I Remember When…

I remember when…

telephones were black, and they had a dial (click, click, click), and a short cord (you didn’t walk around the house talking on the phone, or drive), if you weren’t home…well, people didn’t get ahold of you, they called back later…no answering machines.  Life wasn’t lived “instantly” back then.

I remember when…

doing the dishes meant washing them in a sink of sudsy water, with your brothers and your sisters.  One to wash, one to dry, and one to put away.  Washing dishes was family time whether we realized it or not.  We were home most evenings, as a family, folding clothes, doing homework, watching tv.

I remember when…

honestly, i don’t remember “fast food”.  Maybe it was living in a small town.  I remember following mom in the grocery store with the second grocery cart, as we filled them both, and supper every night around the kitchen table.  We prayed together as a family, and spent supper time discussing our day.

I remember fish net panty hose, and go-go boots, knickers, hot pants, and maxi-skirts.  Shag haircuts, and rollers from orange juice cans.  Aqua blue eyeshadow (which in 7th grade I’d sneak on in the bus on the way to ballgames!), POW bracelets, Loves Babysoft perfume, and ear-piercing with a needle and potato.  Hand-me-downs were like Christmas, and new clothes were for starting school and Easter Sunday.

I remember my grandpa sitting in his rocker every evening after supper and reading his Bible, putting my birthday pennies in the little plastic church at Sunday School, carrying the Christian flag into Vacation Bible School as we sang “Onward Christian Soldiers”. 

I remember the jukebox at the cafe, sitting at the counter and twirling on the stools, Coca cola out of a frosty glass bottle (and that bottle was worth 5 cents if you recycled). 

I remember when…

pictures were black and white, out of a camera with film and a flash cube (it was a red-letter day when I got a camera that the film would automatically forward with each shot, and it used a flash bar rather than cube).   You went to Rankin Drugstore and sent the film off, waited a week, and paid a fortune for all of the pictures, bad shots and all.  No erase, or delete back then…no photoshop, or red-eye reduction.  (But it was all worth it when Rex, the pharmacist, teased me about my purple ears…why, I don’t know!)

The big 50 is almost here, and I think back on those times, and until now didn’t realize how important those memories are.  That growing up, the wonderful childhood that I remember is full of things and people and ways of life that my children didn’t know and my grandchildren won’t even be able to imagine.  It’s full of priceless times and precious memories that only I can share with them.  It’s full of family and history and where I’ve come from…where they’ve come from…and never do I want to be the grammy that says, “Life was so much better then.”, but always I want to say,

“I remember when…”

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