When I was eight...1975...
In the summer we played outside from morning until the street lights came on...or until you heard your Mom calling you for dinner from down the street...
We played at everyone's house, except for the old lady on the end who didn't like kids and would yell at us for getting too close to her car. We'd stick our tongues out at her and keep playing in the street anyway but were careful to avoid her yard...
On holidays there would be a street party and we'd all jump in the pool at the one house on the block that had one. Screams of "Mom look at me" would echo through the neighborhood as we jumped off the diving board. There would be a potluck where our Mom's would bring ambrosia jello salads and the men would barbeque hamburgers and hot dogs. We kids would refuse to get out of the pool and eat because we didn't want to wait an hour before we could go back in...
On the 4th of July we'd have a fireworks show put on by the Dad's in the middle of the street. All us kids would "ohhh" and "ahhh" and demand more sparklers to draw our names in the air. If you did it fast enough, you could see your name written in the air in a ghostly image of sparks...
We'd walk two miles to a drug store called "Thrifty's" and buy an ice cream cone, 5 cents for one scoop, 10 cents for 2, and if you were really lucky, you had 15 cents and could get the 3 scooper, which always melted and fell off the cone before you could eat it all...
We rode our bikes and skateboards and roller skates without helmets and pads, and sometimes we got hurt.
We played in little league, soccer, dance and gym classes, and we only got trophy if we earned it.
We laughed at our parents as they got the latest "Afro" style perm and giggled at them as they learned to Disco, all the while we secretly rehearsed the steps to The Hustle in our bedrooms so we could impress our friends...
We wondered what the heck that cloud of smoke was with the funky smell coming from our Uncle's room...we never saw him smoking any cigarettes but he sure smelled funny...
We spent our time dreaming about what we would do when we got a car...we made a pact that the first person to get one would take us all to Disneyland...
We invited only our friends to our birthday parties. Mom would make a cake and we'd have the party in the backyard or a local park. We'd play games like pin the tail on the donkey or have coloring contents to see who could do the best picture and stay in the lines. Sometimes a kid would get a pinata, and inevitably someone would always get hit with the stick, but no one cared or sued - you just learned to stay away from the stick...
We went home from the birthday parties full of cake and ice cream. Sometimes we'd win prizes from the games, candy or small toys like plastic rings and water guns or a new colored pencil...
In my neighborhood, we had friends of all colors, races and religions, and we didn't know what "prejudice" was. We all played together, no one's parent ever told us to stay away from "that kid" unless "that kid" was a bully...
We would sit for hours pouring over the Sears catalog toy section, circling the ones we wanted and making our Christmas wishes, all the while knowing if we got even just one of them we'd be lucky...
When we fell and skinned a knee at a neighbor's house, the parent there would patch us up and send us home without worrying if our parents would sue them...
We learned to own up to our mistakes, and to set things right when we'd done wrong...because our parents didn't let us get away with lying...
We learned you had to work to earn things, things aren't just handed to you because you exist...
We learned that summer is never long enough...
To be eight again....
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