Something from your childhood that you miss

KellyAssauer

The Anti-Magdalene
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Chasing after cows with a stick twice as tall as I was. Carbonated beverages in glass bottles. Real sugar. Churning vanilla ice cream about this time of year, only to flavor it with raspberries we picked yesterday.

=(
 

Siri Kirpal

Swan in Process
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Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

I prefer most of where and what and how I am now, but...

I would love to really be able to sing again, especially with my mother and her mother and sisters all gathered around the piano.

There are foods I wish I could still eat, shortbread particularly. And we used to make what you guys call pita bread and what we called Syrian bread or 'houbs (that's the best I can transliterate; I'm illiterate in Arabic); homemade "pita" bread is totally unlike that dull dead stuff you can buy in stores; this was the real live stuff that disappeared like crazy...and we made 5 pounds of flour worth when we did it, which was only a few times a year. They no longer make the type of gas ranges we used to make that bread: broiler under the oven, and the floor of the oven flat. After two risings, we'd bake the loaves first in the oven, letting them puff up, then quickly in the broiler. Oh, the fragrance of the baking!

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

Vito

Recalled to life
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Pinball machines. They used to be all over the place: arcades, pizza parlors, drugstores, liquor stores, bowling alleys, everywhere. Now they're pretty much nowhere. I really miss 'em.
 

J.S.F.

Red fish, blue fish...
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Honestly, the only thing I really miss is my youth. I'm old enough to accept the passage of time, but all the same, there are moments when I yearn for a Twilight Zone happening of kick the can back to my younger days...
 

C.bronco

I have plans...
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Sitting in small rocking chairs on rainy days with my big brother, and writing our first novels. I was 8. His was three pages and mine was one and a half. It was EPIC!
 
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Godyth

Crusader Rabbit is my hero.
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So many things you all did that I remember doing. Lightening bugs in a Mason jar? Oh, yeah. Not chasing cows, but being chased by cows? Been there!
Hide n seek in the woods at dusk.
Swimming in the creek at the bend where the water was deepest.
Skipping flat frogs on the road.
Spending all day in the woods wandering, watching snakes eat frogs, birds build nests and spiders spin webs.
Picking blackberries and getting scratched up and eating more than you took home for mom to make into jam.
Laying out in in the green grass during a spring rain and watching the drops come down.
Laying in the yard at night and watching the lightening bugs take over the world until a voice from the kitchen door told you it was time to come in.
Hating the part where you had to come in cuz you just don't want the day to end.

Thank you for this.
 

Wilde_at_heart

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Time passing by more slowly, especially in summer.

Clothes, furniture, etc. were better quality and less 'disposable'.
 

Hip-Hop-a-potamus

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Our school had a giant field of bluebonnets behind it where we would sit at lunchtime, with our little mini stuffed animals that we bought at the dime store in the shopping center next door.

We'd build them little houses and play after we ate our lunch.
 

shakeysix

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Cosmos and Queen Ann's Lace. The back part of Grandma and Grandpa's vegetable garden was completely taken over by cosmos. They were taller than we were and we could pick as many as we liked--no one cared. We used to scrunch down in them and make cosmo chains and read books. The smell of comoson a hot summer afternoon is still one of my favorites.
If Grandpa left the gate unhooked a skinny little kid could just squeeze through and into a wonderful field with all kinds of rusty junk and building stones. They came from a flour mill and sheep farm that were leveled by a tornado back in 1915. Wonderful, rusty, jagged edged, tetanus laden junk to carry around and marvel over. In between were towering groves of Queen Ann's Lace--home to millions of mosquitoes and spiders but who cared? The flowers are huge, lacy and white but every now and then there is a drop of pink--Queen Ann's blood! So we would look for the pink spots.

We weren't supposed to be in the field but I think now that Grandma knew we were exploring it because she told us Mom and Uncle Johnny used to explore it too. --s6
 

sassandgroove

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My grandparents. The way I thought my parents knew everything. The way everything was new and amazing. The way I thought there was really magic. Staying out until dark with my friends, riding bikes, playing army and star wars, playing barbies. enjoying running.
 

WriteMinded

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Most of all I miss my private place where you had to crawl the length of the tunnel I’d burrowed through the brush and then climb up the tree at the center. From my perch on one of the higher branches, I had a view of the whole neighborhood. I ate sunflower seeds , planned how I was going to run away from home, and I made up stories, and sometimes I eavesdropped on the other kids, not that they had anything very interesting to say. – Now, I only have my own private room stocked with a big desk, a computer, and all its accoutrements. :D

also: Drive-in restaurants, soda fountains, cozy family owned eateries where you got wonderful home-style dinners for cheap.

my brother, lost friends.

running up and down the creek with the other kids.

sling-shots, peashooters, hide-and-seek.

trips to Yosemite with my family and a friend.

having nothing to be afraid of except my mother. It was safe to wander the beaches, night or day, safe to walk the mile home from the theater, even in the dark, safe to leave your car and your front door unlocked.
 
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stormie

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Okay, here goes:

Before the age of eleven, not having to wear a bra, especially in the summer.

The sound of whirring fans in church or the library. Now with central air, it's too quiet in those places.

Roller skating on people's front porches or bumpy sidewalks. No one sued for cuts and bruises and breaks. The town doctor fixed everything. In the office of his home.

Staying at the beach all day and not worrying about sunburn or what to make for dinner.

Movie theatres that leaked. In the winter, snow would fall on us during Doctor Zhivago. In the summer, rain dripped on us during Lord Jim. We thought it was hysterical.
 

sheadakota

part of the human equation
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Playing flashlight tag with the whole neighborhood ( we called it starlight 17- I'm not sure why)

the peep frogs that invaded the alley behind my house.

the smell of hot concrete during a sunshower.

playing outside until the church tower next to my house lit up- that meant it was time to go home.

walking the rail road tracks and trying not to fall off- putting pennies on the tracks and waiting for the train to come by and squash them.

thinking that my parents were perfect.

when my sister was my best friend.

riding my gold banana-seat bike nowhere for hours.

having no understanding of death.

My German Shepard, Sandy.

The huge Cherry tree in my back yard- I have yet to this day taste any cherries sweeter than the fruit from that tree.
 

MaryMumsy

the original blond bombshell
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fizzies

Things kind of like alka seltzer. You dropped them in a glass of water and had instant cola or root beer or lemon-lime or cherry. I'm sure there were other flavors too.

MM
 

Nekko

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Fire flies. We don't have them in the west.

Summer evenings walking the neighborhood by myself, lost in my own head, listening to the crickets.

Exploring the 'woods' and creek near our house - they seemed so big then

Listening to summer rain - I know those of you living on the east coast and south are tired of it, but it nearly never rains in CA in the summer, even non-drought years.

Camping in the Adirondacks and Maine.
 

sassandgroove

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When I was a kid, listening to the radio was an activity in and of itself. Now it's something I do mostly in the car or when we are doing other things in the house, like cleaning.
 

BookmarkUnicorn

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Saturday morning cartoons, when you had to wait all week for them to be on and then watched from six in the morning till the boring shows started at noon :3 Also life before the internet was common place and fast when you still had to go to the library to find out things. Also, school book fairs/clubs. Gah I loved sending in the issue paper slip with a check and getting back freshly printed books :D
 

shakeysix

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This is a bit of a derail but fireflies are back, at least here in western Kansas. Over the years so many of my friends and neighbors have lamented their passing but it has been a wet, cool summer and fireflies are back. Last night my grand daughters wanted a jar to keep them in but I said no. All I had to say was that they were becoming extinct and the kids were immediately sympathetic and comically careful not to hurt them but still chasing them all over the yard. --s6
 

TheNighSwan

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Appart from not being a hairy beast, I don't really miss anything from my childhood.

I don't think I had a difficult or bad childhood by any means, but I was a superficial, spoiled brat, and I am entirely glad I am not anymore.