Replies

Thank you. The word that comes to mind is “bittersweet”.

Did I live in the last generation of childhood?

I think so.

My best friend and I would take the garden hose and create a crazy pattern across the lawn, then we’d wait until we saw a car coming in the distance, and took turns, one running the entire pattern of the hose and falling backwards into the arms of the other just as the car went by...like, well, the driver would be amazed at our stunt LOL.

But we were children. Thank God.

We didn't have a car and walked or took the bus. Every weekend we'd go to the local theater. We used to call it "the slip and slide" because the carpets were so slick with crud that you'd slide down the aisles. Our mother would give us 25 cents each. 15 cents to get in, and 10 cents for a box of popcorn. Sometimes on Saturday mornings they'd have cartoon jamborees. One time my ticket was drawn, and I won a Davey Crockett rifle that shot caps. My brother was really pissed over that since our mother had made him take me to the show.

For entertainment we used to lay one end of a long ladder from the floor of our porch down to the ground, and see who could walk down the rungs without falling off. We used to have a rag man who came around every so often in his horse-drawn cart and go through your trash at the curb. We had an old coal furnace, and it was a real treat for us to watch them put the coal down the chute into the coal bin.

There was a horse chestnut tree down the street from us, and we used to cut open the burrs, cut a hole in the chestnuts, and put strings through them to make necklaces. At the corner of of our street was an empty lot. We'd go there to catch grasshoppers and whatever other type of insect we could find. We used to use bedsheets and blankets to hang over the clothes line in the back yard to make tents. We'd secure them to the ground by hammering clothespins through them. I don't think there was a sheet or blanket in our house that didn't have holes in the corners from our doing this. And my Mom never bitched.

I sure miss those days.