Do You Remember When ?

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?

It took five minutes for the TV warm up?

Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids

got home from school?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

All your male teachers wore neckties and female

teachers had their hair done every day and wore

high heels?

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked,

and gas pumped, without asking, all for free,

every time?

And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading

stamps to boot?


Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels

hidden inside the box?

It was considered a great privilege to be taken out

to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they

failed. . . and they did?



When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise,

peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races,

and people went steady?


No one ever asked where the car keys were

because they were always in the car,

in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?



Lying on your back in 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?



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,

just once, you could slip back in time and

savor the slower pace, and share it with the

children of today?



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 greater than the threat.



Send this on to someone who can still remember

Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy,

Howdy Dowdy and the Peanut Gallery,

the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows,

Nellie Bell , Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.



As well as summers filled with bike rides,

baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits

to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say,

"Yeah, I remember that"?



I am sharing this with you today because it ended

with a double dog dare to pass it on. To remember

what a double dog dare is, read on. And remember

that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough

to know better and too young to care.



How many of these do you remember?

Candy cigarettes

Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored

sugar water inside

Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with

cardboard stoppers

Newsreels before the movie

P.F. Fliers

Telephone numbers with a word prefix..

(Raymond 4-601). Party lines

Peashooters

Howdy Dowdy

Hi-Fi's

45 RPM records

78 RPM records!

Green Stamps

Metal ice cubes trays with levers

Mimeograph paper

Beanie and Cecil

Roller-skate keys

Cork pop guns

Drive ins

Studebakers

Washtub wringers

The Fuller Brush Man

Reel-To-Reel tape recorders

Tinkertoys

Erector Sets

The Fort Apache Play Set

Lincoln Logs

15 cent McDonald hamburgers



5 cent packs of baseball cards -

with that awful pink slab of bubble gum

Penny candy

25 cent a gallon gasoline

Jiffy Pop popcorn



Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?

It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite

sex was "cooties"?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught

with a slingshot?

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute

commercials for action figures?

"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling

down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked

last for a team?

War was a card game?



Baseball cards in the spokes transformed

any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable

aspirin?



Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?



If you can remember most or all of these,

then you have lived!!!!!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from

their "grown-up" life . . .I double-dog-dare-ya!