Go Back…..( I Love it )

A dedication to my Parents…..

Go back…..

….Before semi-automatics and crack……..Before Playstation, SEGA, Super Nintendo, even before Atari…
….Before cell phones, CD’s, DVD’s, voicemail and e-mail……..Go way back……way…..way…..way back…..

I’m talkin’ bout hide and seek at dusk
Red light, Green light
Red Rover….Red Rover…..
Playing kickball & dodgeball until the first…no…second…no…third..street light came on…

Parents stood on the front porch and yelled (or whistled) for you to come home – no pagers or cell phones…..

Take One Giant Step….. May I?

Seeing shapes in the clouds….
Endless summer days and hot summer nights (no A/C) with the windows open….The sound of crickets….Running through the sprinkler….Cereal boxes with that GREAT prize in the bottom…Cracker jacks with the same thing….Ice pops with 2 sticks you could break and share with a friend….

….but wait.……
..there’s more…

Watching Saturday Morning cartoons Tom and Jerry, serial adventures,Captain Midnight, Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger, Boston Blackie.Catchin’ lightning bugs(Jugnoo) in a jar…

Your first day of school……

Bedtime Prayers and Goodnight…Kisses…
Climbing trees….Swinging as high as you could in those long swings to try and reach the sky….
A million mosquito bites and sticky fingers….
Jumping down the steps….Jumpin’ on the bed…
Pillow fights….Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt.

Being tired from PLAYING….

WORK: meant taking out the garbage, cutting the grass, washing the car, or doing the dishes.

Rainy days at school and the smell of damp concrete and chalk erasers…………..

Oh, I’m not finished yet….

Giving your friends a ride on your handlebars of your bike…….Attaching pieces of cardboard to your bike frame to rub against your spokes…..
Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school….Class Field Trips with soggy sandwiches……

When ANY parent could discipline ANY kid, or feed him, or use him to carry Groceries… And nobody, not even the kid, thought a thing of it…..

When your parents took you to the cafeteria and it was a real treat…..
When being sent to the principal’s office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited you at home…..
Basically, we were in fear for our lives but it wasn’t because of drive by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. We simply did not want our parents to get mad at us….

Didn’t that feel good? Just to go back and say, “Yeah, I remember that!” Well, let’s keep going!!

Let’s go back to the time when…….

Decisions were made by going “eeny-meeny-miney-mo”
Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, “do over!”
“Race issues” meant arguing about who ran the fastest…..

Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening….
It wasn’t odd to have two or three “best” friends…

Nobody was prettier than Mom..(Maa Ji)
Scrapes and bruises were kissed by mom and made better….
Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true…..

Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles….
The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
Water balloons were the ultimate, ultimate weapon…..

If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived during a more pleasant simpler time !

Wish…. I could write like this………………..