Was this your childhood too?

Here are some reminiscences you might enjoy...

God's Wife        
IT WILL KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF     

I especially liked number 5!


          Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once  
Talked about a contest he was asked to judge. 
The purpose of the
Contest was to find the most caring child.
 
    The winner was:
 
1.  A four-year-old child, whose next door
neighbor was an elderly gentleman, who had recently lost his
wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old
Gentleman's' yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.
   When his mother asked him what he had
said to the neighbor, the little boy just said, 'Nothing, I just
Helped him cry.'
 
*********************************************
 
2.  Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were
discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture
had a different hair color than the other members. One of her
students suggested that he was adopted.
   A little girl said, 'I know all about
Adoption, I was adopted..'
 
   'What does it mean to be adopted?', asked
  another child.
 
     'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew
in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'
 
************************ *********************
 
3.      On my way home one day, I stopped to
watch a Little League base ball game that was being played in a
park near my home. As I sat down behind the bench on the first-
base line, I asked one of the boys what the score was
    'We're behind 14 to nothing,' he answered 
With a smile.
 
  'Really,' I said. 'I have to say you
don't look very discouraged.'
 
  'Discouraged?', the boy asked with a
Puzzled look on his face...
 
'Why should we be discouraged? We haven't
Been up to bat yet.'
 
*********************** **********************
 
4. Whenever I'm disappointed with my spot
in life, I stop and think about little Jamie Scott.
 
    Jamie was trying out for a part in the
school play. His mother told me that he'd set his heart on being
in it, though she feared he would not be chosen..
  
        On the day the parts were awarded, I went
with her to collect him after school. Jamie rushed up to her,
eyes shining with pride and excitement..  'Guess what, Mom,' he
shouted, and then said those words that will remain a lesson to
me....'I've been chosen to clap and cheer.'
 
*********************************************
 
5.   An eye witness account from New York
City , on a cold day in December, 
some years ago: A little boy,
about 10-years-old, was standing before a shoe store on the
roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering
With cold.
 
   A lady approached the young boy and said,
  'My, but you're in such deep thought staring in that window!'
 
'I was asking God to give me a pair of
shoes,'was the boy's reply.
 
   The lady took him by the hand, went into
  the store, and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks
for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water
and a towel. He quickly brought them to her.
 
She took the little fellow to the back
part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed
his little feet, and dried them with the towel. 
 
By this time, the clerk had returned with
the socks.. Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him
a pair of shoes..
 
      She tied up the remaining pairs of socks
and gave them to him.. She patted him on the head and said, 'No
doubt, you will be more comfortable now.'
 
   As she turned to go, the astonished kid
caught her by the hand, and looking up into her face, with tears
in his eyes, asked her.
  'Are you God's wife?'
 
*********************************************
 
You might like this story.

 A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family.

The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on. As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche.

My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey.

But the stranger... he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The
stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.  Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)

Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, the stranger never felt obligated to honor them.

Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home - not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our long-time visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush.

My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly, and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes
suggestive, and generally embarrassing...

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?.....


We just call him 'TV'. 

NOPE, we ain’t done yet!

Scroll down for more

 

 

 He has a wife now.... we call her 'Computer'.

Their first child is: "Cell Phone".

Second child: "I Pod".

And, JUST BORN A FEW YEARS AGO, was a Grandchild: IPAD.

 

NOTE: This should be required reading for every household! 

 

 

For all those born before 1945

We are survivors!!!!  Consider the changes we have witnessed:

We were here before television, before penicillin, before polio shots, frozen food, Xerox, contact lenses, Frisbees and the Pill.

We were here before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams, and ballpoint pens, before pantyhose, dishwashers, clothes dryers, electric blankets, air-conditioners, drip-dry clothes, and before man walked on the moon.

We got married first, and then lived together.  How quaint can you be?

In our time, closets were for clothes, "not for coming out of."  Bunnies were small rabbits and rabbits were not Volkswagons.  Designer jeans were scheming girls named Jean and Jeanna, and having a meaningful relationship meant getting along well with our cousins.

We thought fast food was what you ate during lent, and outer space was the back of the Riviera Theater.

We arrived before house-husbands, gay rights, computer dating, dual careers, and computer marriages.  We came before day-care centers, group therapy, and nursing homes.  We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processors, yogurt, and guys wearing earrings.  For us, time-sharing meant togetherness -- not computers or condominiums; a "chip" meant a piece of wood, hardware meant hardware, and software wasn't even a word.

In 1940 "Made in Japan" meant JUNK and the term "making out" referred to how you did on an exam.  Pizzas, McDonalds and instant coffee were unheard of.  We hit the scene when there were 5 cent and 10 cent stores where you bought things for five and ten cents.  Sanders and Wilsons sold ice cream cones for a nicket or a dime.  For one nickel you could ride the street car, make a phone call, buy a Pepsi or enough stamps to mail one letter or two postcards.  You could buy a new Chevy coupe for $600, but who could afford one?  Pity, too, because gas was only 11 cents a gallon!

In our day, cigarette smoking was fashionable, grass was mowed, Coke was a cold drink and pot was something you cooked in.  Rock Music was a Gramma's lullaby and Aides were helpers in the Principal's Office.

We were certainly not here before the difference between the sexes was discovered; but we were around surely before the "sex change."  We made do with what we had, and we were the last generation that was so dumb as to think you needed a husband to have a baby.

No wonder we are so confused and there is such a generation gap today!  But we survived!!  What better reason to celebrate?

Here are some additional reminiscences

I think you'll enjoy this. Whoever wrote it could have been my next door neighbor because it described my childhood.


 

Black and White  

Black and White TV

(Under age 45? You won't understand.)


 

You could hardly see for all the snow,


 

Spread the rabbit ears as far as they go.


 


 

'Good Night, David.


 

Good Night, Chet.'


 

My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning.


 

My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can't remember getting E.coli.


 

Almost all of us would have rather gone swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring), no beach closures then.

The term cell phone would have conjured up a phone in a jail cell, and a pager was the school PA system.


 

We all took gym, not PE... and risked permanent injury with a pair of high top Ked's (only worn in gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built in light reflectors. I can't recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.


 

Flunking gym was not an option... Even for stupid kids! I guess PE must be much harder than gym.


 

Speaking of school, we all said prayers and sang the national anthem, and staying in detention after school caught all sorts of negative attention.


 

We must have had horribly damaged psyches. What an archaic health system we had then. Remember school nurses?  Ours wore a hat and everything.


 

I thought that I was supposed to accomplish something before I was allowed to be proud of myself.


 

I just can't recall how bored we were without computers, Play Station, Nintendo, X-box or 270 digital TV cable stations.


 

Oh yeah... And where was the Benadryl and sterilization kit when I got that bee sting? I could have been killed!


 

We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.


 

Now it's a trip to the emergency room, followed by a 10-day dose of a $99 bottle of antibiotics, and then Mom calls the attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.


 

We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either; because if we did we got our butt spanked there and then we got our butt spanked again when we got home.


 

I recall Donny Reynolds from next door coming over and doing his tricks on the front stoop, just before he fell off.

Little did his Mom know that she could have owned our house.

 

 

Instead, she picked him up and swatted him for being such a jerk. It was a neighborhood run amuck.


 

To top it off, not a single person I knew had ever been told that they were from a dysfunctional family.

 

How could we possibly have known that?

 

 

 

We were obviously so duped by so many societal ills, that we didn't even notice that the entire country wasn't taking Prozac!


 

How did we ever survive?


 

LOVE TO ALL OF US WHO SHARED THIS ERA; AND TO ALL WHO DIDN'T, SORRY FOR WHAT YOU MISSED. I WOULDN'T TRADE IT FOR ANYTHING!