A Nostalgic Day

Originally Written Between 2013-2015

 

Do you recall the games you played as a kid? I’m sure you do. For most people, a big chunk of childhood nostalgia is bound up in board games such as Monopoly, Clue, Scrabble, and Yahtzee.  We also played cards such as Old Maid, Go To The Dump, or as you got older, 500 or Bridge, Oh Hell, or Canasta. 

 

Back in the days before electronics, kids were expected to go outside and play. Such play often did not involve much in the way of props.  Playing relied on imagination and energy. Many a mother simply said “you kids go outside and play,” and the kids did the rest.  Parents couldn’t drag kids in from outdoors at the end of the day.  Nowadays, electronics have taken over and now parents can’t drag them out.  Sad, right?  Especially when the number of obese children is growing each year.  I don’t remember any overweight kids in my grade school.

 

Quite a few years ago, when our kids were still in grade school and junior high, Norm and I met once a month with a group of friends.  This group of young parents was very instrumental in helping us get through the joys and pains of raising our kids.  One evening, we started talking about the “good ‘ol days” when we were growing up and how different (and easy) our lives were from our children’s lives then.

 

We reminisced about how simple life was.  As kids, we left the house early in the morning and returned home for lunch.  Left again and came home for supper.  Some of our activities were segregated.  Such as the girls played with dolls, skipped rope, played hopscotch and rode our bikes.  Boys tended to play sports such as football, baseball, and basketball.  Playing marbles and jacks was fun – and tag, hide and seek, leap frog, Red Rover, Kick the Can, yo-yo tricks, skating and running races.  The whole neighborhood – no matter the ages – would get together and catch fire flies.

 

Oh….. the list of the fun things we did as children was long – and included decorating our trikes and bikes with crepe paper.  And to get the motorized bike sound, placing cards with clothespins between the spokes.  Remember making forts (summer and winter), snowball fights, sledding, and swimming?  I remember my best friend, Phyllis, and I would place a blanket on our lawn, pack a lunch and read comic books - and as we got older, teenage movie magazines - under the bright sun.  We’d spend hours trying to identify various shapes in the clouds.  Ah – what a life!  No care in the world!

 

Well, our group of friends decided to have a “Back to Our Childhood” party with our own kids to show them how much fun we had when we were their ages.  Norm and I hosted the party on a lovely sunny summer afternoon.  We all brought food from our past (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Sloppy Joes, hot dogs, popsicles, ice cream sundaes, etc.).  Some of the gals even wore their hair in braids or pony tails.  Our driveway was used for playing marbles and hopscotch, skipping rope and, of course, basketball.  We had a huge sandbox for the younger kids.  We taught the kids yo-yo tricks, how to skip and use a hula hoop.

  

What fun!  A couple of the guys told stories of their adventures as kids – such as when Tom and his brothers were playing cowboys and Indians, started a fire at the end of one of the arrows and shot it through the air – landing on their neighbor’s roof.   Yes, the fire department was called and yes, Tom and his brothers were punished.  Tom wouldn’t say how they were punished.

 

This was a great day – 30 some years ago and again today as Norm and I reminisced about that party as I wrote this story.  We’ve lost touch with some of those friends.  Writing this makes me realize that it’s time to get us all together again – maybe we can now teach our grandchildren about the “good ‘ol days.”