Close your eyes...And go back in time

Before semi automatics and crack...
Before SEGA or Super Nintendo...

Way back...I'm talking about

Hide and seek at dusk.
Red light, green light.
The corner store.
Hopscotch, butterscotch, doubledutch,
jacks, kickball, dodgeball.
Mother May I...
Red Rover and Roly Poly.
Hula Hoops.
Running through the sprinkler.
An ice cream cone on a warm summer night...
Chocolate or vanilla or strawberry or
maybe butter pecan.

Wait...

Watching Saturday Morning cartoons...
Short commercials.
Fat Albert, Road Runner, The Three Stooges, and Bugs.

Or back further...

When around the corner seemed far away,
And going downtown seemed like going somewhere.
Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Zorro.
Climbing trees, building igloos out of snow banks
Running till you were out of breath.
Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.
Jumping on the bed.
Pillow fights.
Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down...
Being tired from playing...Remember that?
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
War was a card game.
Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike
into a motorcycle.

I'm not finished just yet...

When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny.
When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked,
and gas pumped without asking, for free, every time...
and, you didn't pay for air.
When nearly everyone's mom was at home
when the kids got there.
When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up,
if you even had one.
It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
When it was considered a great privilege to be taken
out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents.
When girls neither dated nor kissed
until late high school, if then.

When they threatened to keep kids back a grade
if they failed...and did!
When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited
a misbehaving student at home.
Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn't
because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc.
Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!

Didn't that feel good? Just to go back and say,
"Yeah, I remember that!"

Remember when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo."
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do over!"
"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
The worst thing you could catch
from the opposite sex was cooties.
It was unbelievable that dodgeball wasn't an Olympic event.
Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot.
Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare."

If you can remember most or all of these,
then you have LIVED!!!

Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from "grown up" life...
I DOUBLE DOG DARE YA!!!