Is It Just Me…
In my never-ending effort to purge my possessions and rid myself of the many musty memories packed in bins in my basement, I came upon a couple of binders with articles I had either written for various publications or read on radio a couple of decades ago. Like this one from around 2000.
Stop whatever you’re doing and go back to a time when you saw the world through younger eyes: eyes that aren’t tired from overwork, lack of sleep and worry, eyes that aren’t strained with cynicism. Stop and imagine what it was like to see the day through the eyes of a child, as you once were. When was the last time you did that?
Remember both the excitement and the fear of the first day of school? Getting caught passing a note and then having to share it with the class. Sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, drinking milk through a paper straw or right out of the bottle when no one was looking. Inkwells, fountain pens, sharpening your pencils, blackboards, and being chosen to clean the chalk brushes by banging them against the walls outside the school.
Remember even earlier… making a clock out of a paper plate, colouring books, scrapbooks and the smell of a new box of crayons? How about the taste of that white glue that came in a little jar? Or the taste of blood when a tooth fell out. Is the tooth fairy still alive?
Firecracker Day was fun whatever day that was. Lady Fingers and Blockbusters? I still have a scar on the back of my neck from shenanigans gone wrong. I remember the smell of a house fire that wasn’t in the fireplace. Or the somewhat appealing aroma of airplane glue while you were building a model.
Do you remember the first time you learned how and where to really ride a bicycle?
How about the last time you peed your pants? Not now, when you were a kid.
Where did kitties litter before they invented kitty-litter? Dogs walked themselves. The smell of the cedar chips in a hamster cage and finally getting the guts to flush that dead turtle down the toilet. You don’t see as many budgie birds anymore.
I’m talking about playing Simon Says, Kick the Can, Red Light Green Light, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys and Mother May I?, wax lips, and saddle shoes.
Remember walking to and from school mostly on the snow banks? Moccasins with felt liners in them made it easier to “bumper shine”. Or when you could finally wear rubber boots – with the tops turned down, of course.
Putting your toque and mitts on the radiator after building a snow fort till the sun went down. Snowstorms, snowball fights, snowmen, eating snow, Hank Snow and hoping to get a Sno-Cone Machine under the tree at Christmas.
Kids with cauliflower ears, cooties, cowlicks, buck teeth or B.O. when they got older. And then there was the occasional kid who just lived with his mom. Where was the dad? We didn’t know and we never asked.
Going to the school dance and finally getting up the nerve to ask “her” for a waltz. And praying to God you didn’t sweat too much … and if you did … maybe the smell of your dad’s Old Spice would distract her? After the song, you walked her back to her seat on the girl’s side and then casually retreated to the opposite side of the gym where “the guys” were anxiously waiting for the latest report. Remember staying up late or sleeping in until noon on a summer day? And summer holidays meant … holidays “all” summer long.
Did you ever deliver the Tribune or the Star Weekly? The Katz and Jammer Kids, Mutt and Jeff, Quick Draw McGraw and his buddy Baba Looey. Do you remember learning how to draw with Jon Nagy?
The truth is, the “good old days” weren’t always that good for some of us. Still, once in a while, it’s kind of fun to go back and remember some of the things we did and the people we did them with.
Jim Ingebrigtsen is a former broadcaster.