Happy New Week to you readers!
Just when I'm really down with an seriously ill family member, a friend and one of Detroit's best vocalists, Kris Peterson, forwarded this to me. Kris recorded "Momma's Little Baby" in the '60's, and also recorded with Frank Zappa. Its been quoted that Kris has "more soul than a Hummer full of Black chicks!" It may not have originated from her, but she was kind enough to forward it to me, and at just the right time when I needed a lift. I've done some minor editing and rearranging, and want to thank Kris very much for letting me share it with you. Some of my friends in the Uk, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in the world, may not remember some of these "American" memories, but there's enough here, to make us all feel like kids again. Thank you so much Kris!
With all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with the children of today?
DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN...
1) All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?
2) It took five minutes for the TV warm up?
3) Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school?
4) Nobody owned a purebred dog?
5) When a quarter was a decent allowance?
6) You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny?
7) Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces?
8) All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day?
9) ...and wore high heels?
10) You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot?
11) Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box? 12) It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents?
13) They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . ...and they did? 14) When a 55 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady?
15) No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked?
16) Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a ..." and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game?
17) Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger?
18) When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat!
REMEMBER...
Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Doody and the Peanut Gallery...The Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Bell, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk...Summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar...Candy cigarettes, Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles...Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes...Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum...Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers... Newsreels before the movie, P.F. Fliers, Telephone numbers with a word prefix....(Raymond 4-601)...Partylines...Peashooters, 45 RPM records, Green Stamps, Hi-Fi's...Metal ice cubes trays with levers, Mimeograph paper...Beanie and Cecil, Roller-skate keys, Cork pop guns, Drive ins, Studebakers, Washtub wringers, The Fuller Brush Man...Reel-To-Reel tape recorders, Tinkertoys, Erector Sets, The Fort Apache Play Set, Lincoln Logs... 15 cent McDonald hamburgers, 5 cent packs of baseball cards - with that awful pink slab of bubble gum...Penny candy...35 cent a gallon gasoline, Jiffy Pop popcorn...
A TIME WHEN......
Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"? Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"? "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest? Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening? It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"? The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"? Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot? A foot of snow was a dream come true? Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minutecommercials for action figures? "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense? Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team? War was a card game? Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle? Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?
Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"? And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care!
Till next week friends...Keep your hands on the wheel, and your foot to the floor, when your'e "Drivin' Sideways in Detroit
*Special Thanks to: Kristen Peterson (MI), The Hurricane shelter (MI-OH), Team Detroit (MI), La Grizzy (Intrnl), Sonja Paris (Intrnl), Larry Patterson and Treasure Island gold (Fla), Ralph Terrana (cal) and Soulful Detroit Music Forum (Intrnl), and "Lucky" the Wonder Dog (he's everywhere!)
