Tag Archives: childhood

Uncategorized

Let’s play.

57 Comments

.

You’re here.

What else are you gonna do?

.

.

I entered my teenage years in the 1970’s and believe me, there were plenty of inexplicable things.

.

.

Did we buy rocks we could just as easily have picked up in the backyard? Sure. But they came with fake hay and a nifty cardboard box. Who didn’t want that?

.

.

Dr. Scholls. They were clunky, heavy, unattractive and you couldn’t wait to buy the next new color when it was released. You wore them, admit it.

.

.

If you were a young girl in the ‘70’s? Your mother dressed you like this. I believe it is the reason many of us drink.

.

.

This.

I wish I had a video of myself endlessly bopping around our backyard on what was then my favorite toy. This thing rocked! As well as bounced the living crap out of your internal organs. We had a slight hill on your property and let me tell you… 7 year old River airborne down a hill on a Hoppity Hop was a thing of beauty.

.

.

Yes, also inexplicable was the 1970 desire to cover bathrooms in horrendous waves of thick, preferably shag, brightly hued carpeting. Mustard, olive green and turquoise were da bomb.

.

.

While my parent’s home was filled with antiques and the occasional hint of Danish modern in the 70’s… aka the era of questionable taste…thankfully it didn’t include this particular “western” couch… but I can guarantee you knew someone who owned one and loved it. I knew many someones and sadly the couches were still in their homes in the 80’s.

Finally, no visit to the ‘70’s would be complete without this.

.

.

Being chosen to run the overhead projector during class? That was the epitome of cool.

Your turn!

Please add to the list….

.

Uncategorized

The good old days.

20 Comments

.

When I was flipping through my old baby book that was recently rescued from the cave of crap cellar, something interesting fell out.

.

.

It was from my pediatrician’s prescription pad and instead of filling the younger version of me with drugs and antibiotics as doctors do today, it recommended a few simple home remedies for colds and sore throats that mothers have been using since time began.

Those really were the good old days.

🙂

.

Uncategorized

Do mothers even do this anymore?

26 Comments

.

Another treasure made its way up from the basement the other day and while I won’t bore you with the ridiculous amount of minutia my mother recorded during my first year of life in this baby book (Aunt Charlotte gifted us a silver spoon, woot!)….. I would like to point out that at age five?

.

.

I was apparently as round as I was tall.

🤣

I have to admit while the information itself didn’t mean much, holding a book filled with my late mother’s handwriting did make me choke up a little.

Do mothers even do this anymore… or is there just an app? Because I gotta say, fifty years from now when a grown up child finds that? No tears will be shed.

.

Uncategorized

Let’s play.

40 Comments

.

Humor me. As well as everyone else…

.

.

As I’m sitting here after dinner craving dessert, I’m going with the Good Humor truck.

No sound was more iconic to the summers of my childhood. We kept a bowl of change on the kitchen counter in anticipation of those glorious chimes. Doors would slam all over the neighborhood as every kid within hearing distance would run to the corner before it drove away.

My treat of choice?

.

.

Seeing the picture I can almost taste it.

Ice cream on a stick. What’s not to love?

So what sound don’t you hear anymore?

Uncategorized

Let’s play.

38 Comments

.

Because you know I’ll never run out of these.

.

.

The instant I read this a mental image of my mother standing impatiently waiting for me to get to the point flashed through my brain.

I was a creative child who loved to read, one more apt to be found at the library than the playing field. A good story always held me spellbound. So when I’d come running into the house anxious to tell my mother something interesting… but in the telling ended up weaving a long disjointed tale that made me forget the original thread…. she’d always shrug her shoulders, turn away and say, “It must not have been very important.”

To which I always wanted to scream, “Now I remember! The house is on fire.” … like that would teach her to take me seriously.

Ah, childhood.

Good times.

What did your mother always say to you?

.

Uncategorized

Book memories.

25 Comments

.

Retrieving our two boxes from the husband’s uncle’s attic last week resulted in a few tears from yours truly. Bittersweet memories overwhelmed me as I unpacked a few of my favorite childhood books.

.

.

I’m not sure how I managed to hold on to these over the years, but flipping through Moldy Warp the Mole immediately transported me back to my father’s lap, listening to that story being read in his marvelously deep and melodic Scottish voice … and I admit my eyes started to leak. No matter how old I am, I’ll always be a daddy’s girl at heart.

.

.

The other books in the box were all over the place subject wise. Civil War buff? Yup. Sap for everything James Herriot wrote? Most definitely.

.

.

As evidenced by another childhood book…Man, Myth and Magic…. I was a strange child. This was a 24 volume series of the supernatural that came out in the ‘70’s. My mother refused to let me have it, so naturally I found book #1 and hid it under my bed.

.

.

Judging from the current listing on eBay, I should have smuggled in the whole set.

.

Uncategorized

Let’s play.

36 Comments

.

It’s time to dive into all those slightly disturbing repressed memories and remember….

.

.

I know most people will pick a horror film like the Exorcist…. and granted, Linda Blair’s spinning head and projectile vomit was enough to keep anyone up at night… but for me there’s only one answer.

.

.

Yes, the heartwarming true story of Elsa the adopted lioness cub that became a beloved pet but had to be released back into the wild when grown damn near wrecked me.

I’m an animal lover to the N’th degree. I rescue the ones I can and weep for the ones I can’t. I come by it naturally as my mother and father were also animal crazy. We always had a houseful of stray pets and wounded birds when I was a child. My father was Scottish, but raised in England. Stiff upper lip et al. He wasn’t a man to give in to his emotions in public, but I saw him weep like a baby at the vet when his beloved dog died. What can I say? We’re animal people.

I can’t watch the commercials about abused pets, I have nightmares and wake up screaming. As a kid I refused to watch Sounder, the Yearling and most of the Lassie tv series. I was a tender hearted young soul.

But when Born Free finally came to television my mother decided it was a good family film and we would all watch it. What the hell was she thinking! I saw elephants and antelopes shot. I saw a woman being eaten by a man eating lion. My mother’s innocent family film turned out to be pretty bloody.

I, like everyone else, fell in love with Elsa the adorable frolicking cub. I loved her even more as she grew to become a proud lioness… and wanted her to live happily with the Adamsons forever. And ever, amen.

Seeing George and Joy forced to set her free had me weeping, openly gasping for breath. I couldn’t shake the sadness. Not that night, or the next. I kid you not… I was one depressed little girl for weeks on end after watching that damn film. And the song? Wow. To this day I can’t hear it without choking up.

So there you have it. Jaws didn’t scare me. Texas Chain Saw Massacre had me chuckling. The Omen? Come on…

But Born Free? That was pure unadulterated trauma.

So how about you? What childhood movie permanently scarred your psyche…

.

Uncategorized

Let’s play.

42 Comments

.

Stop groaning, this one is easy.

.

.

I’m sure I must have seen other movies before this one… we had a lovely old fashioned theater in my hometown complete with velvet covered balcony seating… and I’m sure my mother took me to all the Disney classics, but the first film I have full actual memories of seeing is The Poseidon Adventure.

.

.

It was 1972 and Irwin Allen’s gigantic blockbuster disaster movies were all the rage.

.

.

The premise was simple. Assemble a huge cast and blow them up. Or burn them down. Or in this case, sink them.

I’ve seen the film many times since then ( not by choice, because the husband is always tuned to the old turkey channel ) but my first time will always be special… because I was with my dad.

My late father was not a movie person. Hell, we didn’t even have a television in the house when I was young and when we finally did get one …. it was banished to a small rarely used room.

But on that day my mother was busy and my father offered to take me to the movies. I was an only child, a total daddy’s girl and the mere idea of it was heaven.

We picked the perfect seats and had the perfect snacks. (Hot buttered popcorn and Milk Duds in case you’re wondering) The lights dimmed, the music swelled and I settled in for a wonderful afternoon. I chattered like a magpie in the beginning and my father patiently and quietly answered all my inane questions.

Then it was happening. The actors were in place, the music changed to something ominous and then… the wave. The huge wave was about to sink the ship! It was loud! It was thrilling! People were screaming! Oh, the horror! I glanced over to gauge my father’s reaction to the cinematic magnificence before us….. and saw that he was sound asleep.

I didn’t have the heart to wake him… he worked long stress filled hours as the Vice President of a stock brokerage firm…. so I sat silently and watched the rest of the movie by myself.

He roused near the end, and pretended to have seen the whole thing. I pretended to believe him. And after all these years, it’s still one of the silly little memories of him that makes me cry.

So how about you?

What was the first movie you remember seeing.

.

Uncategorized

Who remembers these?

43 Comments

.

I admit I’m old enough to remember a penny candy store in my hometown. It was pure heaven for a child and the experience went something like this:

1. Your mother gave you a dollar.

2. You jumped on your banana seat Schwinn (with glittered streamers hanging off the handlebars because yeah, girlfriend… you rocked!) and pedaled like mad until you reached a hole in the wall shop by the railroad station.

( It was next to the Wo Lee Laundry run by your friend Wanda’s family. They lived upstairs and her mother didn’t speak a word of English. Poor Wanda missed a lot of childhood events helping her family clean rich people’s clothes. But it’s okay, don’t feel badly. Wanda was one smart cookie and graduated Harvard Med with honors. Somebody’s probably washing her clothes now. 😊)

3. You breathlessly entered the tiny store and the bell over the rickety old door clanged loudly enough to raise the dead. An elderly man hobbled out from the back room and took up position behind a miraculous display case filled with nothing but large jars of candy. He whipped out a small paper bag and said… go!

4. You spent a tense 10-15 minutes getting the mix just right. A dollars worth of penny candy was 100 pieces! 10 Bottle Caps or 15? 5 Pixie Sticks or 5 Razzles? Malted milk balls or Bit O Honey? Chuckles or Necco wafers? These were important decisions.

Most of the candies from my youth are gone, for which my teeth and hips are probably thankful…. but I saw this ad on Facebook last week and damned if it didn’t take me back to the mouth watering anticipation of having a bag filled with 100 pieces of customized candy.

.

.

The original gummy candy. Why fish? Why not….

.

.

If you’ve ever sucked on a root beer barrel? You know the exquisite combination of pleasure and pain. To hell with S&M kinky sex, slicing your tongue open on a razor sharp sliver of this sugar filled deliciousness is the very definition of ‘so bad, it’s good’.

.

.

Nope. Those putrid pillowy abominations never made it into my bag. Uh uh.

🤨

.

.

Lots of kids loved these, but I’m anti nut and always took a hard pass.

.

.

Melt in your mouth little pockets of goodness right there. If I’m ever lucky enough to see them on the hostess stand as I exit a restaurant? I make everyone grab a handful and fill my purse with the bounty. Some opportunities can not be overlooked.

.

Uncategorized

Can I get an awww?

23 Comments

.

Our farming neighbors across the street are awesome people. Honest, hard working, nature loving, alternative lifestyle vegetarians who raise their kids the old fashioned way… no tv, no cell phones, just plenty of love and imagination. As witnessed by this letter and treasure map they mailed to the two little boys who live down the road.

.

.

.

Now how fun is that?

.