of us old d00ds down with me.

    I endured this feeling all day long. I even had to blow the dust off of my 1966 ford truck and take it for a spin before deciding to post this, I had forgotten how much power those old big block V-8s have, I think I removed at least 50,000 miles off of the back tires as I rolled off of my gravel road onto the highway...YESSSSS!!!
    I have a question; are you the bug, or the windshield?

  7. #7
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    Every so often, I get in that mood where I wish, just for a week, I could go back and be 17 again in 1962. That was my favorite year. I was going into my senior year, starting tackle on the high school team, and just came off a great off season boxing Golden Gloves. I won all my bouts.

    The world was mine. My girlfriend did my homework. I had a nice 51 Ford 2dr that wouldn't win a race against a guy in a wheelchair, but I didn't care. It was mine; I'd rebuilt the flathead 6 myself and was proud as hell of it.

    I wore a crewcut, because coach said we couldn't play if we had it long enough to part. I wore penny loafers because all the guys did -- without the penny stuck in them. I was young and thought I was immortal, and my buddies all thought they were too. In fall, I had my letterman sweater, when I could get it away from my girl. She had my class ring, just about like you described it, and she probably still has it if she didn't toss it or hock it for the gold.

    Damn, I wish I hadn't read this thread. Were we ever really that young? I mean, come on, was it a dream maybe?

  8. #8
    Gray Haired Old Fart aeallison's Avatar
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    It does seem like a dream, in '74 I was co-owner of an 18' dragboat. This baby was powered by a 427 L88 engine we scavenged from a wrecked '69 Corvette, we had it decked out too, back then the popular induction system were tunnel ram intakes, made the motor abot 2 feet taller than stock, we had 2 Dominator series Hollies bolted to that, we used aircraft feul, then premium pump gas was about 105 octane, Aircraft feul was 130+ octane rating, we mixed 3 parts of that with 1 part methonol, stainles headers into 6" collector tubes!! when we rapped her out she would throw flames 6 feet behind. Water Jet drives were just trickleing into the scene then and so thats what we used. Every weekend we would haul her down to the San Diego Sports Arena for the drag races. That first year we entered her into a brand new class, unlimited jet boats, meaning you could do anything you want to the hull or motor. We set the first to world records in the 1/4 mile, if I remember correctly we clocked at speeds around 170mph in the quarter. Can you just imagine what that kind of machine can do for a young mans social life, I had bikini clad babes lining up by the busload for a ride in that boat ...yeehaw!!! Damn I wish I still had that boat...hell yeah I remember, I don't want to forget!
    I have a question; are you the bug, or the windshield?

  9. #9
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    Until I was 13, we lived in a small town in Vermont, a typical Beaver Cleaver type place, couple of thousand people and not even a police force. I used to walk to school every day, and told my kids it was a half mile, rain or snow. We moved to Albuquerque in 1959 and I never went back until a few years ago. The half mile hike to school was about 3 blocks.

    At Halloween, we'd trick or treat covering the whole south side of the town and bring home 3 full paper sacks of candy. After that, we'd gather at a huge cemetery in town with a cross Waayyy down in the middle and dare each other to walk down to it. Well, that cross waayyy down there is about 30 yards.

    Funny how things seemed bigger then.

    We spent a couple of days prowling around that little town and man, talk about nostalgia. The forest behind that cemetery is where my dad taught me to shoot. When I was 9, he brought home a surprise, a brand new single shot JC Higgins .22 rifle.

    After I'd learned well enough to suit him, I was in those woods with our beagles every day after school hunting rabbits and, in season, squirrel. I recall the woods as being huge, big enough to get lost in. It, too, has shrunk in the 40+ yrs I was away.

    The movie theater is gone, as is the barber shop where I used to get my hair cut. They were both a mile from my house when I was a kid living there. Six blocks is more like it. Downtown looks old now, and it is. Fair Haven Vermont is an old town. Strangely, it still feels like home, though. In fact, it feels more like home than where I've lived most of my life.

    Some things, I guess, have changed in Fair Haven. It has a police department now.

  10. #10
    Senior Member SodaMoca5's Avatar
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    Ah nostalgia. My nostalgia is almost always associated more with my single digit years than my teens.

    I remember playing kick the can late into the night. Red rover and Cross the River in the alley by my friend's house. There was a huge wall made of large rocks that we used to climb at least 30 feet high. Like Chuck has mentioned it has sunk into the ground and is now only about 6 feet tall. I remember refighting the great battles of World War II right there in Rapid City South Dakota.

    I remember sledding. I remember flying off the cliff at the bottom of the run thinking I would die (the cliff is about three feet high and I survived all the times I flew off it). I remember digging snow tunnels in the drifts after a blizzard. The brightness of the night when snow was lightly falling. The comfort of our shag carpet after I took the trash out, in the snow, barefoot.

    I so fondly remember going to sleep in a cold, cold, basement bedroom, covered by heavy blankets that engulfed me like a comforting cacoon of warmth while the Christmas lights blinked softly outside my frosted window. Waking, still in the same position to my mom playing Christmas carols upstairs. I fondly remember the anticipation I felt then for Christmas which has so long been replaced by jaded expediency.

    It is good sometimes to remember but I don't find it melancholy I find it so refreshing. Yes, I would pay a great deal to go back again for a time, but only for a time because I am also busy now making memories that I can look back on later as well.
    SodaMoca5
    \"We are pressing through the sphincter of assholiness\"

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