Age plus ing

I was talking to a friend when I heard myself say, "I remember when....".  I couldn't believe it--was that actually me talking?  Are you kidding?   I looked around to see if my parents were standing behind me; I've heard them say it a lot.  No--they were not there, just myself uttering those three words that had given me so much comic relief over the years--when they were using them.


Well--okay--so I'm there. What to do?  Maybe I'll just go with it--fifty is probably just the beginning of what's to come anyway so here goes:

I REMEMBER WHEN.......

Krogers would run specials on loaves of bread.  We would be walking down the bread aisle and my mother's face would light up with joy, calling out to my grandmother to come look.  And there it would be, in nice big, black, bold letters, a sign:  FOUR LOAVES FOR A DOLLAR!  Nobody owned a deep freezer at the time, so they were limited, but a cart they did fill--with bread that was 25 cents a loaf.  I can appreciate this memory because just retelling it sends chills down my spine--aw those were the days!

Stamps were two cents--two cents total to send a letter across the nation if you so desired.  And another point--people actually wrote letters.  I still have letters my grandparents wrote to me when I stayed away from home for the first time.  I have a letter from Vietnam that my uncle wrote to me...I could go on.  I saved those letters and it means a lot to go back and read them.  There is something about somebody's handwriting--personal--unique.  Where is my stationary............

My first car cost me $600 total--I have pictures.  Roll down windows, no air, and barely any heat--but it was my car.  Gas at the station was......get ready......55 cents a gallon!  What I could do today with those prices.

I had to walk fifty a mile to school and back every day.  No way my mother was getting out to drive healthy kids to the neighborhood school.  In the winter we would put on our "winter skin" and boots over our clothes as we  headed out to school.  Along the way we ate icicles that hung from the exhaust pipes of cars--that explains a lot today--no really it does.

I spent a lot of time outside--playing and when I was older I spent a lot of time outside--playing.  I couldn't wait to get home, change clothes, and just go outside--until dark.  Now I spend a lot of time--inside and I've started making a list of "chores" to complete when I get home.  What's up with that?  Really--I'm actually making a list of "chores"?  My inner child is throwing a tantrum--why I signed up for knitting next week.  Knitting?  Well it's a start--at least it wasn't a class on childhood development with a twenty page paper due.

Pop bottles were a big part of my childhood.  That's when coke was actually 16 oz. and it came in a glass bottle--with a cap you had to pry off.  The bottles were worth 5 cents---5 cents--that's a fortune to a child who lives near a penny candy store.  We looked like characters straight from a Dickens novel, scavenging through the trash cans, and looking behind bushes--eyes always moving--hoping to catch a glint of glass.  The candy store would take the pop bottles and give cash--which was spent at the store--on candy that was actually a penny.

I use to waste a lot of my time, emotion, and focus on things that in the big picture--never really mattered.  I spent a lot of my younger days being afraid of things-boxed in by my own insecurities. Not to mention making those around me miserable in the process.

So I would have to admit there are advantages that do come with age.  Okay-that's it--I'm changing the title to this:

AGELESS