I’d like to share some stories that keep me relevant to the old guys too. I was told the keep crying thing in sixth grade when I failed a test and my dad had enough of my bitching. I was also a harness boy, it would keep me connected and mom also had me on a leash in public when I was a toddler so I didn’t run away and get into trouble. I still know cursive, cause just like it says^, I was also taught in 2nd through 4th grade. Our entire neighborhood in the early 2000s would play outside for hours after school, from high schoolers to me as a 2nd grader, playing tackle football, manhunt at night, tag in the day, and pickle with our high school football player neighbors’ QB sons. I miss it, cause I was able to watch it change. The last time I recall really “going outside to play” was around seventh grade. Most of the older neighbors had graduated, and some of the younger kids had recieved their older siblings’ phones. And then no one went outside anymore.
We were outside until we left for college. I will say cursive was a waste of time. After elementary school we could print again. That time could have been used for something more useful.
...did all that and more, but then I'm really old. Wonder what "memories" will look like for current generation...
I'm 40 and I've experienced all but the harness......And the smokes in the hospital. Back in my day when we were 5+ years old, my mom or grandmother would write us a note, give us a couple bucks, and we'd walk down to Buttrey Foods and pick them up a pack of Marlboro Lights. No problemo, no questions.
I sure do remember the reel push-behind lawn mower. The lawn was my job when I was a kid. We too got the ink thing in 4th grade, but ball-point pens were considered to be uncivilized. The teacher would not accept any papers that were done that way. We had real inkwells and dip pens. The teacher made it very clear that if we spilled the ink, we would be after school until we made up the work time that we missed cleaning it up. Actually, there were very few incidents involving the ink. We practically lived on our bicycles in the summer.
I remember buying smokes for my parents when I was old enough to walk in with a dollar and ask for the brand (and get change!). I also would walk or bike to the service station (not convenience store) to buy them. Georgia law requiring purchasers to be 17 went into effect the year I turned 17. Dad called me at work and said ‘pick me up a pack on the way home’, and I was surprised when the clerk asked for ID. I said ‘why?’ ‘You have to be 17 to buy cigarettes’ ‘They’re not for me, they’re for my dad’. ‘Still need ID’. Patrick
My grandfather had a reel push mower and a gas powered reel with a dog clutch to engage the forward motion. Operating the former was hard work but when operating the gas powered unit you were pulled along at a rapid clip behind an instrument of mass destruction.
I had a gas-powered reel mower in the early '70s, It was about as tiring as a push-behind mower because it went so damn fast. It did make short work of the lawn, though. As to Patrick's last comment - I too would go uptown with a note from my mother to buy cigarettes and sometimes even a gallon of Pastine Pale-dry sherry. My mother would have a very small glass of this awful stuff before dinner. Can you picture a liquor store (in Massachusetts they are called "Packys") selling a bottle of booze to an eight-year-old kid? It was a very different world then, and sometimes George Tobin - the cop who walked the day beat, would be in the store.
I'm wondering if they will play Led Zeppelin in the old folks home when I get there or am I going to have to listen to Glenn Miller like my mom did.
Yeah, we only had 2 channels when I was a kid. Usually Lawrence Welk playing on one and some variety show on the other (Carol Burnet, Osmonds, Captain and Tennile, Sonny and Cher, Laugh-in, Hee-Haw, etc.). TV sucked, so there was nothing else to do but go outside and make some entertainment... except when Gilligan or Scooby Doo were on.
Now we get a hundred channels and TV still sucks. I miss getting the snot scared out of me by Twilight Zone, The Outer limits and Night Gallery.
Listening to the only radio station at night we could get at the lake in Atikokan WLS, from Chicago....they played music back then... Rod Sterlings, Night Gallery, the scariest show on the only channel we got on tv lol
I remember when I was a kid and had an earache. Mom would blow cigarette smoke in my ear to make it 'pop'. Not a cure, but temporary relief.
When I was young, the boomers were shocked at a Beatles song was used in some commercial. I wondered about my future, only to see these... Patrick
Life was so much simpler back then. I don't ever remember hearing the phrase 'peer pressure' when we were kids. And we had imaginations..……….
Here, in Ontario, schools do NOT teach cursive writing anymore.Nor do teachers instruct students how to construct a sentence... Kids do not have to learn how to spell. I remember reading rookie cops reports back in the 90's when students did not learn how to spell. Reports were terrible. No acceptable in court!
I still use the “First Computer” and I still have a reel type push mower however, it just sets in the shop with all my other old junk that I keep thinking I going to do something with it someday. Maybe someday after I get my Buick back together.
