I see a lot of do you remember posts on Facebook. I enjoy looking and yes, remembering a great number of them. A great deal of that depends upon where you were born and raised and your family's financial status. Funny as a kid I never thought much about that as I often heard, who do you think I am, Rockefeller. The actual cost of the item didn't seem to matter that much. I heard the same thing about a candy bar as a new bicycle. I do remember playing outside, although we had no streetlights to tell us when to come home, we just knew when it was suppertime. If you didn't get home in time not only where you in trouble, but you were going to bed hungry. This isn't a restaurant you know. Yes, I remember.
Today I was thinking about that stuff and remembering where I grew up. My little town had a hardware store, a shoe store where you could buy new shoes or get your old ones repaired, a candy store, a toy store, 5&10, two pharmacies, two soda fountains, several lunch counters and a couple barber shops. I figured every town had all those things. I still believe that they did, back then. Today I don't think many small towns have anything even close to that. Oh, I forgot to mention the corner deli, the little mom and pop grocery stores. All of those places were available to us. As a kid riding my bicycle, I visited each of those shops frequently. Yes, I lived in a time when we had a stationary store! It actually sold stationary, not bicycles, stationary to write letters to other people on. It is where I bought my first space pen! The stationary store was an exciting place to shop. Every kind of pen, pencil, crayon or marker you could dream about. Pads of paper lined and unlined and in every color. Staplers, paper clips, and ink wells. Yup, had ink wells to go along with the fountain pens they sold. You could also buy a fountain pen with that little tube inside, new technology! And yes, for graduation many kids got a pen and pencil set. The fancy ones in gold or silver in a velvet lined case. Some were even engraved. Got those at the jewelry store.
I remember. I knew the names of most of the shop owners and their employees. They knew who I was as well. There was a direct connection from those shop owners to my parents should the need arise. You were watched, closer in some places than in others, but definitely under surveillance. That was well known by everyone and had a tendency to keep you honest. I remember. I took a piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum from the 5&10 one day while I was there with my mom. We got in the car, and I began to chew that gum. The inquisition began! I quickly folded under the pressure and confessed my crime. I was taken back in the store to make my further confession to the owner of the store. I was met with a stern face and a simple question. Why didn't you just ask? I had no answer. The gum was purchased, I was humiliated and went home in shame. My siblings were all informed of my transgression that evening at dinner. I was exposed as a thief! I remember.
Yeah, there are a lot of things I remember both good and bad about those days. I find myself longing for the good and forgetting about the bad. Remember but don't relive is my advice. In that way you can view the past with a positive outlook. Far too many today are looking to the past for reasons for their disappoints or failures today. Some are looking hundreds of years back. That's a mistake. You can't go back and change a thing. It's my thinking you can't change tomorrow either. Que sera, sera. Isn't that what Doris Day sang. Yeah, I remember. It was a different time and place.
We all say it, things were better back then. The truth is in many ways they were. You sure had less to be concerned about that's for certain. I could ride my bicycle and venture just about anywhere in town I decided to go. Yes, there were certain neighborhoods that were a bit sketchy, a little risky but not really dangerous. Thing was I had no reason to go there most of the time. If I did have a reason I would go however, just be a little nervous about doing so. I think of my childhood days as being free range, but I rarely was further than a few miles from home. It sure seemed a lot bigger back then, but then again, so did the house I grew up in. I went to visit that home many years later and the lady was kind enough to allow me to roam around. Man, that place was small, a lot smaller than I remembered. Still, it was a home full of happy memories, warm, safe, and very comfortable. That home is gone now, torn down and replaced.
I've lived here in Greensboro long enough that I'm starting to say I remember. I remember when we had a hardware store on main street. A hardware store with those wooden floors that creaked and groaned when you went down the aisles. The shelves were packed with all sorts of things, mostly loose like nails, screws, door hinges, all that sort of hardware. It wasn't hanging in sterile blister packs that you need a chain saw to open. All manner of things hung on the walls. The floor was splattered with pain in the paint stirring and mixing area. The old wooden counter gouged, dark in color with cigarette burns along its' edge. That store is long gone now, it was remodeled and is now the pharmacy. The old pharmacy is now a "bodego" a word most likely unknown in this area twenty years ago. The bank on the corner is still there although the name has changed at least three times. The only mom and pop store still operating is being run by Indians or folks from Pakistan. I confess I don't know which and feel it impolite to ask. I remember having only one stoplight. Now we have twice as many, along with lighted digital signage. It was better here twenty years ago.
Well, I'm getting on as the saying goes. I'm so old I remember when there were only two genders and political parties weren't defined by which candidate was hated the most. I remember when, for the most part, people trusted our government to do the right thing. I remember when everyone went to church in their Sunday best, and to funerals the same way. Nothing much open with the exception of those little mom and pop stores on the corner. No beer sales until one o'clock on Sunday! I remember when just taking a drive was going out. And sometimes on those hot summer afternoons, on a Sunday, after church we changed our clothes and took that drive just to check that the ocean was still there, the bay was where it was supposed to be, and the lighthouse was standing. Sometimes we even got ice cream! Yeah, I remember. A different time and place.
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