Remember When……

Hide-and-seek in Heidelberg

Mom was at home when the kids got home from school.

When nobody owned a purebred dog.

When a quarter was a decent allowance, and another quarter a huge bonus.

When you’d reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.

When all your male teachers wore neckties and the female teachers had their hair done and wore high heels.

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 smoke in the bathrooms, flunk a test, or chew gum.

When a Chevy was everyone’s dream car…

to cruise, to peel out, lay rubber, or watch the submarine races, and people

went steady and a girl would wear a class ring with an inch of wrapped

yarn so it would fit her finger.

And no one ever asked where the car keys were ‘cause they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked. And you got in big trouble if you accidently locked the doors at home since no one ever had a key.

Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends, and saying things like, “That cloud looks like…”

Remember jumping waves at the ocean for hours in that cold water. And playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game. Back then, baseball was not a psychological group-learning experience—it was a game.

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

And with all our progress…don’t you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace…and share it with the children of today…

Remember when being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home.

Basically, we were in fear of 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 all survived because their love was greater than the threat.

Goofing around in Petra, Jordan

Go back with me for a minute…

Before the Internet or the Mac.

Before semiautomatics and crack.

Before SEGA or Super Nintendo…Way back…

I’m talkin’ about hide-and-seek at dusk.

Red light, green light.

Kick the can.

Playing kickball and dodge ball until the streetlight came on.

Mother, May I?

Red Rover.

Hula hoops.

Roller skating to music.

Running through the sprinkler.

Catchin’ lightning bugs in a jar.

Christmas morning.

Your first day of school.

Bedtime prayers and good-night kisses.

Climbing trees.

Getting ice cream off the ice-cream truck.

A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers.

Jumpin’ on the bed.

Pillow fights.

Runnin’ till you were out of breath.

Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.

Being tired from playing.

Your first crush. Remember that?

Kool-Aid was the drink of summer.

Toting your friends on your handlebars.

Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school.

Decisions were made by going, “eeny-meeny-miney-mo.”

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “Do it over.”

Race issue meant arguing about who ran the fastest.

Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in Monopoly.

Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.

It wasn’t odd to have three “best” friends.

Being old meant anybody over twenty.

Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was a cause for giggles.

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.

Smiles from Mumbai

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have LIVED!

On the way to school in Osaka

The small things in life are so important, and the kids will never forget them!