Old School and Proud of It!
Don't get me wrong, I love and use all the modern electronic gadgets and am thankful for the creature comforts of the modern age, but there is a part of me that longs for the good old days and simpler times.
I miss many things, but having multiple levels of the family in the neighborhood is high on the list, when I was younger my great grandparents, grandparents and our family were within walking distance. Now the family is spread all over the country.
I learned a lot from those "older generations" being part of the process of "raising me right" as my grandmother always explained her rules and discipline.
How about you folks? Anybody "old school"? What do you miss most from the days of your youth?
I am also proud to say that my three grown sons say please and thank you, address their elders as ma'am and sir or Mr. and Mrs., open the door for their ladies and treat people with respect.
I'm with you, Robert. I miss the time of my life when we didn't have to lock our doors, when uncles, aunts, grandparents and even great grandparents lived within walking distance. I miss the days of going to the Saturday afternoon matinee where watching the serial was more important than the news and sometimes even the movie. I miss being able, as a little kid, to be able to go into the local forest by myself and not be concerned about kidnappers or pedophiles or other predators, while I collected salamanders. I miss the scrub softball games on the public school grounds that were a short block away even if I was the last kid chosen for one of the teams because I wasn't particularly athletic. I miss spending the summers at my grandmother's cottage at the local beach, the nickle ice cream cones, collecting empty glass pop (soda if you're an American) bottles on the beach and cashing them in for 2 cents each to spend on candy and 10 cent comic books. I miss the fishing with my uncle who had no children and treated me as if I were his - fishing off the pier of the canal between Lake Ontario and Hamilton Bay while watching the huge iron ore ships sailing through to deliver to the Steel Company of Canada. I miss standing at the side of the highway there with my friends and being able to name the brand of cars as they drove by. I miss sucking on the shards of ice we got off the back of the iceman's horse-drawn wagon as he delivered a block of ice for my grandmother's cottage icebox. I miss sitting in the cottage screen porch and watching the sunsets over the bay sparkling in the waves. And I miss going to bed at night and hearing the moaning whistle of the steam-driven freight train that traveled from Toronto to Buffalo
However, at the age of 69 I made a complete change, and, like Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings, went on a whole new adventure, and started my life all over again.