Thread: Feeling old and tired......

Originally Posted by AE

Legal, childhood memories are some of the best when things seem their worst. It is going back to a simpler time, when life seemed so simple and the most you had to worry about was what you might do the next day and simply "minding" yourself.

I always hope it is that way ,or has been, for my kids (they are getting older now).

You are absolutely right. 'Going back' is something that I've been doing alot lately too. My kids are both young adults, and how I wish they grew up in my erra...Back then we could leave our doors open at any time, and on halloween I remember we'd start going around at 8, go home and unload, then go back out till 11, sometimes 12.
My favorite childhood memories were the hula hoop contests at the VFW picnics, building tree houses and spending most of our free time in them until 'we heard our parent's 'whistle' to come home..or else. lol
Playing hopscotch, roller skating in the street with the skates 'with the key', hide & go seek, running through the sprinklers to keep cool, and so much more!
Then as we got older, I remember paying $2.00 a to fill it up. lol (yeah I'm old)....

I'm very sorry to hear about your cat.

"it's all going to hell in a handbasket"!

Sounds exactly like my Dad. He was very relegious though and to him it was proof it was the end times, and for him it was security in knowing the best was yet to come. He knew he'd die real soon and was worried about me and my kids dealing with the worst of it. As a kid, that was a sure fire way to have months of nightmares ........ a Revelation sermon. And here we are. Sure feels like it, and my fear is being stuck living through it.....just not as strong as I used to be and literally terrified being at the mercy of the worst people. I know I'm not supposed to worry or be afraid, but I am.

I don't deal well with it. I have good memories, but I get ticked. To think we used to watch Bonanza or Star Trek for free and now I have to pay to have it. It's not like I'm stuck in the past, what's new just isn't as good. I don't care what the program is, there has to be bloody violence and sex sceens, and well, that doesn't appeal to me. To think we came from...."Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us, all we ask is that you let us serve it your way" to...square butt bootie. (For those that don't know, it was a dittie you could sing at Burger King and get a free whopper if you had the guts to do it) Or "2 all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickle, onion on a sesame seed bun"...for a Big Mac at Mc Donalds. I know, wierd, I liked commercials. Those have gone to heck too. I swear I want to scream if I have to see that "extends" commercial again....

So much was lost, and I miss it. Some have mentioned the beach. I never got to see the ocean till I was in college. You only imagine what it must be like, but I was glued to it. I had gone to the Jersey Shore with friends. It wasn't the sandy beaches I had thought it would be, but OK, it was still a treat. Can't say I swam much, couldn't swim and have issues with things in the water....especially after Jaws. A week must have passed before someone asked me why I went out every evening and sat on the beach.....I had always seen pictures of the beach at sunset. So ocean = sunset. After they got done laughing their butts off at me, they told me to turn around and I'd see it. Sure enough, there it was, but nothing like the pics I saw. Sorry, directions and all that I was never good at and honestly never gave it a thought. Besides, I was a college kid and hadn't seen a sun-rise in ages. I got them first first though......they were East coast kids, and were amazed we had big buildings and sky scrapers and malls in Iowa. (where the college was)They figured it would be cows and people with wheat in their teeth.

I used to love to look at the stars and love cloud formations. When I was in Nebraska, gosh it seemed it was all sky...no chem trails, the most fanstastic cloud formations ever.....and I hear there's better places. Here, it's tough to see the sky, too many lights, can't really see cloud formations in their glory because of the buildings. We used to have lightening bugs, they are rare here anymore. My kids thought I was nuts wondering what the deal was with bugs that light up and why I was so dissappointed there weren't any. Wierd what things stick. I remember a treat being walking to filling station at my grandmas where they had those old ice chests with soda.....Yohoo's were my favorite, we couldn't find it where we lived. I tried them later on in life and well.....it's not the same. I did smile thinking of the "buck eyes" (nuts) . My Dad carried the same one his whole life in his pocket. He said as long as you had a buck eye in your pocket you'd never be broke. Love those old sayings. I got one, finally. It was perfect, had an indentation in it that was like the groove in a worry stone. I wasn't broke when I had that nut in my wallet....then I lost it. Sorry, rambled enough.

My favorite childhood memories were the hula hoop contests at the VFW picnics

Oh I loved those, but my specialty was pogo sticks and stilts. Had the skates with the key too like someone else mentioned.....and the knee scars to prove it. LOL Also loved to play jacks. ya, we've lost something when you can't have fun unless theres batteries and electricity to play a game or be entertained.

Got me going now.....A drawer full of S&H Green stamps anyone? A free piece for a dinner ware set with a fill-up? And lets not forget the special for your Funk and Wagnals encyclopedias at the grocery store.

Also, sorry to hear about your cat. I remember when my Sandy died. These yahoo's purposfully drove off the road to kill her for "fun". Tire tracks through the mud and sidewalk showed that....but hey, it's just a pet, who cares.

a Revelation sermon.

Now there is something to get you thinking these days!

Skates with keys, not my generation, but skates with laces at the local "Skate World" and crummy disco music playing.

Cokes in a glass bottle, right out of the ice chest, with cold fried chicken, pork and beans, potato salad and Lays potato chips. Fizzies? We always got those, but never pop. Pop was only for holidays, camping and family get togethers. No Kool-Aid, just occasional juice and mostly just ice water.

End of summer brought a trip up to Hood River, Oregon, to my dad's friends orchard to pick cull apples and pears. Took them home, and spent my mothers vacation, with my grandmother helping to peel, cut and can all of them.

Picking wild carrots to chew on (no, they are not very good, but they are edible and that was fascinating as a kid, finding your own food to eat), collecting rhubarb in the woods, along with blackberries and wild blue huckleberries in the mountains, took those home and my mother froze those in containers for the rest of the year.

As well, those long days we'd stay down in the woods, we'd sneak out matches to start our own "campfire", and having taken things to cook over it, mainly hot dogs. Geez, now that I think about it, kids in the woods, mid July, playing with fire!

BTW, Crazybird, we're not living through it, but many say we are in the "beginning of the end". As a Baptist, we believe that those who are "saved" (some call it differently, but it is the same thing) will be taken out of this world before the Tribulation period happens. I won't go into too much, unless you ask, but having grown up with your father, I could guess you know.

Judy wrote:

Everywhere Americans are fighting for the "good ole days" and the freedom and joy of our past in one way or another. This generation will be the first generation in American History to fight for regression instead of progression, the first to work to restore part of our history and weave it permanently into our present so it is preserved for the next generation of Americans, not in an old photo in a stuffy ole museum somewhere or in some sad chapter in a history book about how America died, but in our permanent landscape so that these memories can be the personal memories of all Americans because the opportunity to experience them was preserved by the first generation of Americans who realized the wisdom of their ancestors before it was too late.

I nearly cried when I read that, because I have been aiming for something simple--no office politics, no feeling stupid because I don't twitter or am not really sure what Wii is, nor do I understand so many of the people talking in initials. Nor do I care.
When I was very small, we lived in West Virginia. The garden in back was shaded by huge trees and my mother and grandmother always planted vegetables and strawberries. The area under the trees was full of violets, and I remember the thrill of digging in the black soil and finding big fat earthworms. I remember the roses at the back of the garden but mostly I remember the huge lilacs at the very back. The magnolia tree was perfect to climb (although my mother worried I would fall into the thorn bushes next to the alleyway at the side of the property.) Evenings I would sit on my favorite branch and listen to the hymns sung at the church next door. I remember fireflies, freshly baked bread coming out of the oven, and tackling my major garden guard duty, squirting all of the cats from next door (there may have been 40 of them) that climbed over to try to use the garden as their litter box. Occasionally I would climb the mulberry tree to eat the berries.
Then we moved to the DC suburbs in Alexandria, VA, and the first thing I really remember is the nifty little creek at the back of the lot and the woods that surrounded the high power lines on top of the back hill. I spent time staring at tadpoles and throwing rocks at the water spiders. There were azaleas all over town in full bloom, and at home, it was my job to rid the lawn of dandelions (talk about slave wages--I was paid one cent for every two dandelions I got out). The kid next door taught me to play football and I got pretty good at throwing a pass and finally managed to kick it over the wires on the phone poles.
After nearly 30 years in FL I am back in a temperate climate and I am still on the search for cheap violets to plant underneath the trees in the back of my small yard.

Crazybird and all, about the cat, thanks. We live near a small strip of wooded area and then there is the end of the highway right before it enters town. He had been over there with his buddy, our other young cat, and he had this issue about not taking cars very seriously, he'd always get in the way, we'd have to get out and move him. The person who had the misfortune to hit him, stopped and moved him aside quickly, but he was immediately killed. They tried, and sadly my teen son was right there calling for him, he is devastated as both the younger cats were his and this one was very special to him (he cried so hard, the next day he had broken capillaries all around both eyes. Big 6 foot 2 inch 15 year old boy in his 5foot 4inch mothers arms between shovels full of dirt for a grave).

He was a really sweet, relaxed cat, everything was at a slow pace for Otes, nothing was in a hurry. Now his buddy, Colby, is moping around and keeps looking to the woods for him. I feel worse now for him than myself. We keep thinking we need to find someone for him to be buddies with, but the dynamics of those two cats together, I am afraid simply cannot be duplicated. I am also afraid we would just not be able to adjust to anyone else.

Otes is the all orange cat, and Colby is the white with orange, Otes always pinned him down to lick him and Colby would fall asleep, this happened after Colby would try to wake Otes up to play.

I'm so sorry about your cat, AE. My momma cat went missing will be 4 weeks this coming Tuesday. She's smart, she may come back. No sign of her on the roads or at the pound. So, someone may have her. So I know how it feels. I'll be devastated if something bad happened to her.

Colby needs a little time to grieve, as I am sure the concept of Otes being in the hands of God is not found in the animal world.
Pussywillow adopted me. She had been abandoned by renters, along with five other cats. A neighbor took them all in, but suddenly all the other cats would not let her eat. While my elderly dog was not a fan of cats he adjusted. Then one day in my driveway I heard some mewing from the house next door. Someone had dumped a kitten into a large flower pot and left a large bowl of milk. Thus I adopted Hercules, black and white with deformed back legs that could not keep control of his bowels (I often had to wash the rear end with the garden hose). He hopped like a bunny rabbit, and a couple of times I saw Pussywillow trying to lure him into the middle of the street (which really had no traffic). What a happy kitten. The dog even wagged his tail so the kitten could swat at it. Then Hercules disappeared and a few days later I talked to some other neighbors (cat owners) if they had seen Hercules the cat-rabbit. Yes, but they didn't know he was mine. They put him into their bicycle basket, rode to the vet and had him put to sleep. Then they told me that Hercules was a female.
Whether it was Hercules or Herculina, this was an innocent kitten. Pussywillow moped and I cried hard for days. The dog sighed a lot.
I know God has Hercules and now he has Otes. Take comfort in that.

AW, Vortex, I hate it when people do things like that and take matters into their own hands.

Each time we have found cats or kittens, we make sure we cannot find it's owners before we commit them the the Humane Society (who will find them homes, and if they have an owner, will attempt to reunite them).

We have lost cats over the years (we do not have dogs, we are renters and it has been only cats for us) and lost more than we would have wanted to. This one hit home especially hard, he had chosen to live with us, he was in the household of some of our illegal neighbors and they had gotten him for their 3 year old girl who played with him like a rag doll. He started hiding out here and liked us and stayed. They kept trying to get him back, but he would run off from them, but was so passive, most times he would just lay down and roll onto his back to have his tummy scratched.

I was so afraid of him being grabbed by some of our less than decent illegal neighbors (we have some who had severely abused this little dog) and hurt. He was even tolerant of that little girl, till he found us (plus the mother tried flushing him out from under a shed by poking him with a stick!!).

Now this, he had such a hard start and came to us, he had all manner of parasite, fleas and we were still fighting the ear mites. He was such a "squishy cat" he had that soft fur and was so relaxed he was like hugging a teddy bear.

It hurt me to have to carry him from the side of the highway (I think it just broke his neck and was instant). Worse yet was to bury him, he was still warm and it looked like he was sleeping, but I am a pragmatic woman in these things and knew we could not just stand there and look, it was torture, my 11 year old would not even come down to our "cemetary" (we have one older cat that died already there).

Such is life, bitter sweet, on this earth. I was always told animals have a spirit but not a redeemable soul, and heaven was not where they would be. So as a fundamental believer in the Bible, I wondered of we would have them back in the new earth....? Guess we'll know then (my son hopes so).