Favorite Childhood Pastimes

Nostalgia has struck, again.  This time, the trigger was sitting at my desk, looking at the HUGE stack of books on it.  With a rush, a whole bunch of childhood memories...enough to fill many posts...filled my head.  Let's start with the first one!

1. Going to the library - There was so much that was magical about the weekly (or so) trip to the library.  I loved the aquarium by the entrance, and I loved browsing for books.  I loved how they had those heavy duty plastic covers on many of the books.  It was also the one time you could just pick something out you wanted and bring it home. I still like the library.
2. Those little plastic army men - I also had some little spacemen.  During the 60's and 70's, space was fascinating to everyone.  The little plastic spacemen where all kinds of bright colors, too.  Weird.  Now I have an Army Men video game for the Gamecube that features those little plastic guys running around waging war on kitchen counters and other common home locations.
3. Making home-made Christmas gifts in school - two specific projects were those candle sticks made out of clay pigeons (those discs that are used for skeet shooting), and wreaths made out of IBM punch-cards.  I'm not actually sure I ever made one of the wreaths, but I sure remember them being around.  The candle sticks I made out of clay pigeons sat on our piano for many years.
4. Lincoln logs.
5. Playing the same few records over and over on one of those fold-down record players with the speakers built in.  Funny, I still do this, just with a more expensive system! Plus, there are many more albums...
6. Sesame Street.  Perhaps the greatest kids show ever.
7. Playing in our yard - something it seems kids don't do, anymore.  I wonder if my parents basically threw me out of the house and made me play outside?  We had these great, concrete, flower beds filling one side of our yard, and they were just fun to climb on.  Additionally, there were some big bushes at the top that we could crawl under, and we made "houses" in those bushes.  It was also fun "farming" which meant collecting seed and flower pods from Mimosa trees, Rose of Sharon bushes, etc.  In particular, I remember playing outside on chilly fall evenings, waiting for dinner to be ready.  It seemed extra nice to come into the house on those days!
8. Coloring books, with the Crayola 64 color box of crayons.   Just organizing the crayon colors was fun!
9. Trips to the mall - This had to be a rare occurrence, I remember them most around Christmas time, and the malls were different places then.  I loved the ceiling in the rotunda at Famous Barr, just the nameof Stix, Baer and Fuller, and the ride home where I liked to lay down in the back seat and look at the stars through the car window.
10. Taking pictures with my first camera - a 126 cartridge film camera, with flash cubes.  We mailed the B & W film in for processing.  It was expensive!  Using color film was a treat.  Now, the presence of our Nikon D60 and GIMP causes me to lose MANY hours playing with picture taking, but with immediate feedback.  Photography has come a long way from carefully conserving the number of shots left on your one roll of film, and sending it in by mail, waiting for those pictures to come back!

Now it's your turn, feel free to add as many as you want in the comments!

Comments

[Renee]

Man, a lot of these are some of my favorites, too. The library, playing outside "until the street lights came on" as my mom would tell us, and organizing my crayons. I was meticulous about my crayons!

Some of mine are:
-making Christmas cookies with the old lady next door

-my cat that liked to sleep around my head every night

-playing huge games of hide and seek with all the kids on our street

-climbing trees (although I still do this if I see a really awesome tree)

[rebecca]

lincoln logs! now that's a blast from the past. wow, and just saying that makes me feel old.

[Lane J]

Unfortunately, Sesame Street isn't the same anymore...Cookie Monster now eats Veggies...What's up with that?

I will have to say that Mr. Roger's was up there with Sesame Street as the greatest kids show!

[Gregg]

Yeah, Mr. Rogers was great, from the whole changing your shoes and sweater, to feeding the fish to the land of make believe.

It made everything in life seem so calm and just nice...not like the constant frenzy and time shortage we seem to subject ourselves to now.

I seriously considered putting this on the list, but already had Sesame Street for a TV Show. I also liked "The Electric Company" and a St. Louis based show called "Romper Room."

[Gregg's Mom]

Romper Room stirred a memory. One Christmas all you wanted was a screw driver and a Romper Room Drum. We looked everywhere for that drum, it was not to be found. We finally called Romper Room and Miss Lois said they had been discontinued (they were still showing them with the children on TV). She checked at the station and found one that Dad went and picked up. We sent her a picture of you with your drum after Christmas with a thank you. Now I have spent too much time looking for that picture which I can't find. The pictures are all in album at that point but I can't seem to find it. I know you were a preschooler, but was trying to find how old you were. Three or Four is my guess.

[abunslife]

I did LOVE going to the library....I remember picking out like 40 books each time or as many that would fit into my canvas bag. They would all be read in like two days and I would be begging to go back.....we had these reading lists to fill out, I don't even remember now what the rewards were, but I know that each list was for 20 books. I killed every summer. Geez I was such a nerd.

[Dianne]

WHAT!!!! Cookie monster eats Veggies...(Thunk) Sorry I just fell over.

Hey...does anyone remember COLOR FORMS!!! The smell and imagination...Love them.

Dawn Dolls. I never got any, but I would play with my friends down the street.

Big Wheel races...

Cops and robbers with all the kids on the block..and YES...Hide and seek

Did anyone play swinging statues...I loved that game too.

And my parents did force us outside all day...In fact my dad got so tired of us begging to come in for a drink that he put a drinking fountain outside for us...

[Andrea]

Riding my bike around the neighborhood with my best friend, having bike races. "Happy Hour" at the convenience store a couple blocks from my house where they had 20 cent Coke Slushies and fountain drinks between 3 and 4 pm every afternoon.

The creak of our old swingset chains when we'd swing on them. These big wooden swingsets just don't have the character of the old ones that used to sing back to you when you'd sit in the rubber strip and kick your feet.

The whoosh of a window unit air conditioner during the summer. Sometimes, when the hum of that puppy went late into the night, I didn't want to get off the couch and go to bed, it was just so comfy in the living room listening to that hum.

The smell of the library. And the skylights. Nothing like a nook of stuffed reading chairs positioned under a cluster of skylights and smelling the musty smell of paper. I love that the books are free! You can just take them! After leaving your information, of course.

[Chuck]

I preferred the Electric Company and Captain Kangaroo. Bill Cosby and Picture Pages... anyone?

Lincoln Logs were/are awesome but I loved Tinker Toys too.

Stick men. I would draw stick men for hours. Stick men driving cars, fighting wars, swinging from trees, climbing mountains.

Playing lawn darts. You know, those metal ones you can't buy today. Sling shots. Yeah, no one ever suspected the little kid with the slingshot. :)

and Books. The library was a very special place for me too and it still is. It is one of our favorite family activities.

Thanks for prompting the nostalgia

[MP]

The smell of water as it came out of the hot hose in the backyard.

Swimming in galvanized pools.

Climbing mom and dad's Cherry Tree.. sitting high in the branches making up my own songs.

Playing Barbies by myself on the floor in the basement for HOURS.

We would go to Crestwood Mall.. Stix..then walk outside to Woolworth's and eat at the counter. I would get grilled cheese, french fries and a chocolate shake. I remember!! New Buster Brown shoes at Stix..where you would walk up and down the little steps so you could see how they felt.

I have a million of them..thanks for the memories.
TV: Zoom and The Electric Company were my favorites.
Cookie Monster and the Veggies bum me out

[LisaS]

wow, so many similarities.

TV: how about Zoom! ?
Shoe shopping: at the MMCohn's in University Mall (Little Rock) they had a whole playground for shoe testing ... loved going there!
We didn't have a sprinkler--Dad didn't beleive in wasting water on weeds--so we would go out and spray the hose on each other until we were cold, then lay it on the driveway uphill of us and lay in the bathtub-warm water.