Pandemics, communists, friends passing away, critics, I am taking my mind back to when I was a happy kid, albeit a poor one. - my first crush, 6th grade - learning baseball, basketball, football, soccer at the Boys Club - paper route to earn money for a bicycle, levi’s, hot chocolate floats during the winters - picking apples, peaches, cherries, strawberries from neighbourhood yards - learning math and geography and history - watching Annette mature AND THEN TURNED 18 AND SUDDENLY WASN’T FUN ANY MORE
sigh... Annette Funicello........ rushed home from school to see the MM club on BW tv... those were the days
My childhood crush was Angela Cartwright, who played Penny on the original mid 60's series Lost In Space.
I can't recall this, but according to my Parents, as a baby I use to love eating bubblegum off the side walks and roads.
Great post PatO, thanks for the memories. They really were good times, windows open at night for circulation with the fan, front doors open, screen door sufficed, sitting on the porch, playing stoop ball. Yep, paper route, cut lawns and shoveled snow also helped. Parents did not need to buy me things I wanted, just what was needed. Learned the lesson of money and work and saving for what you want not having it given to you.
That is the hallmark of we expats... the World is full of people our age that grew up and grew old and eat out at at 5pm for the senior citizen special. Those of us who defied age struck out searching for a second youth.... hats off to my fellow expats who saw age as just a number .... Huzzah !!
As one who owned two paper routes, Milwaukee Sentinel morning, & Milwaukee Journal, evening, I know what you mean. I made $13/week each one but I gave up the morning one after a while because waiting for the delivery guy on the corner at 5:00AM before school was just too dang cold in the winter. So I kept the Journal route, worked for the janitor at the local church/school and earned about 50$ per month there (shoveling snow sometimes). We are talking about 1964. Always bought my own stuff except for Christmas time and birthday. Work and study were what you normally did but once in a while, went to soda fountain at the drug store, bought comic books 13 cents, drinking a nickle coke and a dime bag of potato chips. Heaven on Earth. We owned our paper routes, cost about $50 for the "business". When we got out of the business we tried to sell it at a profit which was possible if we were able to get a lot of more customers. That was how we learned about free enterprise as young kids growing up.
