Hi Marilyn Lead paint and All I would love to go back. I was born in 53 so I lived though these things and can say over all it was a gtreat time. In the (as we old times say) you could walk across town a 2 in the morning and never worry about someone , beating you, robbing you, raping you or killing you. Many times us boys would camp in the back yard and walk to the 7-11 store at 1-2-3 in the morning and get someinthing to eat. I would walk the same path today at that time carring 357 handgun. I know I would likely have to use it. Part of this is just getting older and we tend to remember the good over the bad. Yet the crime rate was lower, that because families was families. We would have all the uncles and aunts and all the kids go to the lake on the weekend and camp. We all fish and swim and tell stories at night. Most of those people still live in this twon and some I have not seen in several years. Family! Different hours and jobs has torn the family apart. Back in the day there was not many grarve yard shift jobs and very few swing shift jobs. Most people workd 8-5 M-F and was off on weekends. There was only a very few convence stores open 24-7-365 be cause most people believed it was sin to work on the Lords day! We have computers,pda's cell phs and we are more disconceted form one another than ever before. If you shut the TV off in most homes familys would not know how to just set and talk to one another. As I said the old day over all was better. I did know when Dad said to do something he was not kidding, it would not be said twice. I also knew if I did not do it he had a belt and did not mind using it on my back side in front of the neighbors, police, and God! We are in a hurry to get where we are going and getting no where fast. While us old geezers are still here we should be planting seed in the hearts of our children and grand children. Seed of honesty and integerty. Teaching them to love our nation and respect the Law , the church and God. With all our great progress our baby boomer generation has brought to the world we lost some key things our parents had brought to us. Love thy neighbor as you love your self. Love God with all your heart .mind and soul. You don't have to churchy to do this, just breathing and realizing there more to life than what meets the eye and reaches the ear! You can ponder on that one a while. God Bless Johnny

Hello Marilyn and Dave, Having been born in the forties, my fondest memory is that no one locked their doors it seems until the eighties! But we did have a guard dog...standard poodle who licked everyone to death! Margaret

Hi Marilyn, As I was reading this I was remembering all the fun I used to have as a kid playing outside. We used to beg our mothers for "just 5 more minutes", because we didn't want to go inside. I think computers, video games, TV, etc. are a factor in why some kids are overweight. They aren't outside running around like we were. Thanks again for the memories Marilyn.

Hi Marilyn. What a Wonderful Story. Thank You. It is so true. I remember so much of this also. It is amazing to think how My brother, Sister and I used to Play in our Cornfields and Woods growing up and we had a Blast. I had a Friend who lived up the Road and we would go bike riding for Miles all around the Country roads where we lived. It was so fun. I was in such Great Shape as a child. Gymnastics, Rollerskating, Just staying active. We have such a lazy made life now with Video Games, Television, remote controls, Fast Food and so on. I remember my first, and last, Mud Pie when I was around 5 years old. UHHHH! LOL. We used our Imaginations though. Made Club Houses in the Corn field and Played in our woods behind our home. It was Great. Thanks so much for the Memories. :) Your Friend, Shelly Hargis

Thanks Marilyn, What a great memory jogger. How many of you have a story like mine to tell? Let us read it here..... My first eleven years was spend living in the country our school play ground was the local beach which was also our summer swimming pool. We had period time set apart according to classes where we would apply on hands lesson in vegetable and flower gardening,sewing for the girls and woodwork for the boys.Everyone shared their lunches. Winter time the school provided hot chocoa for lunch, and of course that horrible cast oil. Weekends and holidays was spent in the big community gardens it was the job of the young children to box all the small produce to share among all the homes of the community. Potatoes,sweet potatoes, carrots onions what ever vegetables of the season. The first grade produce were sold to local markets. We got paid 2 shellings for each day that we worked in the garden and this was saved up to spend however we chose when our monthly visiting grocery man came. Working in the community gardens was more like fun than work. When we were not working in the garden or gathering shellfood with our parents we would be playing on the beach while our parents or families are fishing or setting fish nets. Going with our dad to gather wood or catch a sheep/pork or beef to slaughter for the communities meat supply. Helping to corner and catch the animals was fun I would cry when it was lambing season as many lambs died because of the cold. During the summer some of the sheep would get so flyblown they would be unable to stand. I would get a scissors and go and cut all the whool away and be happy when I see the sheep up and running around. I truelly believe my childhood experiences with the farm animals that I helped when I saw them suffering has contributed to my feelings of compassion and desire to help both human and animals. As we worked together as a family and a community work didn't feel like work but fun. Other play equipment we enjoyed was the swing which was made from strong rope tired to branches of the titree or pine tree on the side of a hill,and we never ran out of anyone to push us. The side of the main road banks was carved out as a road used by both boys and girls to play cars and truck.Toy cars or trucks was just a piece of, of cut wood timber but we got just as much if not more fun from it than what the modern child get from playing with their toys worth hundreds of dollars. Marbles where made from melted down old music records or mud clay and our hop scotch blocks from empty shoe polish tins filled with dirt and our nucklebones simply stones from the main road. We used old sacks or iron as slides to slide down the grassy hills near our homes. Or we used a certain type of grass blade to poke into holes and fish for what we use to call earwig insects. Or we simply played in the long grass looking for four leaf clovers or with a certain type of grass which we believed we could find out whether we would marry a rich or poor man LOL. Of course I married a poor man, poor in money but rich in LOVE and everything else. Or we just lay in the grass while our older sibblings told us stories. New years day each year a community carnival was held on the beach where activities for both adults and children consisted of horse racing buck jumping,tug a war,swimming, races for ages, castle compititions etc. I could go on and on........They were the days fun and no stress I really feel for the generations to come.