A T A R H E E L ' S R E F L E C T I O N S
IT WAS GOOD!
Were
you a kid in the Fifties......or earlier?
Everybody makes fun of our childhood!
Comedians joke. Grandkids snicker.
Twenty-something's shudder and
say "Eeeew!"
But was our childhood really all that bad?
Judge for yourself:
In
1953 The US population was less than 150 million...
Yet you knew more
people then, and knew them better.
And that was good.
The
average annual salary was under $3,000...
Yet our parents could put some
of it away for a rainy day and still live a decent life...
And that was
good.
A loaf of bread cost about 15 cents...
But it was safe for a five-year-old
to skate to the store to buy one...
And that was good.
Prime-Time
meant I Love Lucy, Ozzie and Harriet, Gunsmoke and Lassie...
So
nobody ever heard of ratings or filters...
And that was good.
We
didn't have air-conditioning...
So the windows stayed up and half-a-dozen
mothers ran outside when you fell off your bike...
And that was good.
Your
teacher was either Miss Matthews or Mrs. Logan or Mr. Adkins...
But
not Ms Becky or Mr. Dan...
And that was good.
The
only hazardous material you knew about...
Was a patch of sandspurs around
the light pole at the corner...
And that was good.
You
loved to climb into a fresh bed...
Because sheets were dried on the
clothesline...
And that was good.
People
generally lived in the same hometown with their relatives...
So "child
care" meant grandparents or aunts and uncles...
And that was good.
Parents
were respected and their rules were law....
Children did not talk
back.....
And that was good.
TV
was in black-and-white...
But all outdoors was in glorious color....
And
that was certainly good.
Your
Dad knew how to adjust everybody's carburetor...
And the Dad next door
knew how to adjust all the TV knobs..
And that was very good.
Your
grandma grew snap beans in the back yard...
And chickens behind the
garage...
And that was definitely good.
And
just when you were about to do something really bad...
Chances were you'd
run into your Dad's high school coach...
Or the nosy old lady from up the
street...
Or your little sister's piano teacher...
Or somebody from
Church....
ALL of whom knew your parents' phone number...
And your first
name...
And even that was good!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Share this with someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sky King, Little Lulu comics, Brenda Starr, Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk as well as the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, playing cowboy, playing hide and seek and kick-the-can and Simon Says, baseball games, amateur shows at the local theater before the Saturday matinee, bowling and visits to the pool...and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, and wax lips and bubblegum cigars
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that!"
(And was it really that long ago?)