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Nostalgia For The Good Old Days

Billy Joel sang that the good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems. My childhood was less than ideal and in many ways, yet I consider myself one of the privileged to have lived in a time of freedom and wonder for children. The world I knew as a child is lost and gone forever, and I cannot help but feel sad for the generations that have followed mine that will never know what they missed out on.

Girls still wore dresses to school back then. As soon as I got home from school, the first thing I did was change into my jeans or shorts, my "play clothes" and then I was free to play until dinner. We always had dinner at the table, and my mother always insisted that we each take a turn at saying grace before we ate. My mom was a good cook, and we always had dessert after dinner, usually cake, cobbler, ice cream, or pie. She made cookies, which were always fresh and readily available for an after school snack to be had with a big glass of milk, which we enjoyed before we went to play. Every Sunday, after Sunday school and church, which we attended dressed in our "Sunday best" she would make her traditional fried chicken dinner, accompanied with either mashed potatoes and gravy or scalloped potatoes, homemade rolls or biscuits, and usually two pies, cherry which was my favorite and apple which she and my sister liked best. Most of our meals were made from scratch and a lot of things were fried, yet none of us ever had a weight problem; my sisters and I were all little string beans through school.

TV was still family rated with shows like Andy Griffith and My Three sons, with light situation comedy problems, which were always solved within their half hour slots, and had moral messages that could warm the cockles of any clergyman's heart. Ours was rarely turned on during the day except for my mother's mid-morning break from her housework, when she would sit down and watch her two favorite soaps, Love of Life and As the World Turns. . .unless I happened to be home sick from school, then she would let me watch an old movie, usually one she had seen herself as a girl and she would tell me all about the actors, which ones she liked and which ones had questionable moral values. I would be nursed back to health with a breakfast of poached eggs on toast, which was swimming in and softened by the hot milk the eggs were cooked in. Chicken noodle soup and a variety of fruit juices were also "sick day" fare, which never failed

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