Good morning folks.
Today I'm going to talk about all the things I miss. I've found the list of things I miss gets longer as I get older. I addressed a bit of the fast paced frustration we all face these days in my earlier blog "Futureshock is Here". This blog addresses the things I miss from a simpler time.
I miss "Service Stations" where I would go to have my gas filled up by an attendant who would also check my oil, my wiper fluid, my tire pressure, then wash my windows.......then announce "that'll be two dollars, please"...(22 cents a gallon gasoline).
I miss ten cent coffee, with free re-fills.
I miss two for a penny Tootsie Rolls.
I miss drinking from a garden hose in the heat of summer and never knowing that garden hoses cause cancer.
I miss Dodgeball, and Red Rover and Red Light-Green light and lightening bugs.
I miss the golden era of fast food, before microwaves, when you went to a drive-in and they were forced to make your burger fresh and served to you sizzling on the bun.
I miss going to a Taco Bell for the first time and paying a dime for Tostadas, Tacos, Encheritos and Burritos.
I miss going to a movie and a quarter would get you a ten cent movie ticket, a bag of popcorn and a package of Neccos.
I miss my first car, an aged 52 Hudson that had seats more comfortable than any living room sofa, had a walnut dash and a radio that played Elvis with deep rich tones.
I miss my second car, a 1952 Candy Apple Red Buick convertible that ferried my friends and I to innumerable drive-in movies.
I miss drive-in movies where you and five friends could go and see "Attack of The Fifty-Foot Woman" and "The Pit and The Pendulum" for "a dollar a car load".
I miss the original Sean Connery James Bond movies.
I miss listening to the Rock Top 40 and being able to understand the words.
I miss the time when a loaf of bread in 1960 cost you a quarter...and it cost a quarter in 61, 62, 63, 64 and 65..because we had no inflation.
I miss when large extended families got together for every holiday; you got to compare the cooking skills of all the aunts and grannies and learned to put up with a nerdy cousin or two.
I miss going to school, having a class of 35 kids and all listened to and learned from their teacher..else you went to the Principal's office for the dreaded leather strap.
Don't get me wrong; I love many things about today; IPODs, my Kindle E-Reader, My Microwave Oven,
beautifully stocked grocery stores, more reliable automobiles, the convenience of the Internet and Diet Sodas that really do taste like the sugarized version. (Anybody remember Tabb?, ugh).
But, I do miss many things from the "good ole days". I'm lucky though; I can travel back in memory to re-visit those things; hell, I can even do that while reading my Kindle or listening to my IPOD!
Pardon me..gotta run...gotta go up to the gas station and spend $75.00 bucks to pump my own gas, check my own oil and wash my own damned windows!
5 comments:
I miss fireflies too, also New England nights so crisp and clear (and very very cold) that the constellations were easily visible to the eye. Because of "The Big Valley" my sister and I rode our two wheel steeds, Smoky and Big Red, in hot pursuit of imaginary outlaws. We also played a version of Cops and Robbers with some of the neighborhood boys based on the Planet of the Apes series. We were apes, of course, because girls had to be apes. We drove to town to watch movies on Sat mornings in an old-fashioned theatre house with plush burgundy seats and velvet drapes (I remember "The Russians Are Coming" for one). We also went to drive-ins in our pajamas with the back seat of our station wagon folded down so it was like camping out at the movies. Kids mostly played outside in those days in all sorts of impromptu games. When calculators came out I laughed that my grandmother wouldn't touch it calling it the devil's tool. I got my comeuppance a few years ago when my niece had to show me how to use the ipod on a submarine tour in San Francisco. Grandmother was probably having a good laugh upstairs then. jo
Beautiful, Jo. Ah yes..those great old theaters..and I'm so happy you loved "The Russians Are Coming", it's one of my favorite all time flicks. Don't mean to sound "old fogy-ish but we had it so much better than kids today...we didn't have the lure of tv, video games and the internet and thus we played outside day and night and got alot of physical exercise..and were better for it!
It's refreshing to find someone who also appreciates the simpler times and won't laugh at me too hard when I tell you I've had my car now so long that I don't know how to drive a rental. jo :)
I am also old enough to have partaken in those customs of yore. And yes, we are the poorer for the loss. But I also miss those days when people of good sense were in charge. I miss when civic organizations actually were concerned for the greater good. And most of all, I miss being able to tell the god guys from the bad guys. Try doing that at say, the U.N. or...
Amen, donald...do you remember when parents actually attended PTA meetings and raised hell if a school or teacher were sub par and also got an earful from the teacher about "little Johnny"...tended to make "little Johny a better student. :)
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