Here in UK we went to Saturday morning Matinee at the Gaumont Cinema in Hammersmith, London. For three weeks we learnt "Round her neck she wore a yellow ribbon" and then the next week John Wayne came walking down the aisle - dressed like we knew him in the movies and firing blanks from his six shooter. So we all sang the song! We loved it and John Wayne loved it! Must have been about 1951. Before that I remember there were American Service Men around us and happily mingling with us - as kids we addressed them with "Got any gum, chum"? And we were never disappointed! I still imagine long arms shaking hands across the pond.

This is long and if you're under 65 it might mean little or nothing to you. For those over that age, take a walk down memory lane.

Remember when?
It took three minutes for the TV to warm up?

Nobody owned a purebred dog?

When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for 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 it!
When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...
to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, 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 savour 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, and 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?
Newsreels before the movie.

Telephone numbers with a word prefix...( Yukon 2-601).
Party lines.

Peashooters.

Hi-Fi's & 45 RPM records.

78 RPM records!

Green Stamps.

Mimeograph paper.

The Fort Apache Play Set.

Do You Remember a Time When...
Decisions were made by going "one potato, two potato...."
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?

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action 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?

War was a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavoured chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

Candy cigarettes

Wax Coke-shaped bottles with coloured sugar water inside.

Soda pop machines dispensed glass bottles.
Coffee shops with Table Side Jukeboxes.
Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum.

If you can remember most or all of these, Then You Have Lived!!!!!!!
Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their 'Grown-Up' Life.

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a Double Dog Dare to pass it on.

And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care.

Send this on to someone who can still remember Howdy Doody and The Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk.

Living in 'war time' housing and watching fleets of P-47s from the local airfield flying over. Noisy noisy noisy!

Dad, returning home, with rucksack over his shoulder, and everybody screaming 'he's home! he's home!'

Coming home from work, a couple of blocks up, Dad letting you ride on the running board the rest of the way

The 'Rag Man' - a rolling rummage salesman - with his horse-drawn carriage

The milk man, and Mom skimming the cream off the top of the bottle to use when she made pancakes

Door-to-door insurance salesman collecting his quarter

Mom packing a lunch as we went off to go fishing with our pals, admonishing us to 'be home by suppertime'

Learning how to fix a flat tire by vulcanizing the tube

Getting a one-ounce silver bar for every 50 gallons of gas you bought at the corner station

Waiting for the mail on your birthday 'cuz Nannie always sent two bucks and you were 'rich' for a couple of weeks

'Half a rock' each, and you and your bud could split a pizza and each have a coke


And, now, trying to tell the grandkids and great-grandkids that these things really *did* happen!

I remember them all.

I liked the gas station one. I was at the gas station the other day getting a bottle of pop. As the gentleman was checking me out there was a loud beep..beep and a red flashing light on another machine. He stopped what he was doing to see a car drive off. I asked him if it was a drive off. He said no all pumps are prepay so that never happens anymore. The buzzer was because the person getting gas did not claim unused credit on a gift card they used. Then I told the young lad about the good old days of people actually pumping gas and doing all those things. he was surprised.