My Meme

Got this one from OGO, who was tagged by Heather:

Five Things I Miss About Being A Kid:

1. My mom's bedtime stories. These weren't made up fairy tales....no Cinderella or once upon a time. My mom was born during the Depression and I always used to like to hear her stories of buying a week's worth of groceries for a dollar, or going to see the movies for a nickel, the radio serial shows that used to come on and how they made it with no AC or television. Or her high school romances and the 'one that got away'. It got to the point that I had heard all of the stories at least 5 times by the time I was 18 and I still wanted to hear them over and over again. I tell them to my kids now. When I was in grade school, I also used to ask her to 'give me something to dream about' before I went to bed and she always did. I never slept as well as I did then.

2. Back to school: Although I loved the summer as much as any other kid, back to school was always a thrill. New clothes, new school supplies, new BOOKS. Plus, back when I was a kid, school started a little closer to fall than it does now and so that fall smell was in the air.

3. Summertime. Lightning bugs, june bugs, dragon flies, cicadas .....I used to catch 'em all. Plus, rolling around in the grass all day and treating the chigger bites at night. Mom didn't let you sit under the AC all day then and there were no video games or PCs so you made your own fun. You either went swimming in the creek or the closest neighbor's pool or you went out and played games. You remember those: Hide and Seek, Tag, Red Rover, cowboys and Indians ( I was always the Indian thank you:))

4. Holidays: Christmas and Halloween were (are) my two favorites. Wondering what Santa was going to bring me, going to church and looking at all the lights all over town. On Halloween, my mom used to decorate the house as well and sit just behind the front door (with all the interior lights off) and try to scare the kids when they came up on the porch. Worked pretty well, as evidenced by the amount of candy we had left over;)

5. Saturdays!: Now that I'm grown, Saturday is just another work day for me. However, when I was a kid, it was a mini-vacation. For the first few hours of the day, the T.V. was mine: cartoons, cartoons, cartoons, and then American Bandstand (funny, Dick Clark still looks the same now as he did then). After that, it was a full day of bike riding, going to the creek, selling Girl Scout cookies (you could actually go from house to house then), going to my friends' house and dancing to records (that's right : records, not CDs) and roller skating on skates with metal wheels. Busted my butt more than a few times on those.

Even though I am now too old (and often too cynical) to enjoy kid's stuff the same way that I did back then, I can watch my own kids enjoy it now. And, sometimes, that's even more fun for me. Hopefully, me playing "Mad Dog" with them will be one of their favorite memories. I know it'll be one of mine.

Peace allll..........