Something from your childhood that you miss

My dad tended bar at a small place off-base. On Sunday, they cleaned. I helped. I got paid with a free hour of Galaxian.

Good stuff.

Summer vacation

Serious answer: We used to vacation in the area my mom lives now. We'd go downtown and visit a little corner store, pick up comic books and candy, and just relax at the cabin we rented. If I wanted, I could run across the street and spend all day playing with the girl my age who lived there, running through the woods, jumping over streams and making up stories. That store's closed now, and the little girls are both all grown up, but I'll never forget the memories.

Hula-Hoops

Kick the can. My grand daughters still play it when they visit. They live in big cities and can't go outside at night but here, in Kansas, lightning bugs, flashlight tag and kick the can still exist. Magnolia, Bella, and the neighbor kids, Edwin, Christopher, Uriel, Angel and Ruby, play late into the night. The grown ups sit on porches and watch. My Mexican born neighbors played it in Mexico growing up. We laugh, swat mosquitoes and wish we could play too--s6

Everything. I simply miss everything from my childhood. I miss thinking Battle Creek, Michigan was some mystical, magical place where all sorts of goodies came from in 8 to 12 weeks after sending in 5 box tops and $1.25 for shipping and handling.

I miss the Silver Age of comics and waiting for each new month's comic to come out.

I miss being amazed by each new television episode of Star Trek, Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Time Tunnel, The Invaders.

I miss the space race, putting men on the moon, free love, hippies, Woodstock, waiting excitedly for your favorite band to release a new album, going to a book store and being excited about all the new releases.

Milk delivered to your doorstep.

I guess I miss most is the feeling that everything was new and exciting, and even simple things gave me a thrill and you could make friends in a minute just by playing with them in the park, swinging on a swing, climbing a tree, playing tag, without ever once asking what their religion or politics were.

That's what I miss, a life full of life, filled with fun and imagination, free of adult responsibilities or worries.

I think I miss the simplicity and innocence of childhood. My younger years weren't the most enjoyable, but parts of them were amazing. So much I'd do differently....

As for things I'd want to experience again? Sailing on Seneca Lake with my dad. We had a 16 foot O'Day sailboat, and while we never got very adventurous (topped out at maybe 4-5 knots), I have great memories of those afternoons.

I'm also going to go with summer vacation.

This was before pedophiles and kidnappings (and before automobiles, steam engines... ), so the only rule was "be home for dinner". It was two months of freedom. To a kid, that's infinite time. We slept in every day, biked around town, followed creeks to find out where they went, swam until we wrinkled up like prunes, climbed trees, and sometimes just lay in the grass and watched clouds.

My innocence.

My mother's cinnamon buns, banana bread, cakes, etc.

There are so many things I miss. There's one, though, that immediately came to mind: Walking up the hill in the pasture behind our house on warm, sunny days with my collie by my side, the wind ruffling our hair as I told him stories of dragons and knights and such. A more appreciative audience I'll never find.

Thought of this one:

I miss my grandpa's house. He lived in a cozy house tucked away in the woods. An empty lot next to it because a private baseball field for my friends and me. The woods were made for exploring, with hidey-holes and secret places aplenty for someone who wasn't finished growing. A kid could have lived out there any no one would know. Out back was a pool with a diving board, and behind that, an enormous lake filled with fish and turtles and frogs and snails. A camellia bush that climbed the far wall was Grandpa's pride and joy, although his entire yard was. I planted a grapefruit tree out front. In Grandpa's old bedroom, a room that eventually became mine, one entire wall was covered in cabinets, where I discovered my dad's collection of Submariner comics and fell in love with Marvel. We found birds nests in the garage, sometimes still with the babies. We had Thanksgivings with the whole family in the dining room.

We drove by the last time we were in my hometown. The house was in disrepair. The grapefruit tree was still there.

Someday, I'm going to buy that house back.

My sister and I riding bikes to the Dairy Queen for a breakfast of cherry limeades. My brother, my sister and I watching stupid, mindless TV until the theme song from "Days" played. That meant Mom would be home from work in exactly 20 minutes so we did all of our chores to the best of our abilities, with five minutes to spare! Then we dug up thirty cents--that's right, 3 dimes, one dime apiece-- for an afternoon of swimming and tore off on our bikes, before the shit hit the fan. --s6

I agree with the Ferret. Everything, at least up to the year I turned 10.

Other than my mother?

Drawing. Arts & crafts. Paper chains, snowflakes, etc.

Playing board games for hours.

And the library was such a magical place back then. It's not quite the same now that I buy all my books online.

Exploring! I was born to explore. I explored wherever my legs, or skates, or bike could take me.

I'd be gone for hours, completely lost in whatever city we lived in. I did that in various large cities from 5 yrs to 20+. (At five it was just my block.. but by 8 yrs I was going for many miles in usa, and foreign lands, too.) Did that in BIG cities, poor little foreign villages, and jungles even.

Like Angry Guy said... "Be home for dinner" was the only real rule of the day.

Drawing a Hopscotch diagram on the sidewalk in chalk and waiting for another little girl to come along so we could play...

The Ice Cream Man

Catching Lightnin' Bugs in Mason jars

Sitting under the Crepe Myrtle tree in the park across the street

Making Ice Pops by freezing Grape Kool-Aid in Dixie Cups

Cold, chunks of watermelon

*Being able to walk 6 blocks to my BFF's house (as a 10 year-old) without the fear of being harassed or abducted*

My youth.

What I miss most?

The summer I was fourteen, me and my two best friends would wait until dusk and then just walk around our neighborhood, talking about everything under the sun - boys we had crushes on especially. We be out until like 10PM just lapping the neighborhood and back then, our parents didn't worry about us and our 'hood was all the way on the edge of the township, tucked away in a quiet little corner, so nothing ever happened - when a cop car came through, everyone would run out to see what was going on, because it happened so rarely.

Those two girls and I are still best friends, but we're scattered along the Eastern Seaboard and don't get to see each other all that often - but that summer was probably the best one ever.

Dusk!

Flashlight tag.

I miss flashlight tag.

I always dressed in dark clothes. The one with the flashlight would walk right by me laying in the grass.

My dad playing his acoustic guitar for us.

What a nice idea for a thread, especially on a Friday when we start to remember to dream and reflect. Cella, I suspect you are a romantic.

I think most of all I miss the "firsts", the intensity of experiencing anything for the first time.

It still happens. I still experience some things for the first time. But they happen much more rarely of course, and even when they do the experience is not as intense, because of all the other "like experiences" that I'm sure I subconsciously categorize along side them.

But specific things: my parents, who though are no longer warring were at least living and breathing. My maternal grandparents who raised me for a lot of those years, who were picture perfect nurturing.

Shooting pool with my dad in the old neighborhood, the Italian ice truck, and buying our clothes out of a trunk of a car.

Days that went on forever, and the feeling that anything was possible.

tag

Playing ball with my dad in the back yard.

Rainy days. (I lived on a farm and had to work when the weather was good.)

Wandering around the countryside without fear.

Having no worries.