Some Days I Don't Want to Adult

You ever get that way?  Just want to go back in time for a spell?  I think most of us do, from time to time.  I know that many didn't have a good childhood - I am so grateful I did.
I just think about the simpler days - fresh air, hard work, playing until dark, no worries, quiet neighborhoods - it was just nice.

Technology gets the best of me some days.  In ways I love it and in ways I hate it.
Technology started out as a means to make life easier - now it seems to have complicated life.
Refrigerators, furnaces, telephones, cars, electric/gas stoves, flushing toilets, etc. - sure made life easy for the world.  Life upgraded quite a bit.
Now instant sharing on computers, bombardment of FB, computer games that cause young people to only use their thumbs (LOL) not their bodies or minds, artificial intelligence that takes away having to think, etc.
I know technology has good uses as well (many) - but I sure would like to go back in time sometimes.

This is where I went to grade school - one block from home, and walked every day.  It no longer exists.  We played on monkey bars, drank from the water fountains (surrounded by yellow barrier), had swings that reached the stars (LOL) and a tall metal slide that could cook bacon in the summer.  Yet we played on all those things.  The merry go round had a wood slat bottom and metal bars to hang on to.  I remember getting in trouble for laying down on it, face down, as it was going pretty darn fast.  Basketball goals, dodgeball area, softball fields, and a big old hollow tree in the grassy part of the yard that made for lots of fun for decades of kids!!  At one time or another each of us went in the tree and we hid things there.  That tree was huge and it was only in recent years that it came down.

We neighborhood kids rode our bikes to the school in the summer and also down to the creek (crick as we said) and hunted for crawdads.  We had Kool-Aid on the front porch swing and played Riddly Riddly Ree, or counted cars.  Playing Jacks and Old Maid was normal.  We played house and make believe and played with dolls and Barbie's.
We used our imaginations and had a ball.  We had a brick rail around the porch and my friends and I use to make up stories about treasure being buried in the railing and columns.
We would sit out back and eat green apples or rob the grape arbor.
Picnics of bologna or tuna fish sandwiches and homemade cookies and Kool-Aid on the porch rails with my friends.

This is my childhood home.  It no longer exists either - it burned down several years back.  It was nice by the time I came along.  Mom and Daddy paid a total of $4,800 for it and from what I hear it was in pretty bad shape when they got it.  It was bought on contract, and had an affordable monthly payment.  Mom said it had no paint on it when they moved in and the yard was all over grown.  It had an outhouse for years.
They cleaned it up as they could - Daddy always said "neat" doesn't cost much - just a little effort!

There used to be the porch swing where you see the red chair.  There was a garage - never used for a car, a chicken 'house' (coop).  It had apple, cherry, and peach trees, a huge old grape arbor, we had 6 - 100' rows of black raspberries, a huge garden and flowers every where.
My parents at one time had goats, rabbits and chickens.  Those were all done when I came along.
It was a neighborhood for me, but was at one time kind of 'country'.
The house had a living room, dining room, kitchen, closed in back porch (utilities were there) and bath downstairs and 2 attic bedrooms up.  The dining room at one time was used as a bedroom instead of dining.  Mom and Dad raised 5 of us here.

I remember a big old coal stove in the dining room area - that was our heat for the whole house.  Of course we had no AC.  On hot nights, we made pallets on the living room floor in front of the old wooden screen door, so as to catch a breeze.  Daddy often slept out on the porch!
I remember having an inside toilet, but did use the outhouse when playing outside.  We got the first bathtub when I was 9.  I took a bath by the stove in a metal tub in the winter and by the backdoor in the tub in the summer.
Mom had a wringer washer (I wish I had that now), and line dried clothes outside until too cold - then she had lines she put up in the dining room.  It would get so humid and muggy in there!!  She ironed EVERYTHING - and I mean everything.  She sewed and mended for others to make extra money and worked night shift at a bakery up the road for a while.  She got off at midnight and walked home - just what you did.  My sister and Dad would watch me.

All meals were homemade, as were snacks and goodies.  I was a teenager before I ever had restaurant food or store bought cookies.  Water, tea, Kool-Aid or milk were our drinks.
Family meals every Sunday were at noon.  It was hardly ever just us - extended family and often neighbors were there much of the time.  We had some family that always just 'dropped by' at noon.  Of course they ate.  I remember so many times that Mom just wasn't hungry - when they all appeared.  That was what Moms did!
Christmas morning coming down the stairs to all the wonderment.  Horseshoes and croquet in the back yard on Sunday afternoons.  Coming home from school and smelling homemade cookie smells coming out the window.  Huge homemade cookies and popcorn balls on Halloween.
Neighbors watching out for each other.

Those were the days!!!
Kids today just don't know these things (most don't).  Many people don't know their neighbors.  I only know  a few and I have been here for 34 years.  People are distant.

Technology has helped in some aspects, but I think it has raised the levels of stress, chaos, and anguish today.  We are hit with so much so often, that we just can't cope.  I believe this is why so many are depressed.
I think we all need to TURN OFF more often.  Sit in the yard or a park or the woods, watch nature, listen to the sounds, pet the animals and go back in time for a spell.  Calm your spirit and your mind and drift away to a simpler time.
We all need that!

Thanks for coming along on my visit of my youth.  I sure do miss those times and all those people.  Thanking God for the ability to have a memory.

Keep calm and keep the faith.  Never stray from your core beliefs - those are yours and no one can take them from you.  Have faith in your higher power.
Love life and make wonderful memories with someone today.
Blessings to all.