REMINDERS OF SIMPLER TIMES

Yesterday, it was cold and snowy here. Officially 1/2" of snow -- about normal for our little dustings. I spent the afternoon looking at some of the old home movies from when I was growing up in the 50's. There were lots of just regular days playing with neighborhood kids. Me, walking down the sidewalk with a friend and holding my baby doll and wearing plastic high heels, my brother playing "army" with his best friend out in the dirt, and both of us learning to twirl hula hoops around our bodies and ride our first bicycles. I guess we had a pretty normal childhood for that time. We had some really good snows where we lived. Our house was on a dead end street --- literally---there was a cemetery at the end of the street. When we had a big snow, there weren't many cars so the whole neighborhood ended up in the street riding sleds. There are movies of the glorious rides down the hill and then trudging back up to the top to do it all over again. My mom pulled us around a lot too. When the parents couldn't come out to play, our next door neighbor had an extra lot that was on a hillside and we could sled down it without any supervision. About halfway down there were a couple of humps that when you hit it, you almost came off the sled. I never got brave enough to sit up on the sled, I just laid on my tummy and went down. I was only 8 when we moved from there. There were movies of the first day of school (back when girls ALWAYS wore dresses to school), family gatherings, camping trips, vacations. I hadn't looked at these in a while and it was nice to remember the way things used to be.