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My brother and me playing football on a Sunday afternoon
Remember when we were kids, and we’d spend hours playing outside? Remember when playing in piles of leaves and running through through sprinklers was the highlight of your day? When I reminisce about my childhood, I think about how much simpler life was, and how even before the tech blitz, we had some awesome toys. Of course, a lot of my favorite memories center around shooting hoops, riding my bike, climbing trees, or building forts.
Swimming in the rain
When I was a kid, rainy days were for splashing in puddles, watching movies on the couch, and dusting off our frequently neglected inside toys, like dolls, sylvanian families for girls, or wooden blocks. We’d help Mom make dinner, play hide and seek, put together puzzles, or curl up with a good book. Sometimes in the summer, if it was raining without thunder and lightning, we’d go swimming in the pool. Crazy, huh?
Fishing involved live bait like minnows or crickets, not a video game and controller, plus you could eat your catch! Sunscreen was optional, although looking back, it should have been required! Sodas came in glass bottles, libraries had card catalogs (my children will never know what a card catalog system is) and maybe one computer, almost everyone owned a set of Encyclopedias (Wikipedia didn’t exist), and you were lucky if you had a television with a remote control. (sleep timers weren’t standard) Plus, most of us only got 10-12 channels.
Dinner time was for conversations about our day at school/work, and the phone was never answered, until after the dishes were done. Vegetables came from our garden, not cans, and making homemade ice cream was a family event. If you were lost, you used a “—” to help you, not a GPS, but a map. Manners weren’t optional, and Sundays were for Sunday school, and football games in the yard.
My kids playing outside
Yes, those were the good old days. One day when my children are old enough to read this, I guess they’ll roll their eyes, call me lame…and ask “what the heck is an encyclopedia?”
About Kristin
When I was young, there wasn’t an option to play inside w/all these games and a gazillion TV channels! LOL Absolutely miss that! Call me the ‘mean mom’ but we only allow video games on non-school nights… bikes, basketballs, skating…. you have them. Now GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY! I must sound like a broken record sometimes :)
Things did seem much simpler when we were kids. Sure it took longer to look the word up in the dictionary or use the encyclopedia but I think we learned more from it and had a greater sense of accomplishment. Even our toys took longer to play with (at least it seems that way).
I have a few relatives who still don’t have cable or netflix or anything like that and in our area the converter box only picks up 4-5 channels.
Love this post… and I realized recently that things had really changed at the library … matter of fact I was REALLY confused at how I was supposed to locate a book there.. I just broke down and asked at the front desk after about 20 minutes, lol. Wow!
I miss those good old days too, things were much simpler and families spent real quality time together actually connecting and bonding. I don’t remember having the sense of urgency like we have now either. It’s a great reminder to slow down and enjoy life!