Childhood Memories

One of my co-workers and I were talking about things our mothers told us.

I remember my Mom telling me that if I looked at the clock with a pouty face, I would stop the clock. I never managed to stop the clock so I guess I didn’t pout long enough.

I remember “I don’t care about the other kids, I only care about you”. Or how about, “If you head wasn’t tied on, you would lose that too”. Another favourite “Think of all the poor starving children in China”. I was young long before Africa was a known problem. How many of us were told that if we didn’t do up our coats in winter, we would catch our death of a cold?

I remember as a teen trying to understand the rationale of a curfew – something about the trouble I could get into after midnight. I have always lost my impetus by 10:00 so if I had any intention of getting into trouble, it would be long before midnight!

I also grew up in the age of mini-skirts – the first time round. My grade 7 teacher wore very very short skirts and if she bent over, most of the boys in the class were very attentive because you could see everything she had on underneath. That was in the time when teachers wore dresses and skirts – no jeans in my era.

I saw the local firefighters testing a hydrant a few weeks ago and I remembered when we would run in the water as they were emptying it out – that was great fun. Our moms would send us out in the morning and only call us back at lunch, supper and bedtime – other than that, we were free to roam the neighbourhood for hours on end during the summer. We knew approximately what time it was because the local church bells would ring on the hour and we could hear them.

Suzy, Joanne, Andrea and I would play with our Barbie dolls for hours. I am an only child, Suzy had 4 brothers, Joanne had 2 brothers and Andrea had 2 brothers so we were overrun with boys but only 4 girls. Because I grew up in the Montreal area, the rest of the kids on our block were French speaking. My Mom says that at one point, in the span of one block, there were about 80 kids under the age of 10 living there. It’s a good thing that Suzy, Joanne and Andrea all got along well.

I guess there was Little League but none of us were involved – it was baseball on the street or in Andrea’s back yard – her Mom didn’t mind the worn grass. Andrea and her brother Chris has mid-summer birthdays and their Mom always decorated really neat cakes. We also had a watermelon party one year. What fun it was to spit out seeds at each other.

We also played Cowboys and Indians, long before it was politically incorrect. There were many games of Hide and Seek and Red Rover as well. We drank water out of the hose and ran through sprinklers.

We occasionally played school but there was nothing on TV during the day and anyway, our mothers would not let us stay inside unless it was raining so out we went.

Well, summer time is here and the living is easy so go out and enjoy the season.