[Fiji Hill]

A few things I can remember

• Riding my bicycle, at the age of nine, through all of the alleys of West Whittier, Calif., often traveling more than a mile from home, and sometimes shopping for groceries for my family. To do so in that neighborhood--or just about anywhere else in America nowadays would be unheard of.

• Diving off the high diving board at swimming pools. Today, diving boards have all but disappeared in America.

• Playing on the teeter-totter, the jungle gym, and the merry-go-round at the park. These devices are all but extinct in America. In fact, I rarely see kids playing at our local park, which is mostly used by the homeless as a place to sleep.

• Playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and re-enacting WWII (usually the bad guys were the Japanese, not the Germans) on the school playground. Unthinkable in this age of zero tolerance.

[real saxophonist]

When I was in elementary school, some kid fell off of something and broke his arm. The superintendent ordered that all playground equipment be removed, 'for the children'.

Three years later, we got a new superintendent, who ordered all that equipment replaced.

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Riding my bicycle, at the age of nine, through all of the alleys of West Whittier, Calif., often traveling more than a mile from home, and sometimes shopping for groceries for my family. To do so in that neighborhood—or just about anywhere else in America nowadays would be unheard of.”

And doing it without a helmet.

I remember ice cold winter mornings and my father wrapping a heavy blanket around me and carrying me into the skating rink to play ice hockey.

[Coldwater Creek]

Wow! I’m a widow with a terminal illness, so I spend a lot of my time reliving the memories from a long lifetime. I was really enjoying all the post, then I get to yours, it was like a ghost had just slapped me in the face. My late husband grew up in West Whittier, loved to ride his bicycle in the Whittier hills, spend Saturday afternoons at the Wardman theater, Pattie Melts at Nixon’s and when old enough the Sundown Drive in. Tears! These are things that I had forgotten that he loved so much as a kid. Thanks for reminding me.