those were the days when


people actually talked to each other

we had it all and didn't realize it

do you remember"double dog dare"?

all the girls had ugly gym clothes

it took three minutes for the tv to warm up

no one owned a purebred dog

a quarter was an excellent allowance

you would stoop to pick up a penny in the gutter

you got your windshield cleaned,your oil checked,tires checked and gas pumped without asking,and all for free.and you even got trading stamps

laundry detergent had free glasses ,dishes or towels inside the box

they said they would keep kids back a grade if they failed--and they actually did it

a 57 chevy was every ones dream car--to cruise,peel out,lay rubber,or street race


young people went steady

lying on your back in the grass with your friends saying things like--"that cloud looks like a"--


playing ball with no adults around to make up rules

stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals,because no one then tried to poison perfect strangers

and with all our progress don't you wish,just once,that you could step back in time and savor the slower pace,and share it with the children of today

kids actually had to be selected to play on organized baseball or football teams



no one got trophys or awards just for competing

candy cigarettes,wax miniature coke bottles with colored sugar water inside,

party lines,pea shooters,78 rpm records,green stamps,mimeograph paper

do you remember when decisions were made by "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?

mistakes were corrected by uttering "do over"

race issues meant who was the fastest runner

catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening

it wasn't odd to have more than one best friend

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30 minute commercials for action figures

"olly olly action free" made perfect sense

spinning around getting dizzy and falling down was amusement

the worst embarrassment was being picked last for a sandlot team

war--was a card game

taking drugs meant orange flavored chewable aspirin

water balloons were a weapon


I am sharing this with you today because a friend "double dog dared "me to

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

do you remember Howdy Doody,Peanut Gallery,The Lone Ranger,The Shadow Knows,Gene Autry,Roy Rogers,Hopalong Cassidy,Bob Steele,Tom mix ,Tim Holt,Lash Larue,Randolf Scott,Trigger

,buttermilk,Silver,Scout,and oh so many others from our past?Bob Hope,Bing Crosby,Red Skelton,Fibber Mcgee and Molly,Amos and Andy

Benny Goodman,Xavier Cugat

Clark Gable,Maureen Ohara,,Spencer Tracy,Katherine Hepburn,James Cagney,Edward G Robinson,Humphrey Bogart?

Hank Williams,Ernest Tubbs,Roy Acuff--to name just a few


Do you remember??




If you remember all or most of them

then you have lived my friend

We were inner city kids. We lived in Watts, in south central Los Angeles, so my story is a bit less rural than yours, but it still evokes the same kind of memories. Even the ghetto used to be an ok place to live, because there are good people everywhere. I think we were the only Chinese family still living there, and to have survived the Watts Riots unscathed. With that being said, my brother, sister, and I would walk out of our white picket fenced house, and go down the block to Mr. Murray’s Shell Station. Mr. Murray was a longtime resident in the ghetto, and he befriended my dad a while back, so he knew all of us well. Every Sunday after church, when we walked down to his station, he would wave emphatically at the three of us, and he’d always have three nickels ready for us to get some ice cold sodas. Man, that seems like a lifetime ago...