When I was a kid...

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When I was very young I lived on a street which my paternal grandfather developed and owned. It was named for our family and it backed onto beautiful rolling hills. The only houses on our street were my grandparents' house, my auntie's house (dad's sister), and ours. My grandfather and my dad built the houses, and they even operated their businesses from that land. Grandfather and Dad eventually built other houses on our street as well, to sell or to rent. I spent my time roaming the fields and playing at a creek bed, either alone or with my brother. We had several (consecutive) hand-built cabin cruiser boats and we spent most of our time on a boat. When I was born I went directly from hospital to two weeks on our boat, before I even went home! I don't remember the interior of my house but I do remember the interior of our boats. I miss this all so much. It was like my Garden of Eden, so to speak. So sheltered, peaceful and private.

I was shorter.

When I was a kid the term "game boy" was commonly used as a generic term for any handheld game console.

I was younger.

When I was a kid...

It was back then mom and dad still romantically loved one another.
They were both dotting parents. But they were also young, clueless.
Back then, they are just that: clueless.
So clueless, that if fate wasn't so merciful, it could've been very cruel and made my whole past into a tragic turn.
They would've easily been the worst people I'd ever met. They would've... But they changed rather quickly before my teenage years.

They fear themselves... They were torn apart by distance and time, the lack and wanting... Torn apart by the 'harsh realities of life'.
They fear themselves enough to not as much to lay a hand on their children.

They are still clueless to this day.
Just with different priorities, with attachments and with a lot of worry.
Just without the corporeal punishments, without the violence, without the overwhelming anger between the two of them for every few nights that my sister never had to watch or know about.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Back in 1987 when I was 12 if you were a serious rock n roll fan and your favourite band wasn't The Beatles, there was still something seriously wrong with you. I told people that The Beatles were my favourite, even though I liked The Kinks more.

Hogan's Heroes was my favourite TV show because it helped me to keep my mind off the hot summer weather. My favourite prime time TV show was Mr. Belvedere. I played Cockney Rebel so that people wouldn't know that I preferred Germany over Britain. I even quipped in a fake Cockney accent that I was Peter Newkirk and my sister told me that I reminded her of Schultz.

The most exciting thing we could do with technology was to spell words on a calculator (e.g., BOOBLESS).

When I was a kid I’d stay outside well past it got dark during the summer, riding my bike. The lightning bugs were more plentiful. I would catch them and name them, then let them go.

My favorite episode of Tiny Toons was the music video episode with They Might Be Giants’ song “Istanbul.” I eagerly anticipated it coming on everyday but it only rarely did.

When I was 8 +, I could ride my bike to the only store in my very small town and buy Marlborough's for my mother.

There weren't forums to spend time reading topics. Our neighborhood was the forum

We didn't have mobile phones. There was only one phone in the house, and it was screwed to the wall. Besides, it belonged to Dad, and he didn't want us to use it. So when we wanted to talk to our friends, we got on our bikes, rode over to their parents' house, knocked on the door, and asked to speak with them.

^ yes.

Also, if you wanted to watch anything on television you had to pre-read the listings to notice when it would be on. Then write it by hand on a calendar (or use your memory). Then, hope it didn't run past your bedtime. There was no recording, saving, pausing or rewinding anything and there weren't VCRs or DVDs yet. Everyone had to be quiet because if you missed something that was said by the actors, you missed it forever.

I never saw more than the first 30 minutes of The Sound of Music or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which were only on once a year, because they ran past my bedtime. I was never allowed to stay up late enough to finish them. It took me a few years of attempts (growing older / later bedtime) to see the entire Wizard of Oz.

Television … 3 channels, one each from ABC, CBS, and NBC … all in black-and-white … if the weather was good, we got one more UHF channel from the university 30 miles away … Dad got us our first color TV in 1966 … six kids, two adults, one remote ...

I didn't see a remote until about 1974, when we got a new Zenith color TV.

We got a previous Zenith color TV in 1967----but it had no remote.