I remember . . . . . While we (many of us, that is) joke and complain about having to grope for names these days, our long-term memory seems to be intact. Witness my recent response to hearing that next Monday is Presidents’ Day:
I remember when Abraham Lincoln and George Washington each had his own birthday celebrated – February 12th and February 22nd respectively. I even remember the hard red candy cherries encased in cute cardboard hatchets we had on the 22nd! It’s kind of sad to me that they lost their individual birthday celebrations.
Do you remember something that brings a wistful smile or a happy memory?
I remember making valentine’s day boxes for class and then the excitement of distributing the cards we had all stuffed in prior to the big day. It never occurred to me it was unfair, just fun and so important. I also remember making little May baskets and delivering them to my friends doors in secret. Loved those little baskets with sweet violets, little candies and special notes attached.
Thanks for the chance to be nostalgic.
I remember the local candy store and how we would often stop there on the way home from school and buy some pumpkin or sunflower seeds that came in little boxes. Come springtime we always had our pink spalding balls with us and played various games with that whenever we got the chance.
I also remember having a valentine mailbox in our classroom and passing out Valentines to classmembers and on the last day of school our teacher would get little dixie cups filled with half vanilla and half chocolate ice cream. Under the lid of these dixie cups were pictures of movie stars and we spent alot of time sharing these lids and often trading them with one another. Imagine such things being a thrill for the kids of today. What fun to think of those things.
I remember Tasty Yeast (it was the only candy my mom and dad allowed me to have until I was 5 years old); Maypole dancing on May Day at boarding school; going to a double feature for 10 cents admission and 5 cents for candy and usually finagling another nickel for two boxes of candy (Goobers or Raisinets and Good and Plenty). I remember that there were only two kinds of sandwiches in the world: lettuce and tomato and peanut butter and jelly. There were the silent but technicolor movies my Dad took of the family (long gone) and my Mom curling my hair so I would look like Shirley Temple. I remember going to Catherine Littlefield’s School of Ballet and being the klutziest student in the class, though Mom used to say to the other mothers, “Look at that. Everyone is out of step but Patsy.” An ice-cream cone was 10 cents for a double dip with jimmies, and I could go all by myself to the store to buy almost anything with 50 cents. I remember traveling by train alone at the age of 9 from Penn Station to Annapolis to stay with my cousin in their quonset hut for the weekend. Oh, don’t get me started . . . I may not remember my name (though I’d know it if I heard it–an old Ronny Graham line) but I can call into memory thousands of trivia from my childhood.
Loved your comments, Pat. And I remember Ronny Graham –although my mom would rather I didn’t!
I remember chocolate Cokes and cherry phosphates served in real glasses at the soda fountain in Goodnight’s Drug Store in Lafayette, Indiana. Also nickle coffee ice creams cones. YUM!
Ha I love you Chicks!!! This is my favorite place to hang out when I need a good dose of humble pie. You are all amazing. let’s see, I remember all the stuff from what everyone has said, (except maybe Ronny Graham, but his name was Bruce Fadeal!!!!) I remember chicken fights in the lake, I remember slow summer afternoons, walking everywhere without fear or fatigue, Firemen’s Days carnivals, sneaking cigarettes and thinking it was a grownup thing (so sad).