Things I Miss

[HarrisburgDave]

A memory in the movie thread got my mind thinking back to the late sixties and early seventies.

Then, at this time of year, you would find me on the beaches in South Jersey.

I loved surfing on the beaches at the south end of the island that holds Avalon and Stone Harbor. The big homes had not yet consumed all the land south of the point where Ocean Drive cuts through the marshes to North Wildwood. A dozen or so young men, and a few attractive young women, would grab our boards and go surf there after 5:00.

I never felt so free and full of life as I did then. I can still remember the taste of the ocean.

Anyone else have an ancient memory they want to share?

 

[MrTailgate]

Since we are getting closer to the start of a new season, I miss 1:00 PM starting times with no TV coverage. The game moved along and you felt it was special since you were sitting in Beaver Stadium with an amazing view beyond the south stands.

 

[GrimReaper]

Isaly's skyscraper ice cream cones.

 

[laKavosiey-st lion]

I miss my baby blue 67 buggy with 6x9 pioneers in the well.

 

[WSTLion87]

My 4th of July Family Reunion which almost always ran concurrent with a Pirates/Phillies weekend series. About five hundred of us Irish Catholics getting together behind the local American Legion in a small NEPA mining town. The radios and beer were EVERYWHERE. Beyond blessed to have had such an amazing childhood!

 

[LionJim]

X

 

[fairgambit]

I miss the innocence of the late 50's and early 60's. In my school and neighborhood (suburban Pittsburgh) there were no drugs, virtually no crime, and very limited alcohol consumption. Smoking was rare. Nearly all girls were virgins, or said they were, and most guys treated them with respect. It was idyllic. Lest anyone think this is more naivety than reality, I will note, without bragging, that I was a popular guy in high school. I knew what went on during the brightest days and darkest nights. Classmates through the years have confirmed my observations. Perhaps my school was an outlier, although I had friends in other schools and neighborhoods, and their thoughts echo my own.

 

[manatree]

X

 

[IrishHerb]

When I was growing up in the midwest (same hometown as Mrs. @LionJim ) there was a public golf course where kids under 18 could play for free in the mornings ... so summers were spent golfing in the mornings, playing little league or pony league in the afternoons or evenings. Sure miss those days.

 

[LionJim]

When I was growing up in the midwest (same hometown as Mrs. @LionJim ) there was a public golf course where kids under 18 could play for free in the mornings ... so summers were spent golfing in the mornings, playing little league or pony league in the afternoons or evenings. Sure miss those days.

Jacksonville, IL was a nice place to grow up.

This happened after both my wife and @IrishHerb left Jacksonville, but his mother moved into a house two doors down from my in-laws.

 

[Keyser Soze 16802]

Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn

 

[HarrisburgDave]

My 4th of July Family Reunion which almost always ran concurrent with a Pirates/Phillies weekend series. About five hundred of us Irish Catholics getting together behind the local American Legion in a small NEPA mining town. The radios and beer were EVERYWHERE. Beyond blessed to have had such an amazing childhood!

Transistor radios! Plastic things you snapped apart to place batteries in. “Made in Japan” stamped on the case. Back then those words meant cheap. And the one ear head phone cord.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn

“Well Harry, we have a cake sent to us by Ethel Roseman out in Upper Darby. “

May celestial light shine upon them.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

My 4th of July Family Reunion which almost always ran concurrent with a Pirates/Phillies weekend series. About five hundred of us Irish Catholics getting together behind the local American Legion in a small NEPA mining town. The radios and beer were EVERYWHERE. Beyond blessed to have had such an amazing childhood!

The Greatest Generation knew how to have a good time. All those casserole dishes, cold beer of choice, and a Manhattan or two to give you a mellow feeling. Bless them all.

 

[LionJim]

“Well Harry, we have a cake sent to us by Ethel Roseman out in Upper Darby. “

May celestial light shine upon them.

Wordsworth, opening lines of “Intimations of Immortality:”

“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.”

This is my favorite Wordsworth, knowing that “Tintern Abbey” is the greatest poem in the English language.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

I miss my baby blue 67 buggy with 6x9 pioneers in the well.

I remember well the debates about speakers and stereo systems. Those stores are all gone. The walls of speakers, the Technics, Pioneer and other receivers. Turntables.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

Wordsworth, opening lines of “Intimations of Immortality:”

“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.”

My Wordsworth is not that strong. That is beautiful.

My reference is more from the Catholic prayers for the dead.

 

[LionJim]

My Wordsworth is not that strong. That is beautiful.

My reference is more from the Catholic prayers for the dead.

I know, totally got it.

 

[Connorpozlee]

There is not a lot that I miss about the old days. I do miss good pizza and Italian food from Jersey where the name of the place was most likely the guy making your pizza. Also, on days like this, I miss being able to hop in my car, roll the windows down, and drive down Ocean Ave. in Belmar, NJ. There are things today that I don’t care for (I’ll never understand tattoos. They all look stupid to me) but I’m generally alright with progress.

 

[rudedude]

Cruising around in the 70’s with illegal cold beverages and “substances” blaring Zeppelin on the 8 track of a friend’s Pinto or Willys truck. ‍

 

[LionsAndBears]

In the 80s my friends and I would wake up early before the summer heat came on and we'd play stickball at the closest neighborhood playground. Then we'd all go home, get our pool stuff together and me being the one that lived furtherest from the neighborhood pool, I'd go to the next house and one by one we'd all get back together and wait outside the pool entrance until the door opened. We'd spend the early afternoon swimming, playing tag and of course getting benched because we were caught running around the pool. Then we'd all head home to get changed into our baseball uniforms before coming back together for an afternoon game.

I miss the friendships, the innocence and the energy I had to do this on an almost daily basis.

 

[Ceasar]

Spending the summer playing pickup baseball games during the day and little league baseball in the evening, all the while hanging out with friends. Not quite like The Sandlot, but similar.

 

[SleepyLion]

Three martini lunches.

I'm too young to have experienced this. I literally missed it.

 

[Bkmtnittany1]

My 4th of July Family Reunion which almost always ran concurrent with a Pirates/Phillies weekend series. About five hundred of us Irish Catholics getting together behind the local American Legion in a small NEPA mining town. The radios and beer were EVERYWHERE. Beyond blessed to have had such an amazing childhood!

What Legion? I bet my old man hung out there!

 

[haveyoumethoward]

I miss the innocence of the late 50's and early 60's. In my school and neighborhood (suburban Pittsburgh) there were no drugs, virtually no crime, and very limited alcohol consumption. Smoking was rare. Nearly all girls were virgins, or said they were, and most guys treated them with respect. It was idyllic. Lest anyone think this is more naivety than reality, I will note, without bragging, that I was a popular guy in high school. I knew what went on during the brightest days and darkest nights. Classmates through the years have confirmed my observations. Perhaps my school was an outlier, although I had friends in other schools and neighborhoods, and their thoughts echo my own.

Ah, the 50's. I lived in a neighborhood with 20+ kids (most families had 3 to 6 kids back then, at least where I lived). We were at the end of the street so there was not much traffic and we were always up to something. There was the Big Spring with gold fish where Chief Logan had his powwows in times past. I almost fell through the ice one winter when it started cracking, my dad was not happy when he heard! The railroad tracks ran through town and curved around the end of our block. They still ran steam engines and we could hear them coming when they whistled at the crossings. Sometimes our parents gave us pennies and we'd run up the bank and put them on the tracks then argue whose was whose after the train passed! I remember sitting at the kitchen table talking with a hobo now and then while he ate a sandwich and a bowl of soup my mother made him. Apparently, our house was marked!

In the summer we'd play "hidey go", "tig", cowboys and indians, etc. until dark among other games. Only 1 family had a tv so every Thursday (I think) at 4:00 there'd be a trek over to their house, take off our shoes, sit down on the floor in the living room and watch Western Theatre. Cut the pie, snow forts and sledding was done in the winter. Local dairies delivered milk in glass bottles at 4:00 am. It was my job to bring them in, sometimes with a spout of frozen cream sticking out the top on frosty mornings! One dairy had a store just down the block. One day they announced a new flavor was available so we all received a nickel and paraded down the street to try out a scoop of Blue Moon ice cream! When the DDT sprayer for mosquitos came by we'd run in back of the jeep and get lost in the fog! Once or twice a summer a couple of fathers would take all the boys for an overnight at the hunting camp. We'd all pile into the back of a pickup for a day of hiking, swimming and a campfire!

Sorry for going overboard about trivial things but I have many good memories of my past with the 50's being among the finest. They all came back when I began typing!

 

[bbrown]

A memory in the movie thread got my mind thinking back to the late sixties and early seventies.

Then, at this time of year, you would find me on the beaches in South Jersey.

I loved surfing on the beaches at the south end of the island that holds Avalon and Stone Harbor. The big homes had not yet consumed all the land south of the point where Ocean Drive cuts through the marshes to North Wildwood. A dozen or so young men, and a few attractive young women, would grab our boards and go surf there after 5:00.

I never felt so free and full of life as I did then. I can still remember the taste of the ocean.

Anyone else have an ancient memory they want to share?

The Arts Festival in the 80's and 90's. Also the People's Choice before they moved it.

 

[bdgan]

Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn

Boring

 

[bbrown]

Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn

Keith Jackson and ESPN before it turned into the "tool show".

 

[bdgan]

I remember well the debates about speakers and stereo systems. Those stores are all gone. The walls of speakers, the Technics, Pioneer and other receivers. Turntables.

I still use my Yamaha receiver to run my surround system. Those have largely given way to soundbars that don't offer a comparable experience.

 

[bdgan]

A memory in the movie thread got my mind thinking back to the late sixties and early seventies.

Then, at this time of year, you would find me on the beaches in South Jersey.

I loved surfing on the beaches at the south end of the island that holds Avalon and Stone Harbor. The big homes had not yet consumed all the land south of the point where Ocean Drive cuts through the marshes to North Wildwood. A dozen or so young men, and a few attractive young women, would grab our boards and go surf there after 5:00.

I never felt so free and full of life as I did then. I can still remember the taste of the ocean.

Anyone else have an ancient memory they want to share?

The thing I miss most about the old days is that I wasn't old.

 

[LionJim]

The Levittown I grew up in was still young enough that there were no teenagers with cars and, as a result, there were never any cars parked in the street. We’d play baseball and football in the streets for hours. Levittown streets had these street lights shaped like question marks and many’s the time I’d run full tilt into them while reaching for a pass and break my glasses. We didn’t have all that much money so this was not a good thing.

Also Goodnoe Dairies was a five minute drive away, great black cherry ice cream. We lived in Levittown’s Highland Park, the most northwesterly part of Levittown, just a short bit from the intersection of Rte 413 and the Lincoln Highway. (I95 came later.)

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=28133

 

[prt]

https://www.statecollege.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/80s-Playland.jpg

 

[PSU89er]

I miss playing basketball, and not the pickup games of my mid 40s and into my 50s when it was a good jog that was tied into dribbling a ball and shooting some shots with nine other guys.

I'm talking balls to the walls fult tilt hoops from High school to college intermurals to Rec leagues into my early 30s until I started to pull leg muscles and it wasn't worth it. Games when guys were going full out and you hit the showers and your eyes were burning from the sweat coming off your hair.

I will always miss being able to move like that. It didn't hurt that I was pretty good at it, but in the best games. So was everyone else. We would have pick up games at the high school with our old HS basketball coach, who was still younger and had played in college. We had the best players from the area who were in their 20s and 30s. Great games. Go out drench your head under the fountain, go back in and play some more.

 

[HarrisburgDave]

Boring

ES&DMF

 

[CVLion]

View attachment 605789

Oh man, do I miss Playland!

My freshman year in the late 80s I lived in Atherton, right by the building exit that was directly across College Avenue and up the hill from Playland. It was always WAY too tempting to pop on over at, say 1 AM and blow a bunch of quarters on Double Dragon or some pinball.

No wonder my grades were their lowest that first year!

 

[LionJim]

“In the sun born over and over / I ran my heedless ways…”

 

[LionJim]

Willow Grove Park.

 

[fairgambit]

Wordsworth, opening lines of “Intimations of Immortality:”

“There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.”

This is my favorite Wordsworth, knowing that “Tintern Abbey” is the greatest poem in the English language.

I may have mentioned that I am a bard of some note, at least in my own mind. One of my favorite verses, which I composed decades ago, and have published here before, is Ode To A Dandelion.

Dandelion I dread to see you,
growing in my lawn.
Oh how I look forward to Winter, and the days when you'll be gone.
Your yellow flowers bring despair, of this there is no doubt.
For they signify long hours,
of trying to dig you out.
I've tried so hard to stop you,
but you just continue to grow.
The only thing left for me to do,
is kneel down and pray for snow.

 

[LionJim]

I may have mentioned that I am a bard of some note, at least in my own mind. One of my favorite verses, which I composed decades ago, and have published here before, is Ode To A Dandelion.

Dandelion I dread to see you,
growing in my lawn.
Oh how I look forward to Winter, and the days when you'll be gone.
Your yellow flowers bring despair, of this there is no doubt.
For they signify long hours,
of trying to dig you out.
I've tried so hard to stop you,
but you just continue to grow.
The only thing left for me to do,
is kneel down and pray for snow.

View attachment 605812

Well, thank you.

 

[northwoods]

Boring

You sure know how to try to ruin an interesting thread. Interesting at least to us older guys