5 Blasts From The Pasts this ‘70s guy misses seeing…

I took this idea from my friend Darrin over at Dad’s Dish Retro

5 Things This Retro Dad Misses Seeing...(another GREAT blog). Here’s a list of great everyday things gone by…

Lemonade Stands:

These were every bunch of neighborhood kids’ idea of striking it rich in the summer, and we did it all by ourselves! All we had to do was get mom to get us the glasses, make up the lemonade for us, help us find a table and some chairs, bring everything out and set it up at the curb for us, and we were set! Spend an entire afternoon selling cups of lemonade at 5 to 10 cents each and we might make $2 to $3! Split that 4 or 5 ways and were “rich”.

Record Parties

Did you ever do this? A bunch of us would get together and all bring all of our latest records (often just 45’s) and spend a whole evening listening to them together. We’d usually sing at the top of our lungs, and sometimes have a big pizza party, too. Great times of make-believing that we were rock bands, and dreaming of the day when we were really gonna be a band!

Variety Shows

These are now only known by this generation if they happen to linger on a late night ½-hour pitch by Guthy-Renker. Watching Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Flip Wilson, etc – so many more than can be listed here. These were awesome and we were treated to a plethora of the big star actors, actresses and performers of the time. There’s no way to even compare these shows to anything today. And what was so amazing about the stars back then is that they could all dance, sing and act and were all good at it!

Kids Dressed up for Things

When was the last time that you saw a family out for dinner at anything but a high-end restaurant and the kids were dressed up for the occasion? Not pressed shirts and ties, but at least clean, well-fitting and nice looking clothes. We used to do this to go out to Denny’s or even a buffet-type meal. Other things we’d dress up for: Dinner at the Grandparents’, shopping downtown, going to a movie, family birthday parties – or a friend’s birthday party – and other gatherings, visiting family friends. It was never an option to NOT dress nicely… it’d sure be nice to see this on some level in society again.

Good Cartoons

Every Saturday morning! They were the good old fashioned ones – deemed too violent for kids today because a certain coyote would get squished into an accordion, or fall to a canyon floor only to emit a little poof of smoke upon impact. They were simple, funny, entertaining and carried no hidden messages. If Mel Blanc were to see what passes for cartoons these days, he’d surely roll over in his grave a FEW times!

A Different Kind of Drug Problem

I often lament about the difference between kids today and who/what we were as kids growing up.

A friend sent this to me. It says more in a short paragraph than I could say in a month of blogging. If you click on it, it will open up much larger to read with our aging eyes.

And, please don't think I hate all kids today (I have a couple of my own, you know) - or that I throw all kids into this cauldron of "spoiled lazy brats" soup. I do think that in a lot of ways, this generation of parents as a whole, has certainly done our kids a disservice by not drugging them in some of the ways mentioned here.

I'll be the first to admit that raising kids is hard work, takes concentrated effort and challenges our own abilities and level of commitment - even to the things we strongly believe in. But I also know that it's worth the headaches and heartaches. I pray that God helps us all to bethe types of parents that raise kids that will be upstanding and contributing parts of society, kind and caring to others, and giving rather than selfish.

Tankers

I posted awhile back about recess at school. There was something that was unique to our school because of where it was located, and it meant that every recess held the possibility of having a very cool event occur – if the timing was just right and a random truck driver was in the mood to oblige a playground full of kids.

I lived in North Seattle in an area called Richmond Beach. My grade school was on the main route up from Puget Sound, and was only about a half a mile up from the water. There was a Standard Oil Refinery not far north of that where ships would off-load oil and then tanker trucks would haul gas/oil up out of Richmond Beach to deliver to various locations around the area.

These tanker trucks or just tankers, as we called them, came right up a long hill right next to the grade school playground. The playground was level with road at the top end, but had a huge built up wall that overlooked that hill at the other end nearer the water. There were always a few kids who seemed to be listening intently for the sound of the trucks chugging up the hill. The shout would ring out across the playground “TANKER!!!”, and instantly every kid out there would make for the fence that overlooked the road and clamor for a front row spot. And then, in an incredible unanimous uproar of children’s voices, the shouting would begin, and we would all start pumping our fists in an action to simulate the pulling of the air horn.

This would go on for what seemed – to us – an eternity before the driver would hopefully finally succumb to our insistent pleas and let go a long, loud blast. This was rewarded with a huge chorus of screams and cheers from the entire playground, and some happy “thank you” waves to the driver. It was so cool! We had all banded together and rallied for a common cause and made something happen! Yeah!

You know how when you’re a kid, you always think that when you grow up, you’ll become a teacher, and be a cool teacher that all the kids like? Or that you’ll be a bus driver and be a cool bus driver that everyone likes? Well, I added to that childhood fantasy the dream of becoming a tanker driver and being a cool tanker driver that everyone would like because I would always honk my air horn for kids on playgrounds whenever they asked.

Sweep! Don't Wash or Blow!

I spent the weekend doing some cleaning at my dad’s house with my brother. Finishing up a bunch of work, our last task was to clean up our mess in the driveway. As we both systematically used our old push-brooms to sweep up all the garbage and sawdust, I couldn’t help but realize that theses were probably the same brooms that we used as kids to do the very same job. They certainly didn’t look any newer than the ones we would’ve used.

I then made an observation out loud, with which my brother whole-heartedly agreed. These days, you hardly ever see kids – or any homeowners for that matter – sweeping their driveways. They are either washing them down with the hose, or blowing them clean with a blower.

I will agree that a driveway probably needs a good washing off every now and then. Usually the best time to do this is when you’re washing the car, since it will already be done for the most part. But – I think that there are a lot of people who just use the hose to sweep their driveways. Not only is this a waste of water, but it basically eliminates 90% of the physical exercise you might get while actually pushing a broom and working up a sweat.

Blowers are just offensive. Although – as much as I don’t like them – there might be the need every now and then to blow the driveway clear… but again, I think the majority of them are just used instead of a broom.

When I grew up in the ‘70s, we had chores. Sweeping the driveway would’ve been one of those chores. It was part of our routine and it was usually physically demanding and required time and effort. And if we tried to skimp and do it too quickly and did a poor job, we got the opportunity to do it again the very same day. It seems to me that most kids today could do with a reintroduction to chores and the physical labor that accompanies them. It might help educate them in dealing with responsibility, physical health and energy conservation.

The Ice Cream Truck

There was nothing that would lift the spirits of the entire gaggle of neighborhood kids quite like the approaching sound of the ice cream truck. Also called the Popsicle man, or Popsicle lady, depending on who had the route that summer.

Typically, it was late afternoon and the end of a long day of playing outside. The whole neighborhood was out and nearing the end of our energy. As soon as we could begin to hear the silly little music a bunch of thoughts would start to go through our heads. Would mom say it was ok to have an ice cream? Where was the truck – it was always so hard to tell where the music was coming from? Did we have time to run home to get money from mom and get back in time? There were so many choices – what would you get? Although, all of the sudden we had plenty of energy to make sure that we got home and back in time to get catch the truck.

There are a couple of things to note, here. First off, as kids, we typically didn’t have money in our pockets. Not that we didn’t have money, we just didn’t carry it with us. Secondly, this was very likely the highlight of the day for many of us. We’d often be hoping and praying that the truck would come because it was very special. And lastly, our mom’s didn’t have freezers stocked full of ice cream treats. This really was a treat, and especially because there was a lot of variety to choose from – and some things you might not ever get otherwise.

It was a sweet, cold treat on a long, hot day and one of the great memories of growing up!

Gym Class

Gym class was not a fun time. In retrospect, there were funny things about it, but in and of itself, it was NOT a fun time.

The first thing to know is that we had to wear “regulation” clothes: white athletic shorts, white t-shirt, white socks and white tennis shoes. While this may sound pretty restricting, there are two big things to remember. 1) Everyone, and I mean everyone, wore the same thing; and 2) there were hardly any other sports clothing options. There were no huge sports departments in stores, or sports stores even, that carried endless rows of incredible clothing. These regulation clothes were unflattering at best, usually oversized (because we were still growing kids, and mom wasn’t about to buy you more than one set per year) and completely accentuated the fact that you didn’t have any physique yet. These clothing qualities, of course, helped identify you as an easy target in such educational group games as “Dodge Ball” and “Red-Rover”.

And really, if gym class did nothing else, it was always guaranteed to give you a good dose of public humiliation in front of your peers to shoot down what little self esteem you might have! Unless you were one of the few kids who were gifted with athleticism and/or popularity, you can bet that each day in gym class was an exercise in trying to balance doing well enough to get by with not totally blowing it and becoming the laughing stock of the day. Rope climbing; calisthenics; wrestling; track… there were endless ways that you could embarrass yourself.

I ended up filling out athletically AFTER high school, so I’m always a bit of a surprise when I run into old friends. For indeed my days of gym class were that of a scrawny kid just trying to get by without looking stupid. What memories do you have of gym class??