Remember when?

[sting75ray]

For those small town Oklahoma kids of the 70's like me:


Remember those days when it was all simpler...
living in the house that seemed huge then and tiny now
with the floor furnace that popped and hissed
and the window unit that fed the flower bed
while it shook the sill as it started

Remember that neighborhood, it was only a block
but there were miles and miles of friends and all were known
the back alleys were the highways for our bikes
with the dogs and the gardens and the other side of people
the only danger around was the occasional goat-head sticker

We rode on freedom with a banana seat
we rode for thousands of miles within that block
ramps of wood and bricks transformed us into Evil Knievel
yards full of sprinklers, clotheslines, trees and imagination
paving 1:64 scale roads in the dirt and and being the Dukes

School was bike rack, a tetherball, and H-O-R-S-E
walking there and running home to catch Batman
paper mache sculptures and Christmas plates
we learned the new metric system of the future
and found a million uses for red rubber balls

Remember cap guns, parachute soldiers and water rockets
riding in the back of the truck with the wood bed
remember those days when it was all simpler
living in the house with the brittle paint and the creaking floors
time moved slower back then

Brings back several memories. Thanks for posting.

 

[dan45]

And Rock-em Sock-em Robots

 

[flatwins]

I remember these...

 

[Lurkerinthewoods]

I remember all of that at my grandparents house. My mom still lives in my childhood home. I now have a rental up the street from her and my oldest son lives there with his family. Brings back a lot of memories when I visit.

There is a part of me that would like that simple life back. Seems the more you make, the more things you need and the more things you need, the more you need to make. Thanks for bringing some perspective of simpler times.

 

[JB Books]

Getting my first GI Joe in 1964. Then patiently waiting for the Sears Christmas catalog to come out in 1965 to see what I could ask for next.

YJ,

I was lucky enough to have a friend who inherited a ton of GI JOE stuff from his older brothers. I mean, everything, helicopters, boats, jeeps, headquarters and tons of equipment and weapons.

It was a lot of fun.

 

[RickN]

Actually, my wife looks almost exactly like Hedy Lamarr.

Pics or it did not happen!!!

Sorry I could not resist.

 

[Shadowrider]

O/P and JB, I could have written your posts for you. I did and remember all of it.

The city of Mustang is perplexing in that I don't know how in the world it's not a superfund sight. Me, dad and a friend of his fired tons of shotgun shells at doves right in the middle of what is now the town. Every year they were so thick it was just impossible to keep your gun loaded and you had to just stop shooting and let it cool off. I still can't decide which smells better, a freshly fired shotgun or Hoppes #9. They both take me back to that better time.

 

[dennishoddy]

I was a wanna-be mountain man, as I read all of the great outdoor novels around at the time in the 60's.
My Uncle(a great outdoorsman) owned 160 acres in Osage country that had a 90 acre patch of woods with a natural spring. My folks would drop me off for a weekend, with some beans, taters, .410 single shot shotgun, and what ever fishing tackle I could pack into a back pack. I built my own shelter, built fire, and caught fish or shot small game to eat. I was in heaven. Started at 12 years old, and by the time I was 14, those woods belonged to me, as well as permission from the neighbor. I never ran out of food.

Unknown to me, my uncle was slipping in there at night to assess my bean, tater and onion supplies. It never dawned on me that they never got low......LOL.

 

[ruckerduck]

Who collected pop bottles? I can remember collecting enough to fill a shopping cart. We would take them to Safeway and get our deposit. We would spend the money on comic books and baseball cards. How about bottle rocket wars on the 4th of July? I also remember when Quik Trip would throw there old Playboys in the dumpster. That was some good dumpster diving!

 

[ruckerduck]

Who collected pop bottles? I can remember collecting enough to fill a shopping cart. We would take them to Safeway and get our deposit. We would spend the money on comic books and baseball cards. How about bottle rocket wars on the 4th of July? I also remember when Quik Trip would throw old Playboys in the dumpster. That was some good dumpster diving!