This morning, my sister sent me one of those “forward to everyone in your age group” emails. There were the general references recognized by everyone in the geezer demographic. “Remember, back before cell phones and Nintendo and cable TV and 24 hour news coverage…staying out till the streetlights came on, your parents yelling for you to come home after dark…” , et al.
I responded with some of our personal experiences from pre-geezer days, and she evoked some really good memories. So what follows is my own little list that we assembled in about 10 minutes and four emails.
You are not obligated to send this to your friends. And there’s no Frankie Valle music in the background. Just our memories.
Your reminisces may vary.
It made me recall:
Campfires in the back yard, and giant four-foot-deep holes you got to dig, and dirt clod fights and making Greg, Kelvin and Timmy pee themselves with a cardboard skeleton...GranMommy eating two bananas (broken) for each one that I ate...”Whap whap whap what’d he do?”...frying ants and pillbugs with Grandaddy’s magnifying glass, the rectangular one with a long screw for a handle...carving up refrigerator boxes with GranDaddy’s pocket knife!
She replied:
GranMommy making hamburger forgetting to put meat on it...and popping popcorn in a skillet without a lid…the sound of the wind whistling through the screens upstairs...the smell of Monsanto's benzene whatever wafting thru the morning breeze...the sound of kitties meowing under the house…the smell of freshly cut grass and cape jasmine bush on the east side of the house.
Which set me to:
I don't care how hot it was wearing the coats, paddling a trailered boat across the burnt lawn! We were somewhere else, anyhow. How awesome was it to lie on that slick concrete of the breezeway to get cool? Oh, and the smell of old, OLD grease and dirt in the garage...the cannas and mimosa behind the garage, the oleanders as a hiding place (don’t put those in your mouth, they’re poison and they’ll kill you)...
And of course she HAD to add:
“And get yore finger stuck in the concrete!” This is a very NOT funny story that I will relate in a (much) later GeezerChron.
OK, back to work, but I’ll remember this stuff long after I forget what I had for breakfast or what I stood up and walked into the hallway for.
Thanks Sis, that was fun!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Geezers Summer Reminisce
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Catching lightening bugs at night
Picking vegetables from my Dad's garden and having them for dinner (the best corn on the cob ever!)
Riding my bike all day
Hitting tennis balls against a big wall when there was no else to play with.
And I still make popcorn in a pan on the stove (with a lid)!
This post evokes memories of the time when I was about 4 years old and climbed up on a chair to peek inside one end of one of those iron T-shaped clothesline holders. Don't hardly see them anymore. Used to be a common sight in backyards, whenever folks used to actually "hang out" their laundry to dry on the clothesline. Anyway, this particular clothesline holder was hollow, so I wanted to look through to the other side. Couldn't see to the other side, and I soon found out why. Yellowjackets had built a huge nest inside. Couple of the bees stung me near my right eye, which swelled up until it was completely closed. Been afraid of clothesline poles ever since.
Swimming with friends all day at the neighborhood pool. We played pool tag which resulted in many scapes and bruises. Crushes on the lifeguard. Playing at the basketball court until nightfall; followed by a late night viewing of Gozilla or Dracula (Friday Fright Movie) at one of our houses. It was nonstop with my brothers and our group of friends.
I still maintain a very close relationship with my friend Teri Murray (formerly Turner) via e-mail.
Hey, these are pretty good! Thanks to Cactus, RobV, and Trixie for sharing your memories.
...Or fabrications, I can't tell if any of you are lying or not...
P.S. Nice pic. Can I use it in next year's threshold?
not a summer memory, but swimming at the Shamrock Hilton pool late at night, at Easter time -while the 'adults' watched from the restaurant window!
playing hide-n-go-seek all over the neighborhood
spending all day floating down the river
Building forts out of everything. Making mudware pottery. Picking sweetcorn and tomatoes. Riding our bikes to the gas station to buy Orange Crush and little bags of potato chips. Taking liverwurst sandiches on picnics in the woods. Liverwurst!!??..."sound of record needle scratching"
Yeah, I've always loved the stuff. Got the cholesterol medicine to prove it too.
Summer breeze; makes me feel fine. blowing through clogged arteries in my miiiiiiiiiiiind...
Love it, Geeze.
Digging to China...almost made it. Cooking mom fried eggs for lunch out on the sidewalk in a cookie pan, hunting spiny bluebelly lizrds, sail cats...kinda like a boomerang, but involves a long flattened critter, playing army till forever, sneaking into the neighborhood pool to skinny dip with Lawana, getting caught skinny dipping with Lawana, explaining to Lawanas Daddy that it was all in good fun.....nursing my broken snoot for two weeks....
Oh...Hey...."Cryptic Mushiness"? How dares yuh? Heh, she's special, all right.
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Making kites out of newspaper and sticks; building derby race cars out of left over wood; losing your skate key; putting playing cards on the wheels of your bicycle
Sigh............
Great memories.........
My heart swelled with pride at the 10 comments packed full of great memories from the best of the geezer demographic!
Thanks for your participation, and memories. I hope that the moments you took to put into words your good times, brought back the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and most of all feelings that the initial acts carried with them.
Yah....great. Now my snoot hurts all over again.......
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