Something from your childhood that you miss

Believing in Santa Claus (the Easter Bunny scared me)

I miss my parents. I also miss the Punch and Judy shows at my local park and just being a kid, where have those days gone?

I have to add this since it came up recently...and most of you unless you are from Arizona won't get the reference. But I miss the Wallace and Ladmo show. It was a great show for kids and not once did they talk down to us.

No clocks. I mean there were clocks but only the adults were looking at them--s6

the beatings

we used to rough up this ktc dude,...

good times.





hey! there he is!

Being completely self-centred and it being okay, because it was what everyone expected of you.

Being small enough to be picked up and comforted by an omnipotent, omnibenevolent parent.

Lack of experience of suffering and loss.

The temporal dilatation of childhood -- or is it adult years that shrink in length? Either way, it's fucking unfair.

Knowing that everything was going to be alright in the future.

Having four grandparents.

SimCity 2000.

Not having an acute awareness of the fragility and impermanence of everything, including grandparents, pets, your own life, life on Earth.

My baby brother, Johnny! The grandson in my avatar reminds me of him. Come to think of it, at 60, Johnny is starting to look a lot like this again! --s6

Watching roller derby on TV. I was a big fan of the Los Angeles Thunderbirds. On Sunday nights I would put on KTLA Channel 5 and see the Thunderbirds play against the Texas Outlaws or the New York Bombers or the Detroit Devils. Lots of good skaters: Little Ralphie Valladares, Ronnie "Psycho" Rains, and many more.

My grandpa was a Roller Derby fan. I used to watch with him--and we also watched Natalie Cole's father--Nat "King" Cole. He had a show that came on when Grandpa got home at lunchtime, so we watched while Grandma fixed lunch. Grandpa had a voice and used to sing along. I especially remember "Up A Lazy River." Grandpa used to sing it to me while he rocked me in this chair that had trees and and a river on its upholstery---always thought the Lazy River was on the chair--s6

'Going with' a girl, when it meant holding hands, maybe walking arm-in-arm. Neither of us aware of anything else we could be doing. Writing letters to each other from summer camp.

Thinking I was soooooooooooooo lucky for getting to stay up until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, like on New Year's or when we were out visiting my parents' friends.

Then came the first time I stayed up for 48 hours as an adult...

My dad was caretaker of a 10,000 acre ranch for a few years after my parents split up, when I was ten. There was a small pond on the hill above our house that was very shallow. I had a two sizes too big puffy blue jacket that I would put on and then lean back into the water with. It was actually buoyant enough to keep me floating and I would spin slowly in circles, flat on my back looking at the sky.

That's a lovely memory, maceleon.

Right now, I am missing the boundless energy I had as a child. I'd love some of that back, please.

Oregon Trail

Babysitting and being able to stay up late enough to watch Saturday Night Live while in midfle school. Oh no! Mr. Bill!

Playing "Ditch 'Em" (i.e., "Ditch Them") on summer nights. Ditch 'Em is hide-and-seek on a large scale, played by kids in their early teens. We would put together two teams of roughly one to two dozen players each, and hide in any outdoor spaces throughout the neighborhood -- the streets, the sidewalks, front yards, back yards, whatever. One team would hide, one team would seek, and it wouldn't stop until all of the "hiders" were caught. It was always awesome, whether your team won or lost.

Ditch 'Em -- that's the name.

wiffle ball

Capes-- Zorro capes were my favorite, but there were Superman capes and Batman capes and villain capes and invisible capes and Crusader capes and Beowulf capes and capes worn by girl spies in Revolutionary war stories and all you really needed was a towel and a safety pin! --s6

Trash can lid shields!

When I was a kid, I wasn't happy. The world is much better for me now.

But there were golden days in there, all the same. On good days, my friends and I used to go down the road and wander into the marshlands and meadows, and make up long involved stories. Once, I lost a shoe in the mud of the river.

I also miss the old coaching inn I lived in when I was 7 or so. It was an awful house, the pipes dripped icicles, you needed five blankets in winter, and my dad nearly burned it down by accident... but it had a ruined stables in the garden with hops growing all over, and a 'secret passage' behind the washing machine (where they used to bring the beer barrels in). I loved it there. And I had this massive tree puppet that a puppet theatre sold us that I played with all the time - I could fit inside it, and I still resent selling it away. We couldn't fit it in the new place, but goddamn it I want it back.

When one of the local TV channels would do its week-long showcase of imported science fiction movies: "Voyage into Space" aka "Johnny Sokko", "The War of the Gargantuas", and some of Godzilla's finest cinematic moments. I've never gotten into sci-fi but these movies were a major trip!

Finding a penny, slipping it into my mother's purse, and thinking that now we'd be rich.

Channy said:

Oregon Trail

Click to expand...

Has anyone ever played the zombie version of Oregon Trail?

Organ Trail by the Men Who Wear Many Hats. It's everything.

http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html