I miss the smell of burning leaves in the fall; I can still close my eyes when the leaves are bright red and orange and smell that rustic aroma. I remember too when a car equipped with one of those catalytic converters parked over a pile of leaves in the gutter and burned to a crisp (actually that was about 15 years ago).
I miss going to a White Castle ® hamburger stand on a Sunday after church, helping my father flash the lights on the car to call the car hop who took our order and returned with a tray to hang on the car door with our burgers, fries and orange soda, and I surely miss hamburgers at 12 cents each. I could eat a dozen at a sitting back then, but my parents limited me to six; hey $1.44 was $1.44 back in 1955. :rolleyes:
I miss pea shooters, not sure why, as my mother was dead set against them with the proverbial warning that someone was going to get hit in the eye, but at only ten cents a piece we were able to acquire them with little effort, it was finding the right kind of pea that was a challenge.
I miss dirt bombs. It seems that small boys can’t help but be fascinated by soldiers, in my youth I had hundreds of tiny rubber soldiers and their requisite equipment. I would play for hours in the dirt in front of the apartment where we lived. Ultimately, you cannot have even a make believe war without violence and that is where the dirt bomb comes in. Dirt bombs are simply chunks of dry dirt that when thrown, explode into small pieces and in the process give off “smoke in the form of fine dust billowing in the air. You have to admit that is a measure of violence we can all live with. My fascination for soldiers and war ended while in the army in 1968 and 1969. :-1
I miss going to the Jersey shore each summer Saturday morning at 6:00 AM with my grandparents to fish at Manasquan Inlet. My grandfather insisted that my grandmother come each time even though she didn’t fish. She spent the day in the car (a Packard) reading or knitting. I never thought she enjoyed the weekly trek, but I was a kid what did I know. We never caught many fish except once when we did catch a few dozen blowfish of major size, at least in the eyes of a twelve year old. :yh_loser
I miss holidays when decorating was actually fun and simple and the tree was circled with homemade ornaments from school including those paper chains. I miss going to relatives for a holiday meal, and they did all the work.
I miss the ammonia smell of my mothers home perm kit and the little paper and rollers she used to make he self beautiful for relatively little money. In fact, I don’t miss that smell at all; it seems as vibrant today as it did then.
I miss my fish tanks and my thriving business selling baby Black Mollies when I was fourteen. As I recall I sold about a dozen.
I miss seeing kids being creative in the process of making money. My parents never could afford an allowance so we found ways to make money. We collected empty soda bottles at the park, (yikes environmentalism in the 1950s) and received a nickel for a large bottle and two cents for regular size. We shined shoes in our apartment, raked leaves, shoveled snow and put on plays and carnivals and sold tickets for a nickel a piece to others kids and family.
Come to think of it, I miss a lot of things, but the present is pretty good too. Someday many years in the future I hope to look back and miss the beach on Cape Cod with my small grandchildren, or my wife and I traveling around the world or simply walking among the trees, or even my granddaughter’s “Poopy Pa, Change me. I guess by then I will really be old.
Most of all I hope I remember. :-2
