Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker
It is always fun to look back and think of the times when we were young and carefree.
I think we mostly recall some of the games we played, books we read, popular songs, dances and our school years.
I believe each generation refers to the years behind them as The Good Old Days.
I know I think like that and I believe I know why. I was young then and the world seemed better. I could run, jump, play, hop and skip. I was able to jump rope, play tag, ride a bike, play hide and seek without even thinking about it.
What ever happened to my own “Good Old Days?” Where have all the years gone and why did they pass so quickly?
When I think of grade school, I look back at some of the things we did, kids in my class, riding the school bus, recess, and the classes we had. (Note this was many years ago).
I remember having those little desks and they were all hooked together in a long row.
A boy could grab a girls pigtail and dunk it in an ink well while a girl could put a note on the back of the person in front of her which said “kick me.”
A boy could throw a spitball and a girl knew how to pass notes to each other without getting caught.
We also knew how to sneak gum in our mouth without the teacher knowing.
We also had some good cafeteria food such as Johnnie Marzetti, hot dogs and beans, macaroni and cheese, but we never knew about pizza then. (Wow did we miss out)
Every week the menu was posted and we only had one choice on the menu. If you did not like it, you were always free to pack your lunch. I think the price of a school lunch was around 25 cents.
We used yellow tablet paper and yellow pencils with an eraser. We all got a new box of colors at the beginning of the school year. We only got the box of 8 basic colors. I so wanted a box of 16 so I could have pink, magenta or periwinkle. Recess was spent playing ball, Red Rover, jacks or jump rope.
One year, I was in the fourth grade, and we were studying Geography. (Remember how to spell that long word?) It was George Evans Old Grandmother Rode A Pig Home Yesterday). We were studying about Africa and their customs. Since that country used different kinds of tools, we were told to go home and make some kind of a corn masher.
My cousin, Joe, who was married, came to visit us occasionally. I told him about my assignment and so he went to the fields and cut a fat green cornstalk. It was about a foot long and was healthy looking in width.
Joe took a pocket knife, hollowed out the center of the corn stalk and made me the vessel in which to grind the corn.
His next step was making a plunger to fit inside the tube. It was beautiful and I was just so proud to take it to school.
So many things go on in our lives today and I am very happy to have lived to see modern technology.
I have seen everything from yellow tablets to computers, crank phones to cell phones, wood burners to microwaves, jacks and Red Rover to video games. Wow!
We’ve come a long ways baby.
What do you recall when you think about the Good Old Days? Should we go back and think of those times when we were young? Tell me and I’ll Give You a Penny for Your Thoughts.
