[PoeticSilence]

I remember:

when the kids would get together and catch snakes by turning over all the rocks in the neighbors yards and the nasty smell on my hands afterwards.

when we'd all get together and play red rover in the street.

my parents kept us home when they had the moon landing so we could watch it on television.

after school if you ran home fast enough, you could watch the afternoon movie with dialing for dollars.

when ALL the kids talked about the big boxers in school, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier (and I went to an all-white school) and we watched it on television.

when space food sticks came out and my mom bought the peanut butter flavoured ones for our lunches.

after creature feature on Saturday nights we had to wait for the stupid geritol commercial to be over before we could watch WWF and root for Mad Dog Vschon.

having to wear tights and gloves and a purse to church, but after the service they had cookies and coffee or Kool-Aid for everyone and everyone hung out and talked with each other.

going to the cemetery after church with my grandma and my parents to change out flowers on all the graves of all of the family members.

begging my mom to let us have a few rolls of caps to use in our capguns and promising NOT to bang rocks on the rolls to pop them.

sunday night was always Mr Bubbles night.

when it was summer I would raid the mobile library that came to our neighborhood on Wednesdays, and then on Fridays the "playmobile" came to our school playground and taught us different art projects or games.

going to my cousins every other Saturday and the adults played canasta while we kids ran around the neighborhood playing baseball and stuff.

when my mom used to take in laundry to help make ends meet so we could move out of the projects.

we didn't have a lunchroom, they put up tables in the auditorium and we brought our lunches in paper sacks or lunchboxes and paid a nickel for milk.

at the beginning of the school year we lined up in the hall to be measured, weighed, and given a cursory eye test etc.

every week we watched films in the auditorium (sitting on the shiny wood floors) about being a good neighbor, doing civic duties, and preparedness for bombs (which ended in us doing a bomb drill down in the basement)

watching the macys parade every year with my dad.