Physical Training every morning.
The distant pounding of the ocean surf.
The fear of failure.
Most of my high school friends.
Arguments and shouting at home.
Being able to take risks, and being responsible for my own actions without feeling the need to launch a multi-million dollar lawsuit if I so much as scrape my knee.
This brings to mind the following examples (though there are many more):
- “cracker night” (letting off fireworks in private backyards - no permit or nuthin’)
- see saws (teeter totters) in playgrounds
- suburban commuter trains with manual doors - us kids would hang out of them in the subway tunnels
- smoking at the bar
- being able to discipline strangers’ children
- policemen who would say “I don’t care if you’re doing nothing. Now piss off home you kids, or I’ll kick you in the arse”
- walking to school without adult supervision
Window shopping in malls. My mobility is limited nowadays, but I used to “go shopping” in malls and come home empty handed, for the most part. I realize now that that’s how I got a lot of my exercise. For that matter, malls seem to be fading away. It’s all Big Boxes now.
My husband quit smoking almost two years ago, and so now we don’t have ashtrays around. And I don’t have to run my air filters NEARLY so much, and I don’t cough as much, either.
I’ve realized that I really don’t listen to radio stations that play NEW music any more. Mostly I listen to “classic rock” stations. It’s very rare that I hear a new song.
Downtown department stores and drugstore soda fountains. Almost unheard of nowadays and yet it was years before I noticed they were gone.
Bookmobiles (a sort of mobile library wagon for people who didn’t have a library in their area)
Those round flat things you used to put on some sort of turntable and then you put a thing called a needle on them and then music would come out…what were those?
And RESTAURANTS in department stores! My grandmother and I used to spend many happy hours together shopping in Dillard’s, and then we’d finish up by having Reuben sandwiches. Department store restaurants were usually pretty good, though not Fine Dining. The department stores wanted to keep the shoppers in the store, rather than risk having the shoppers go elsewhere and not come back for more shopping.
Good Reuben sandwiches, for that matter. Corned beef is just not really available in most places around here. I know of one deli/sandwich shop that consistently has good corned beef. Most of the others either don’t carry it or have a low turnover, so I’m always wary about their stock.
I got one. Drive up bank teller windows.
My husband advises me that I am thinking of the AMC Pacer. No sneaky BJs in that car!
Stupidity, fear, and extreme emotions.