Memory Lane

Posted In: Career Resources, Health & Wellness · By: Seniors for Jobs.com · Date: 16 Jul 2008

By Jacquie Allen

Stroll with me down memory lane...

Back before the Internet...before bombings, AIDS, Herpes...

Before semi-automatics 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 (that really cost a penny)

  • hopscotch

  • butterscotch

  • skates with keys

  • jacks and Cracker Jacks

  • sunflower seeds

  • wax lips and moustaches

  • Mary Janes, saddle shoes and white bucks

  • 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 and 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 like 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 and pillow fights

  • ribbon candy and Angel hair on the Christmas tree

  • Jackie Gleason

  • white gloves

  • walking to the movie theatre

  • not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back

  • paper chains at Christmas

  • the smells of schools, of paste, of Evening in Paris

  • running 'til you were out of breath

  • laughing so hard that your stomach hurt ... remember that?

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?

Remember when you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped without asking...all for free...every time?

How about 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 they 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 and it was used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off or watch the submarine races? When people "went steady" and high school girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped adhesive tape, 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 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 wish that, just once, you could slip back in time and savour the slower pace and share it with the children of today?

Who among you 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...the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning...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...

Who among you just leaned back and said with a smile, "Yeah...I remember."

View All Resources