REMEMBER WHEN???

Remember when . . . 

All the girls had to wear gym uniforms?

(At AF, sleeveless, red, short short dress, with pleats at bottom.

And, red panties.  Lasted me all through jr high and high school.)

At Dixie, "Dixie" shorts and a Dixie T-shirt.  

At BYU, a one-piece light blue jumpsuit uniform, that BYU handed

to you every week!  The bottom went to the knees.  Many

girls rolled them up to the top of their thigh.  Then,

we had to wait in class for them to roll them back down.

Every single day!  You had to wear a BYU approved

swimsuit, too.  Which was handed out.  Black, with

no built-in bra!)

It took the tv 15 minutes to warm up?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You'd reach into a muddy gutter to retrieve a penny? 

Your mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked,

and gas pumped without asking . . . all for free,

every time?  And you didn't pay for air?

And, you got trading stamps to boot!

Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes, or towels

hidden inside the box?

 It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner

at a real restaurant with your parents?

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed . . . and

they did!

(Bryan Davis was in my 3rd-5th grade classes.  In 6th grade, 

he was still in 5th!  Best thing for classmates to see!!!)

When a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car . . . to cruise,

peel out, burn rubber or watch submarine races (at Utah Lake)

and people went steady?

No one ever asked where the car keys were because they

were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?

Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and

saying things like, "That cloud looks like a . . . ?

Playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic

seals because 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?

When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared

to the fate that awaited the student at home?

 

Basically, we were in fear for 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 survived because their love was greater than

the threat.

. . .  as well as summers filled with bike rides, 

Hula Hoops, visits to the pool, and eating

Kool-Aid powder with sugar.

Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say,

"Yeah, I remember that?"

Howdy Doody

The Lone Ranger 

Candy cigarettes 

Wax Coke shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside

Sodapop machines that dispersed glass bottles

Coffee shops with Table Side Jukeboxes

Black Jack and Clove chewing gum

Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers

Newsreels before the movie.

(My parents' time)

Telephone numbers with a word prefix:

Ours was "Skyline 6-4787" or "Sk6-4787",

which when you changed the letters to the corresponding number,

756-4787

Party lines

(My parents' time)

Pea Shooters

 

 Hi-Fi's (High Fidelity) and 45 RPM records

78 RPM records

Green Stamps 

(Always S&H.  Although I didn't know what the letters stood for!)

Mimeograph machines

The Fort Apache Play Set

Do you remember a time when decisions were made by going,

"Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe?" 

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, 

"Do Over?"

Race issue meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Catching  the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening

It wasn't odd to have two or three best friends

Having a  weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?

(Before my time)

Saturday  morning cartoons weren't 30 minute

commercials for actions figures?

Oly-oly-oxen-free,  made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was

cause for giggles?

The worst  embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

(I never once did this in 33 years of teaching!)

War was a card game? 

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike

into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?

 Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?