We played a game called , Truth, Dare, Promise, Repeat

The coal truck delivering coal into the cellar via a coal shoot

The ice man cutting the proper size ice block with an ice pick and carrying the block of ice over his back with tongs into your house and ice box.

The grubby bearded rag man riding a horse drawn wagon (yelling Rags,...Rags,...Rags) going street to street He bought old newspapers, magazines, rags and all scrap metals and junk after weighing it then paying cash $$$/pound. He had a family and children he put thru college one of which become the principle of a high school in later years.

A traveling photographer accompanied with a pony,...would photograph local kids sitting on the horse with an indian headdress on their heads,...parents all had prints on their TV's and mantles.

An egg man delivered fresh eggs every week to our house fresh from the farm.

The milkman left bottled milk in a special cubby box on our front porch,...glass quarts with cream at the top,.he would pick up our empty bottles at the same time,

TV repair man came to the house to fix the set,....if vacuum tube replacements and minor adjustments didn't correct the problem, he took the entire set to his repair shop and trouble shot the difficulty replacing parts with a soldering iron within the metal chassis and we would do without the TV till it was repaired,....way, way before printed circuits were even incorporated.

Metal roller skates with skate keys to attach to any child shoes so we all could skate together.

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.

burkphoto, you sure know how to spoil a good time. And while you were drinking your wine and beer, smoking your pot and screwing yourself silly, I was driving tractors and combines, bucking hay bales, building fence, feeding livestock and doing all the other things that go with farming. In retrospect, I'd say I had the best deal. And I have yet to smoke a cigarette or puff (but not inhale...) on a joint. I still say I had the best deal. Or so I tell my two young grandsons that live the next farm over. There's a difference between having a good time and finding happiness. I'm teaching the grandsons that. Have a good day!