Subject: Good ole days Earl Maher
From: Earl Maher [ErlMah@aol.com]
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 20:23:56 EDT
To: ALL

Stroo with me....close your eyes...and go back...before the Internet...before bombings, aids herpes before semiautomatics and crack...before SEGA or Super Nintendo...way back

I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop..about hide-and-goseek; Simon says and red-light-green-light. Lunch boxes with a thermos...chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotc, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks andCracker Jacks, hula hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, Mary Jane's saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the name 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 from school.

When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quater was a decent allowance. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a peeny.

When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. When all of your male teachers wore necties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels.

Remember running through the sprinkler, circle pins,bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran and Ollie, Spin and Marty.. Cick Clark's American Bandstand...all in black and white and your Mom made you turn it off whin a storm came.

When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyard dhows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights, ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas Tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running til you were out of breath, laughing so hardthat your stomach hurt...remember that?

Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back...paper-chains at Christmas,silhoettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste and Evening In Paris.

What about the girl who dotted her i's with heart?(that was before that stupid smilely face)!

The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops?

Remember when there were juxt two types of sneakers for girls and boys- Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you ware them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms.

When you got you windshield cleane, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking--all for free--every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot!

When laundry dtergent had free glasses, dishes or towel hidden inside the box.

When it was considered a great privledge tobe taken out to dinner at a real nice restaurant with you parents. When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum. and the promwas in the gym or lunchroom and you danced to a real orchestra. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed--and did!

When being snt to the pricipal's office was nothing campared to the fate that awaited the student at home.

Basically, we were in fear for our livees, but it wasn't because of drive-byshootings, drugs, gangs,etc. Our parents and grandparents wew a much bigger threat!

But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat!

Rmember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's drea car--used to cuise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off of watch the submarine races?

When people went steady; and the girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polich soit 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 lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like"That cloud looks like a..." And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game.

Remember when the stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger.

And, withall our progress, don't you just wish, that just once you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace--and share it with the children of today?