Jun. 30, 2005 - 18:25 MDT

MY FRIEND

Looking back, way, way back. Those were the days that brown was good, and the browner we were the better for us boys, at the end of summer.

That was when most every fruit, berry and vegetable that took our fancy was considered to be good for us and healthy to our bodies.

Only two things:

1. - Don't eat green apples or things not ripe.

2. - Don't eat too much of anything at any time.

It seemed it took a lesson or two before the green apple rule was seen by us to be somewhat sensible, hardly any of us treasured belly-aches.

Not eating too much is something that seems to linger forever, much to our abdominal distress and our scales discomfort. Of course in our youth that rule was automatically ruled out, when we raided a watermelon patch or stole a birthday cake from a table at a party where we hadn't been invited.

For us our summer had been a rousing success if, just before school started back, we were 97 shades of brown darker than in June, chock full of summer goodies and had memories of amusement parks, picnics and family gatherings along with the periodic trips to our mountains.

Folks didn't seem to live in fear of most things that bug people nowadays. They also had a habit of being neighborly, sitting on stoops or front porches and visiting back and forth while the sprinkler was feeding the lawns. And remembering, people seemed to respect other folks space and didn't try to take over folks lives and inhabit their living rooms.

I can still hear the creak that some porch swings made as they were swung back and forth, creak, pause, creak, pause, heard among the sounds of conversation. The smell of cigarette smoke, cigar smoke or pipe smoke redolent on the evening air in most places. And the smell of sweet flowers in many places. Most folks had a rose bush or two,at least.

If we kids were old enough we played games under the arc light. Back then there was an arc light at each intersection, mid-block was pretty black unless there was a porch light on.

I remember the Lucky Strike Hit Parade too, Dad sending me to the drug store for the weekly cardboard disk of the latest hit.

I'll tell you, those were the days MY FRIEND . . . . . . . .

Blog