Days of Yesteryear

My contribution for Weekend Wordsmith.

What happened to the world of yesteryear? It seems like the world has grown up so fast in so little time that I feel like I lived in another life, another era. Or, perhaps the world has evolved just as it should have and I am the one that feels out of place.

I remember our first television set was a small black and white. That was back in the mid 60's, so I must have been around 8 or 9 at the time. I had just gotten out of the shower, had brushed my hair, and had on my favorite red apple flannel pajamas. Can you believe I remember this? The TV was placed on top of a small table and plugged into the wall. My siblings immediately began to fiddle with the standard rabbit ears that ensured better reception. And, of course, no remote control like today; if you wanted to change the channel, then you had to get up and change it. So this pretty much ensured zero channel surfing.

And as a family, we'd sit together after dinner to watch shows for a couple of hours each night to be entertained. TV was not a constant staple, only a form of entertainment that we had the privilege to watch for short periods of time. And so we chose our shows carefully. We'd watch The Ed Sullivan Show, which I liked because every once in awhile some cool rockers and singers would come on. We'd laugh at the ingenuity and comedic timing of Red Skelton, and Lucy. One of my favorites was Alfred Hitchock Presents, where a series of short stories, most of them dark and scary, kept me biting my fingernails to the quick. But the best was when I came home from school when I had the TV to myself and was allowed to watch one hour before starting my homework. Every day I'd get myself a glass of milk and some Oreo cookies and sit down and watch The Little Rascals, and Speed Racer.

Whatever happened to the days without cell phones? Back then, when you walked out of your house, unless you used a pay phone, you weren't going to talk to that person until you got home. The cell phone was a piece of technology that was beyond the realm of our imaginations. So once I stepped foot outside my door, the only rule was to be back home, inside the house, before the sun went down.

And so this is how I grew up. The rules were simple. When I was little I had to stay in the block to play. If I needed my Mother, she was right there. Luckily, this rule applied to all of my friends as well. There were four of us combined, all the same age. And even though we weren't allowed to go beyond our block, if we asked permission, we could all go collectively to the corner store around the block to buy candy, ices, chips and sodas, to which we ate too much of. Two of my friends had pools. One had a four-foot deep pool that her parents didn't allow any of us to go in...very rude, I must say. And, the other had had this tiny pool (which was her baby sister's) that her parents did allow us to go and wade our feet in, because fit in it we could not. And we had a great amount of fun in this tiny, little pool. We'd always begin by gathering up our allowances and going to get our sweets and chips, etc. We'd return and sit around in a circle and wade our feet and eat and share our "meals" (yes, back then we'd all eat from the same bag, eat the same icy, or drink from the same bottle) and wet ourselves and each other, giggling, talking, and having a good time. And, it never failed, by the end of our 'pool time' each of us was completely drenched because in the pool we'd all be thrown by one or the other.

And as I got a little older, my area of independence grew (2 blocks east, west, south and north of the block, no further), but the same rule applied: be in the house before sundown. And this sense of freedom, of not being tethered to the block any longer, threw me into giddy stupidness. One of my friends had a habit of challenging people. And me, not in the habit of turning one down, scraped my knees, scraped my elbows, hurt my ribs, twisted ankles, fell off trees and nearly killed myself so many times my poor Mother never knew. Granted, all of this cannot be blamed on my friend; this is all me, me and my daredevil streak and a solid dose of tomboyishness. Like the day we both fell off a tree when we challenged each other to see who could climb the highest. We both ended up falling because we got silly and started acting like a pair of monkeys. I got the mother of all mothers scraped knee. And I cleaned it the way we all used to back then: with spit. We didn't go crying home so it could be cleaned and bandaged; we just simply took care of it ourselves and continued playing. My friend, she didn't get off so easy, she landed right on a large rusty nail to which she was taken to get a tetanus shot. Another time, we challenged each other again to see who could reach the bottom of a very steep, cobblestoned hill first. We were on our bikes -- mine had no brakes and, lo and behold, I nearly got hit by a car; thankfully, the driver had good brakes. Then, of course, there was the time I did get hit by a car! Never told Mom. I know, stupid, but it just knocked some sense into me that's all and I wasn't hurt. Achy, but not hurt. And, I figured by then, I should start winding down my Evel Knievel ways.

And I also didn't have a lot of toys. I had one Barbie doll, one Ken, a playhouse, a couple of board games, a deck of cards, and that was it. I would play with these primarily at night or on rainy days when I couldn't go out. Because, back then, being outdoors was key. Our mothers never wanted us in the house. Go out and play. We got our exercise, we learned how to get along, and we learned that we didn't need a lot of stuff, just a lot of imagination. There was no such things as play dates. You went out and played. That's it. If Sally or Jane were not around, then too bad for you, find something else to do. Our parents weren't on top of us trying to see if we were happy, having a good time or whatnot. This was great, believe me, it build a good solid dose of independence and resourcefulness. If I were to have ever approached my Mother and tell her I was bored or not happy and needed to be entertained, she would've thought I was nuts and immediately cured that with giving me a back-breaking chore (like clean the bathroom) just so I woulnd't dare utter those words again.

But the best was when I entered my teens. Then, my radius of independence grew exponentially. I could now ride the trains and go into Brooklyn or Manhattan with friends. No parents ever dropped us off at friends' houses or picked us up at movie theatres. No. You were left entirely on your own. God forbid you spent all of your money and call home to be picked up. My Mother would have immediately put me on independence lock-down for being so stupid. So, no, this formed a good dose of economic knowledge because, if you wanted to go out and have a good time, learn to budget. That's it. Black and white, very simple. And, of course, history being history, I still managed to get in trouble more times than not. Like the one time I played hookey with friends in junior high and were on our way home from the park. Well, the car ran out of gas (obviously my friend did not have a mother like mine) and we had to walk a good five miles home. We got home after dark, got busted, and punished. And, I just learned to do it better next time around and now looked after the dingbats that I was hanging around with cause I didn't care for independence lock-down.

There were no such things as new clothes. I was the last of five sisters, so I got all the hand me downs. Only on my birthday did I get a new outfit or two and I was real happy for that and instilled in me a good, solid sense of appreciation.

MacDonald's and Pizza...now, that's funny! My mother did not believe in fast food.

As I got older....going out to clubs....HA! Try again. I asked once, my husband (then boyfriend) got such a speech from my Mother about how she thought this was not a good idea, etc. that I was mortified and it cured him from approaching her ever again.

Music: well, this has been the constant that has not changed; except in the form it comes. I always loved music. I would blast my radio in my room and play my vinyl records on my portable record player, until my room shook. I would save my weekly allowance and each Friday go to the neighborhood record store to buy a single (in vinyl form) that cost 99 cents until my collection grew and I needed two vinyl cases to keep them in.

And this was the world I grew up in. The world when innocence seemed to prevail in my eyes. I was a kid when I was supposed to be a kid; I was a teenager when I was supposed to be a teenager and we were not bombarded with all of the age-inappropriateness stuff of today that children now see on tv and the internet. We were allowed simply to grow at our own speed at the rate our minds could comprehend.

And so what happened to the world of yesteryear? It grew up, just like me.