More than anything I guess I miss my first horse, Star. Being able to go out for a long ride, bareback, just me and my horse, was the most mind-clearing thing I have ever known. When I galloped him across an open field, I could feel the stress of the every-day draining out of me, into him, down thru his legs, to be left far behind us. I miss putting my arms around his neck and just leaning on him, smelling that sweet horse-smell, feeling his velvet muzzle against my cheek, gently wuffing hay-scented breath on me. I miss hearing his nickered huh-huh-huh in greeting.
These things still exist, but not here in central CA. I miss New York bagels, pizza and egg creams because the ones out here are pale imitations at best. I miss Fall colors a lot too. I miss Dead tour even though I’m probably too old to enjoy it now anyway.
Local independent TV stations that produced their own programming. Now, I will admit that the Louisville KY market TV has done pretty good with local news & even human interest (gardening on WHAS, local issues discussion on WAVE, area churches on WHAS), but there’s no local regular variety shows, wrestling, kids cartoons shows, daytime or late-night movies- especially of the “horror host” variety.
And there was TONS of that stuff when I was a kid & even into my teens- till about the mid-1980s.
Grandmom, Grandad & Dad (Dad would have LOVED the Net!!!)
Our dog Lady
My hamster Anthony
Some college & grad school buds
Some early Internet chat pals
Personal health:
Non-arthritic knees
Having the will & the energy to get involved in church & community activities
(Yeah, if I lost weight, the previous two might fix themselves but to do that, I need the will & the energy & so it goes...)
I do believe it is. When I drove past the Elementary School the other day, I saw a Scholastic Books truck sitting out front. I was almost tempted to stop & ask if they carried fliers I could have or had any extra books to sell.
Still around, at least in Canada. My kid brings one home every month or so, tells me what he really wants, and gives me the option of ordering more for him.
I miss pop in glass bottles, pulled out of one of those old coolers with cold water in them.
I remember those, but I really miss Lemon Coolers, also by Sunshine. That tart lemon-y goodness and the gigantic amounts of ultra fine, cocaine-like powdered sugar…mmmmmmm.
Lemon Coolers dammit. I’m not even much of a cookie eater but I could nearly devour a whole box in one sitting. When Nabisco bought out Sunshine, Lemon Coolers were one of the first casualties. They were the perfect combination of tangy and sweet. It’s been over five years and I’m still bitter about it to the point of actually actively seeking out alternatives to Nabisco products.
I’ll second overlyverbose about bonfires. Mid September thru all of October was prime bonfire weather. Even if I wanted to do a bonfire with some old friends we sure couldn’t do it in the same area we used to. The area is now an endless sea of strip malls and Mcmansions.
I miss my Grandma’s back yard. It was perfect, with neatly mowed lawn, flowerbeds, a vegetable garden with tomatoes and cucumbers, a long clothesline for drying, a simple porchswing, and one good sized tree with branches at the perfect height and spacing for climbing. There was a detached garage, with a '66 Plymouth Dart in it, that looked factory new when she sold it in 1984.
I miss the Johnson Shut-Ins. Yeah, they’re trying to rebuild it, but they’re leaving out the campgrounds, and it’ll never be the same again anyway, not without a few hundred years of nature to “smooth things out.” And it was destroyed for nothing more than the greed and incompetence of man.
I miss V-8 powered muscle cars and AM radio, with a cold Coke made the way it was.
I too miss the smell of burning leaves in the autumn.
Costco (big discount warehouse type of store) has this berry smoothie you can get for maybe $1.50. Oh my Og, is that thing delicious. The berry flavor and the texture and feel of the ice…it’s orgasmic. I’m sure they still have it, but I haven’t had occasion to go to Costco in a long time.
Lost loved ones, Goldberg’s Peanut Chews, Trader Joe’s Ginger Ale, proper station wagons, half empty airplanes, cheap prescriptions and my jaw line from 10 years ago.
Being able to walk around the neighborhood all the time, even if I had to bring a few groceries back, because the store was practically across the street from the house. I could always stop at the store on my way home from wherever. I’ve moved now, and there are places I can walk to in my new neighborhood, but all the stores are at least a half mile away. So almost anything and everything is too big or too heavy for me to carry home, and I’m taking the car a lot more than I used to.
I miss difference, the feeling that every new place I visited was strange and exotic. I don’t just mean countries, I mean towns, parts of towns. It’s partly down to my perception of things changing and partly down to the steamroller of globalised homogenisation.
I miss not needing a mobile phone.
I miss my friends, they used to all live in the same town as me, now I’m the last one left.
My grandparent’s farm.
Love’s Baby Soft–the stuff these days just doesn’t smell the same.
Scholastic Book Fairs.
This foundation from Coty that had just the smallest amount of powder that made it less likely to slide off, didn’t cake and actually matched my skin.
