Can we get em back?! The good ole days..

As i sit here inside my home on a sunny afternoon, looking out my window noticing there are no kids around to play, i began to reminisce on my own childhood.

I remember getting up early Saturday mornings, throwing on some clothes and watching a few minutes of cartoons while i kill a bowl of Captain Crunch. All of this in a matter of 47 minutes before darting out the door to meet up with my friends.

Man, i remember playing games like hop scotch, some sort of patty cake games(down by the river, all hands up for 85, slide, baby one...one, etc.), playing hide and go seek but not without choosing a seeker first by tapping each persons foot reciting, "bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish...?" I remember all the girls coming together making up cheers and dances for the boys who prouded themselves on impressing them with their great football skills that they [thought] they possessed. They recreated an open field into a football field using anything they could find as the touchdown zone. I mean, we did everything. Ghetto olypmics, which consisted of a wall and a couple of mattresses that someone threw out. Yup....i said it! We would stand on a wall that stood about 3 or 4 feet high and do a back flip or front flip off of it onto a dirty old mattress. LOL! We were fearless. Thinking of it now, i cringe of the thought of why the mattresses were thrown out, but as a kid just wanting to have fun, we thought nothing of it.

Not to mention all the other games like, double dutch, hoola hoop, red light-green light, Freeze Tag, O-U-T Out, Dodge Ball, N*cca Knockin (don't ask. LOL), kick ball, four square and slip and slide with a litte dish detergent to make it a little more slippery.

And of course we had to have some penny candy to go with it all. Big blow candied gum, blow pops, Pixie Sticks, tootsie rolls, now-n-laters, lemon heads, boston baked beans, candy cigarettes, mary janes, wax candy with a sweet liquid inside, jaw breakers, fireballs and bazooka gum. For a few cents more, you could get Big Hunk gum, Sugar Daddy, Sugar Babies, Fun Dip or maybe even a Nutty Buddy. All we needed was 50 cents to stock up on enough candy to have a belly ache at the end of the day.

Being from the south, we ate a little bit of everything from the corner store along with the penny candy like the jumbo sized pickles in a bag, pickled sausage that was usually handed to you in aluminum foil so it doesnt stain your hands red, moon pies, pickled eggs and if you think that is bad, we ate pickled pig feet too. Ewwwhhhh!!!!

My grandmother was the candy lady in our neighborhood, but what she was most famous for was her flips! Some may not know what that is but basically all it is is kool aid frozen into a paper cup and then once purchased, its flipped upside down in the cup and eaten from the bottom since that is where all the sugar goes when frozen. What made my grandmothers flips special was she put fruit in hers! Pineapple was my favorite. She knew the perfect time to drop the pineapples in the almost frozen Kool Aid so that you would be sure to get a piece of fruit at every bite of your flip until you were finished! Can you say YUUUMMM!?!?!

We would stay outside in that summer heat until our parents called us in the house in the wee hours of the night. With the street lights on, we would group together and sang the most popular songs at that time. I mean, it would be a group of at least 30 kids or more. All the neighborhood kids looked out for each other. What happened to those days?

WHERE ARE THE KIDS?!?! I mean really, do kids even know how to play outside anymore? It really saddens me. Technology has taken over our babies. Cable tv, Wii, Playstation, XBOX, Nintendo DS, all of these console games have taken over the next generation, leaving our kids socially disabled and overweight. More at fault is the parents. Back in the day, our parents and grand parents sent us flying outside to play and would give you hell coming in and out of the house. My grandma would say, "Are you trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? In or out and it better be out!" LOL! I think parents now let the child do whatever they want as long as the child is out of their way and naturally most kids will choose the "in thing" because their friends are doing the same.

Granted, nowadays arent as safe as they were back in the 80's. You have pedifiles everywhere and its very unfortunate. But with that in mind, be smart about sending your child outside. I honestly think that i will still go outside with my daughter until she is a teenager and when she does become a teenager, please believe i will still be keeping my eyes on her nearby.

I miss the good ole days, and i will make sure my daughter has a full life and not miss out on what being a kid is all about! Please do the same when or if you have a child or children. One child at a time, and no child left behind.

Sincerelyniah! xoxoxo!