What childhood memories do you miss?

[Justin24]

1. Going weekly to the Aquarium. God that was so wonderful I would not read childrens books, I would read books on sharks and wanted to be a marine biologist.

2. The Zoo as oftern as the Aquarium.

3. The Japanese Tea garden.

4. Hanging out with my grandpa at stow lake in San Francisco in the Golden Gate Park.

5.Going to the Holt's Science Museum in Berkeley.

6.Trick or Treating.

 

[gherman]

Baseball

I played for the University of Michigan and got hurt. Everytime I think of the game it makes me sad and want to just be a kid again and play with my friends.

 

[coemgen]

I have tons. The first that comes to mind is my grandmother and great grandmother lived in a round house in Des Moines, Iowa. It was the coolest thing.

 

[Lally1011]

1. Walking home in the rain.
2. Summer break.
3. Karate class.
4. Detention.
5. Tearing apart my bike.

 

[Zoots]

Playing sports! Actually playing sports instead of watching them on TV! Pursuing hobbies and creative activities/interests as opposed to the 9 to 5 daily grind.

 

[Diemen]

Sneaking off w/ friends to a local candy store to buy Lemonheads.

Exploring the hills around town with our bikes. We used to ride for miles on end. Almost got lost a couple times.

Good times, good times.

 

[VertigoGal]

I was running the other day and someone had a sprinkler out in their yard and I could smell the hose water and it made me fucking nostalgic.

 

[Diemen]

Man just reading that made me remember that smell...

I remember we got a slip n slide. It's not so fun unless you've got a really smooth lawn. Bumps hurt!

 

[prisz25]

Every Sunday I would go outside my apartment and go to this bush that was FULL of butterflies, I would go and try to catch them. It was so fun!....man, I was so young.

 

[Mr. BAW]

Baseball

I played for the University of Michigan and got hurt. Everytime I think of the game it makes me sad and want to just be a kid again and play with my friends.

This movie was so me and my group of friends...sometimes driving by a park, I see a group of kids playing and it really takes me back...the 60's were really good times.

 

[BluRmGrl]

Riding bikes through the neighborhood.
Everybody at our house, jumping on the trampoline. (Especially during a light summer rain!)
Playing Optimist softball.
Family vacations.
The homemade pizza at my elementary school's cafeteria.
The smell & soothing purplish blue color of freshly mimeographed worksheets. (Waaaay better than rubber cement! )

 

[BAW]

The smell & soothing purplish blue color of freshly mimeographed worksheets. (Waaaay better than rubber cement! ) [/B]

omg, yes!!! Rick and I talk about that all the time!! I loved getting a freshly mimeographed test or even better, getting to walk to the office and pick up the papers from the "ditto" machine!!!

 

[BluRmGrl]

omg, yes!!! Rick and I talk about that all the time!! I loved getting a freshly mimeographed test or even better, getting to walk to the office and pick up the papers from the "ditto" machine!!!

Mimeograph junkies.

 

[BonosBaby12]

Beach vacation for a week every summer

Staying outside late with the neighborhood friends on a summer night

Slip n Slide

Sleeping in late because you didn't have any big responsibilities to attend to!

Birthday skating parties

 

[JCOSTER]

Watching Saturday morning cartoons.
Playing with my cousin/some family members.
Just playing on the streets of Brooklyn.

 

[BAW]

getting together with my whole family at Pearson Park or my great grandma's house almost every weekend

having 2 sets of grandparents living just a 5 minute bike ride away

watching the Disneyland fireworks from my front yard every night in the summer

going to the skating rink on Friday nights

slip n slides & big wheel races with the boys

sugary cereal and Saturday morning cartoons

staying outside until the street lights came on (and maybe a little after if my Mom didn't come looking for me)

 

[Liesje]

Digging igloos until our toes were turning black

Building our tree platforms and "forts" in the backyard

Going around the neighborhood finding stray animals to see if my parents would give in (the closest we ever came was a beautiful English Setter)

Popsicles, popsicles, and more popsicles

Building ramps for jumping our bikes

 

[LMP]

This movie was so me and my group of friends...sometimes driving by a park, I see a group of kids playing and it really takes me back...the 60's were really good times.

L-7 WEENIE!

 

[Carek1230]

OMG I have TONS!

Summer vacation & staying out late playing hide & seek, kick the can....riding bikes with playing cards in the spokes....skateboards, pogo sticks, stilts, making forts, water balloon fights, slurpees from 7-11, climbing trees, skate keys, sneaking into the movie theatre, the DRIVE IN, drive up A&W Root Beer being served & eating in your car! Slip & Slide, family car trips, picnics, reunions, Santa Cruz boardwalk, going to the beach real early to have breakfast, lunch then dinner there, popsicles from the Ice Cream truck, fruit fights in the orchards, riding in the back of the station wagon with the back window down, hula hoops, neighborhood baseball at the end of a dead end street, Sun In to bleach our hair blonde, ice cold kool aid from the big plastic Kool Aid pitcher we got with kool aid points, home made lemonade, watching TV shows as a family, eating dinner together as a family, girl scout meetings and outings, camping, swim meets and swim practices, always running into someone my dad knew no matter where on the globe we visited, trips to the library, sleep overs, bossing my sister & cousins around cuz I was the oldest, the pool, getting to pick out one box of cereal of our choice for helping our mom with grocery shopping, Barbies, board games (Tip It, LIFE, Aggravation, Mousetrap, Operation, Hands Down, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Pick up stix, Monopoly, Battleship, Candyland, Chutes & Ladders), double dutch jumprope, Watching Dark Shadows with our mom & after school snacks, Dad's wacky cooking, horseback riding lessons, Blackberry Farm, San Francisco Wharf, the real Alamo, goign to the zoo in SF & San Diego, Disneyland, Frontierland, Marine World, Sea World, Great America, the Boardwalk & collecting change under the roller coasters, PBJ's squooshed "just so", encouraging notes in our school lunches, OMG.......there's more but this is a LOT! Fun thinking about it all.

 

[Carek1230]

The Sandlot!!!!


(I also liked the Summer of '42)

 

[U2MaNaIcWeIdO]

Catching fireflies with one or two other kids in a field near where I live

Cakewalks at my local grade school

Going to Six Flags : Great America (Too expensive right now for me cause of my fianical problems)

Going to Univeristy of Chicago hospital with my grandma (My mom has a Kidney Transplant in the late 70's and so she need to go to the doctors there for checkups to see how "George" was doing. George is the name of the kidney ) while read rag mags. It was kind of a bonding thing too.

A "boot camp" sleepover type thing at my local junior high school. It was a history thing and we had to choose what history we wanted to learn...my thing was about the Holocaust.

Volunteering myself at a haunted house (Those years were fun!)

 

[muh2o]

The part about no responsibilities and the constant pampering.

That's it, really.

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

not having a job

 

[MsPurrl]

This movie was so me and my group of friends...sometimes driving by a park, I see a group of kids playing and it really takes me back...the 60's were really good times.

"Yer killin' me, Smalls." That is one of the best movies ever, and it amazes me that so few people have seen it--or are even interested in watching it. They don't know what they are missing!

 

[MsPurrl]

Spending summers at my grandmother's farm in rural Virginia--catching "lightning bugs" and putting them in a jar, then letting them go when we went indoors to go to bed.

Hearing the katydids at night. Pulling buckets of ice-cold water out of the well. Playing on the hills in the pine woods.

Watching my mother dancing to the music of the Electric Light Parade at Disney World, and hearing her giggling like a kid when one of the characters would come over and dance with her.

Hugs from my mom (Boy, do I miss her! )

 

[Bonochick]

Family camping trips to Sault Ste. Marie!

 

[RedRocksU2]

I have tons. The first that comes to mind is my grandmother

Same.

 

[Mr. BAW]

"Yer killin' me, Smalls." That is one of the best movies ever, and it amazes me that so few people have seen it--or are even interested in watching it. They don't know what they are missing!

I was every bit of Benny "The Jet" Rodriguez was; when summer came around it was baseball from sun-up to sun-down...we used to hike to a Little League field about a mile from our neighborhood and play until the watchman from the nearby factories would call the cops ... then scatter...We'd also play crossways on the local football field, and if you hit it into the grandstands above row M it was a homer, anything below that it was a double...those were great times....:sniff:

I've got a great story, a heartbreaker if you don't mind...(clears throat)...I pitched the opening game for our Little League, I was 11 playing as a 12 year old...it was North Torrance against North Redondo...I was the pitcher. In the first inning, I walked the bases loaded and then proceeded to strike the next 3 guys out; that followed with the next 6 guys in a row...we won that game 1-0, my childhood, high school and still friend, Dave Skaggs (Baltimore Orioles), hit the solo home run...I was so excited; I couldn't wait to see how the local newspaper wrote up the game on the following day.

I waited with anticipation and nearly mugged the newsboy when the evening edition came; I ripped open the Sports Section, found page 3 and there it was...

"Dick Estendo shuts down North Redondo"....

WHO THE HELL IS DICK ESTENDO????????????????? Assholes, I am Ricky Estrada....! (I was Ricky back then...)

The story followed the game line and I came to quickly understand the power of the media, you see, the Daily Breeze newspaper is located in...you guessed it, North Redondo...they didn't care; if it was their intent to break the spirit of an 11-year old, it worked, I was crushed...we lost the next game and we were out of the tournement, back in the old days, it was one loss and your done...I still feel pain about that newspaper article...but the story is a good one told to my kids, over a bottle of wine, some joyful tears and thinking back to how I shut down North Redondo.

Great times...:sniff:

 

[Thora]

Running around in the summers at all hours of the day or night with my cousins and other friends when we were at our cabin.

Long bike rides where we just rode for no particular reason. No set destination, just going wherever we felt like going.

Exploring the woods, and finding tree houses.

Hikes with my Dad to the highest point of the island where our summer cabin was.

Road trips to California for Spring Break.

My dad taking me out for a fancy lunch to a nice restaurant downtown. Those were very special.

Pool parties - we practically lived in our pool in the summers (when we weren't at our cabin).

Going up to the island with another family to chop down our Christmas tree. We'd hike in the snow to find the perfect tree, chop it down, and bring it back home.

Sleeping on the dock at night in the summer.

Walking to and from school by myself or with my friends. It's definitely not as safe now as it used to be.

Writing plays for me, my brother and my cousins to act in. Of course, being the writer, director, makeup artist, costume designer, etc. I would always get the best of everything.

I copied most of these from a journal entry I did ages ago about this. I have many wonderful memories of my childhood!

 

[Night & Day]

Nice thread.

When i was with my sisters, before my dad passed, we would all gather at the local park, Keno Park, it was.
There was 5 of us and one Big Wheel, and my little brothers plastic motorcycle
(two fat tires in the back and one slightly larger one in front).
Keno was a round park with a steep slope and alot of trees, which left many lovley, crispy leaves to be reckoned with.
As my parents sat on the top of the hill, my siblings would take turns rolling down the hill on the toys,
Mike was very selfish with his motorcycle, and because of it the name Michael, Michael, Motorcycle came to be.

My sisters wouldn't let me take a turn rolling with the Big Wheel to the bottom of the slope,
so i pulled all the leaves together about 20 feet away, into a huge pile.
I walked back up to the top of the hill, lay horizontal on the grass, tucked my arms in and let my body go.

And i rolled, keeping one eye open to make sure i landed into the pile i had created.
I landed it perfectly, and seconds later, all my siblings were in the pile, having rolled after me.
We sat there throwing crunchy, broken leaves of all colors at each other.

We all would rebuild the pile, and roll over and over into it.
Everytime went to that park after that, we would gather as many leaves as we could and roll.
If there wasnt any leaves, we still rolled down the hill racing one another.

I took Jonica there when she was a toddler, and taught her how to roll at that park.
I even bought her a mini motorcycle, pink and white, just so i could watch her laugh.

I dont remember any other time we were together as a family that felt so beautiful.
There never really was any.