Remember when…..
- We had to be within an earshot or in the house when the streetlights came on? (Papa used to say, “Don’t let dark catch you.” )
- We'd ride our bikes all over town sans a helment, knee pads, elbow pads & never once worried about an accident?
- We could eat cake batter & cookie dough & not worry about salmonella poisoning?
- You got mad because you were still too young (by law) to get a real summer job?
- Being punished meant being confined to your room, which didn’t have a phone, color TV, VCR, DVD player, a PC, stereo, PS2, Xbox, Gameboy & whatever other luxury these ingrates have been afforded that most didn't earn let alone deserve?
- Going to your 1st concert sans adult supervision? (New Edition 1986 baby!)
- You'd catch & jar lightening bug (fireflies)?
- After acting a plum fool for most of the year, you'd get some act-right in you around October 1st, in anticpation of Christmas?
- Rainy Saturdays meant cartoons in the morning, Ma & Pa Kettle, Francis the Talking Mule, Abbott & Costello and Blondie & Dagwood in the afternoon?
- Watching Leave it to Beaver on PBS because nothing else was on & actually liking it? (The episode where Wally cuts Beavers hair because they messed up the barber money still makes me CTFU!)
- Listening to “adult” music & wondering what the hell they were talking about? For example, Candy Licker, Clean Up Woman, Strokin’ & anything recorded by Millie Jackson?
- Playing outside so long that all you could do was collapse when you finally came in? Also being afraid to go in before time because you might have to stay in?
- You'd beg your parents for change for the Bomb Pop and Mr. Softee truck?
- You'd get cussed out for loosing that lil yellow or red thing so the 45’s could play?
- Racing your siblings to the phone as if the person on the other end would change?
- Stoney Jackson, Todd Bridges, Danny Romalotti, Haywood Nelson (thanks Deedles!) were oh so fine?
- You could find joy in a few Popsicle sticks & some glue?
- Almost everybody had a jheri curl & a gold tooth?
- You thought someone who made $6 an hour was ballin’?
- Guys didn’t make passes at girls who wore glasses? (I’ve needed glasses since I was in was in the 8th grade but didn’t actually wear them until my senior year & then I only wore them in class.)
- Saturday evening was spent sitting at the stove getting your hair pressed for Sunday morning?
- You thought the worst thing that would happen after sex is that he wouldn’t call?
- Blue light basement parties didn't end in a gunfight?
- You'd fist-fight with an enemy & that would be the end of it?
Ahhhhh....the gold old days. Feel free to add to the list.
