Thread: If you could go back in time.....

I've been thinking about this for quite a while.

If you could go back in time, what decade or age would you want to be again??

For me, I'd have to say it was the period between 1978 - 1988. I was 8-18 years old in that time period and I was pretty darn happy. I felt secure and hopeful, like I had the world by the balls. Reagan was POTUS and my parents were still together.

We spent many fun weekends on the Colorado River in AZ. My dad used to race boats there with all his crazy friends. We really never had a lot of money, but we had enough to have fun with. In 1988 my parents split up (a huge surprise to me and my brother because they rarely fought) and it seems like I was never able to recapture that feeling of security and contentment again after that.

I know we shouldn't look back too much. Who knows, maybe when Im 80 I will look back at THIS time in my life as one of the best. Sometimes I just wish I could get the excited, hopeful feeling again like when I was a kid. I used to be so happy, I was literally giddy with joy at times. I haven't felt like that for a long time. It's almost like I know too much or something...

Im not complaining, I have a pretty good life right now and lots to be thankful for. I was just wondering if there are others out there who think about thier "good old days" sometimes....I'd love to know your story if you have time to tell it.

I would only consider going back to another era only if I could bring the life lessons that I have today with me. I am now trying my best to apply those lessons in the challenges of today.
And gotta think about this for a while if I absolutely had to choose. I find a lot of memories like snapshots and I need to flesh them out. Oh, this will take a long, long time.

Give me any of them.

Fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties. But nineties? No. Stop right there. That is the decade that reminds me of the downfall of my country. Nothing was ever the same after that.

I agree with vortex. My time machine would go back to the first continental congress. I would ask them to clarify the rights of citizens to protect the constitution and question congress. I also would have them define many of our mis interpreted rights to prevent banning God and allowing abortion in our land.

Well, if I could go back to an era before MY time, I'd pick the 50's. I love everything about it.

For those who like to hear older people tell storys about thier past, there are two really good magazines that have them. One is called "Good Old Days" and the other is called "Looking Back". People write in and tell childhood storys and some even include pictures. I bet thier subscriptions have increased this year. I know Im not the only one out there wishing for the good old days....

10/12/2009

I would say the 1950's, it was a gentler time, a time
of innocence, when families were families, when your
Mom was always home there for you. When TV was
innocent not like the garbage they create today, till
this day I still laugh at " I Love Lucy," and I have been
watching her since 1960. There were so many shows in
the 1950's it would take me all day to list them. Remember
" Sky King," " The Lone Range," " My Little Margie," " Roy
Rogers Show," " I Married Joan," Candy was five cents
and they also had penny candy. When you got twenty five
cents you thought you were rich !

Cheers..Joe...

Was doing a search and found this. It is similar to the ones I subscribe to.


Reminisce Magazine

http://www.reminisce.com/Default.asp?r_d=y

Music to Last a Lifetime
AN OLD PRO with horses, the author's mother, Anna Baum, who lived to be 102, got this horse used to the guitar.
Click to Enlarge [+] Bold notes, soft harmonies and melodies of all sorts meandered with her on the trail of life.
NO MATTER the tune, music will arouse an emotion, and all variations have had a place in my heart.

As a child living on a farm near Garnett, Kansas, during the Great Depression, some of my earliest memories are of my mother sitting down at the old upright piano and playing Shall We Gather at the River? and In the Garden. She also played a feisty Red Wing and Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.

We later moved to Kansas City, Kansas, and several members of a neighboring family played in a country-western band called the 101 Ranch Boys. I began taking guitar lessons, and when the band practiced, I often sang along with Tumbling Tumble-weeds, The Strawberry Roan and I'm an Old Cowhand (From the Rio Grande).

At my 16th-birthday party, we danced to In the Mood, String of Pearls, Chattanooga Choo Choo, Stardust and Sunrise Serenade.

I started working in the hardware department of a Kresge five-and-dime store. The girl working in the nearby pet department loved the Dentyne Gum commercial that went, "Dentyne Chewing Gum, it's keen chewing gum. ..." When it came on, she would leave whatever she was doing—customer or not—go to the radio and sing along with the jingle. Soon there was a new girl at the pet counter.

One day in 1946, Dad announced we were moving back to Garnett, and the bottom dropped out of my world, But music again helped me adjust as I joined the high school band. I think we played every march John Philip Sousa ever wrote; I especially remember Stars and Stripes Forever, Semper Fidelis and The Washington Post March.

Sometimes a bunch of us pooled our money and drove the 85 miles to Kansas City's Forum Ballroom to dance to the bands of Glenn Miller, Woody Herman and Tommy Dorsey playing Moonlight Serenade, Stomp-in' at the Savoy and many other great tunes. It was definitely a dress-up place to go.

A girlfriend and I entertained with guitar and vocals at box and pie suppers in Garnett, singing I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart (yes, we yodeled), Worried Mind, Don't Fence Me In, That Silver-Haired Daddy Of Mine and Old Shep.

One summer, the county fair board asked me to ride into the arena at fair time, singing and playing songs on horseback. When I did, the noise of the crowd, the lights and the excitement were too much for the horse, which took off at a run. I hung onto the saddle horn for dear life as the guitar thumped the horse and spurred him on to greater effort. One of the cowboys rode out, stopped the horse and led us to the microphone, where I breathlessly sang El Rancho Grande and Red River Valley.

After graduation, I went to western Kansas to teach. The many Ger-man Catholics in the area danced the old schottisches and waltzes to One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart), Paper Doll, Careless Hands, Show Me the Way to Go Home and Goodnight, Irene.

I later married a western Kansas man and raised a family. We lived on a ranch and there was plenty of work to do, so we cleaned house to music. Wastebaskets waltzed and pillows were plumped in time to A Storm at Sea, while children carrying packs of folded laundry clip-clopped into bedroom canyons to the Grand Canyon Suite. Other chores were done to Peter and the Wolf, the William Tell Over-ture, Schubert's Serenade and piano concertos.

As I drove my oldest daughter to college in Sterling, Kansas, we listened to the radio playing Leaving on a Jet Plane and Sounds of Silence. Those were appropriate, since we had lost my husband in a tragic farm accident months earlier.

Now it is my grandchildren's turn to listen to music. I made it through Beatlemania, but now I am back taking my daily walk while listening on headphones to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Marty Robbins and Benny Goodman.

The bumps along my life's way have been smoothed by music. As Roy Rogers used to say, "Happy trails to you."

—By Marie Fletcher
Leoti, Kansas

http://tinyurl.com/yzpn5ez

Agree with joefrank....the 50's were good times.

And most families could afford a home and usually had one car. And some families had many children.

Today many live in huge homes with small families....seems backwards doesn't it?

Jobs could be found, crime was low, good morals were expected, respect for elders was stressed. 'Respect' seems to be a rarely used word now but I grew up hearing it plenty.

It isn't surprising that so many restaurants are successful now with the retro thing of the '50's. Those were happy times.

Schools were excellent and teachers could discipline students. My parents told me if I ever got in trouble at school I'd also get in trouble at home....they backed up the teachers.

The early 60's were ok too but then the Vietnam War began which I believe was a major turning point for of our country. Unfortunately that generation is now in control (many ex-hippies)...love one another, do your own thing, if it feels good do it...I'm sorry that my generation has help cause many of our problems today and I've told my children that as well.

And I have subscribed to Reminisce for years now, great mag.

The best accomplishment of the 50's?

Eisenhower and his deportation policy. That is when my dad was able to have job security.