[IIntense]

I wonder if the kids growing up today would trade places with those who grew up during the 40s and 50s. They may actually believe they got the better deal. Computers, video games, cell phones, smart phones, suburban homes, two-income parents, etc., etc. Maybe every generation thinks theirs was the best.

I relate to the 40s and 50s era and keep in touch with a couple of friends from those days. One of them lived three houses away on a row house street with 16 ft. wide homes. We've been friends for 69 yrs. and frequently talk about our great childhood (in the city). Yes, life was simpler then for kids. We walked to and from school in the morning, for lunch, and after school regardless of the weather. None of the moms drove cars and the dads worked all day.

We didn't have a park nearby---we called it "the lot", and the boys got together to play baseball there---no adults controlled their games.

I'm tempted to go on about jumping rope in the one-block street,the boys playing half-ball against the cigar factory wall,and so much more. Maybe I should write some memoirs!

Anyway, thanks for the memories.

[itssme]

I think that if today's kids experienced the life we had as kids, they'd want to trade places. In Chicago, we lived in a circa 1879 home called a “worker's cottage”, a formerly larger home divided into two separate apartments (my grandfather made the changes b/4 he died, knowing that his wife would want to live in the same house with one of her children after his death.) My parents then moved into the front apartment after their marriage in 1940. We lived 10 blocks from the Chicago Stock Yards and on a warm summer night with the breezes blowing, you could smell the “fragrance” and hear the faint sounds of cattle mowing, if that's the correct word for it. For a city girl, who wanted to be a cowgirl each Saturday afternoon, while watching the latest cowboy and indian movie at our neighborhood movie theatre while wearing her new cowgirl boots that her Mom bought her for her birthday, it was unreal.

You're right in that there were few cars parked on streets in those days, and Moms didn't drive..everybody walked or took the bus. There were open lots in our neighborhood also, where kids would play ball. Some of the lots had tall, overgrown grass & weeds, and we use to call then the “prairie”, I think it's a Chicago term. We had those wonderful Ma and Pa grocery stores in our neighborhood and I can remember my Mom sending me to the butcher's around the block for a pound of round steak ground for that night's dinner, or across the street to the Ma & Pa grocery store for canned goods and ice cream for us. Or to the fish store on Fridays for Pike fish, my Dad's favorite.

I'd love to hear about your memories as you've mentioned. Jumping rope, playing tag games in the street, roller skating, dressing up in homemade costumes on Halloween, celebrating Christmas in pre and post WWII households, and the simplicity and sensible gift giving practices that kids today know nothing about. Tell me more...