Dear Adulthood. You suck big time. Like, major suckage. Here are the things I miss about my childhood:
1. Summers off. Can you imagine having the entire summer off? With zero responsibilities whatsoever? You could get up and eat your bowl of cereal in front of the television while watching cartoons and The Price is Right till your heart’s content. Then you get to high school and suddenly you have a job, and even though you’re off from school, it only means that you can work more hours serving crappy food to the scum of the universe.
2. Legos! Seriously, I had the most awesome Lego castle when I was younger. Like, if you think your Lego castle was awesome, I can guarantee that mine was ten times more awesome. And no, it wasn’t one of those that you bought in a box and put together by following the instructions. It was one I made myself full of my own imagination and secret rooms and hidden doorways. There was even a village! With a baker! And hidden under the oven was a secret entrance into the castle! I would spend HOURS tinkering with that castle. Could you imagine doing that these days? Who has time anymore?
3. No Dating. Remember when everyone outside your circle of friends was icky? But soon puberty hit and you wanted to tap every ass in sight and our lives have been crap ever since. Now we go on dates and chances are if you like the person, they assume you have the bubonic plague and are never heard from again. Did I mention that’s the lesser of two evils? Most of the time the dates are so bad, that their only redeeming value is that they give you stories to tell your friends.
4. Eating whatever you want. This was a luxury I was able to enjoy until recently. Even throughout college my 6 foot 4 frame held a mere 170 pounds. These days I’m pushing 200 and I may or may not have a muffin top.
5. Ignorance was bliss. Terrorism? Politics? STDs? We were clueless! I hardly knew the Persian Gulf War was even going on! And it’s not like I was four years old at the time. I was nine! And I will never forget the time our health teacher had us read silently to ourselves about erect penises being inserted into vaginas. Shudderz!
What do you miss about being a kid?
Nathan: Yes! I love those scooter things!
Damn, Red Rover always hurt. There was that one huge kid who got great pleasure in trying to cause as much damage as humanly possible.
Nathan: That reminds me of the gym classes where we would play games using yellow plastic squares with rotating wheels on the four corners. I can’t see them still being around today. Too easy to run over fingers.
John, so sad to hear that she recently died, I will light a candle for her.
Nathan, I would love to hear that version!
I am suprosed no one mentioned the “Mean Green Machine” I loved that thing, pull 1 joystick down and push the other one up and you spin out! Soooooooooo much fun!!!
BTW still singing the Lolly Lolly Lolly song, at work!
Well I’m just a bill, yeah I’m only a bill, and I’m sitting here on Capital Hill:
Naturally, the Bill to a law song would be favorite, as I loved politics from waaaaay back.
HUGS…
OOOO, and I learned the entire Declaration of Independence thanks for School house rock! I can still sing/say it now!
HUGS…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4QEzJe6_ok&feature=related
Polt: We memorized the Preamble song in 9th grade history class.
Crap. I forgot “secure the blessings of liberty” and mixed up two prepositions.
In my search for a picture (don’t ask of what) I found this link which totally does NOT related to things from childhood but sounded kind of cool. I knew you guys would appreciate it.
Those clever Germans
We never really had Schoolhouse Rock because it is VERY American. Maybe the odd grammar one but generally no. However Mr. Dress-Up and his Tickle Trunk and the Friendly Giant with Rusty, the chicken who lived in a bag, were staples of most Canadian households.
He was a classic puppet. A plastic chicken head on some polka dot fabric. Ahhh, high tech puppety at its finest.
Rusty
Thanks to Ryan for giving me the code so I don’t get screwy giant links anymore. Mwah!
Now most of you will never remember this because it was only on for 4 years and only in the tri-state area.
A nice little hippie show called “The Magic Garden” the storybox was my favorite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApbGw_G0qxQ
Tam: Don’t Canadians realize American history is important? We tried to invade you twice before giving up.
Be sure to use your newfound power for good and not evil.
Only I get to use it for evil.
Polt, Paul & Cupcake: I still to this day find myself singing “do ordain and establish this constitutioooon, fo-oooor the United States of Ameriiiica!” Love me some Schoolhouse Rock. VERB! That’s what’s happening! was a good one too.
Paul: I didn’t have a green machine, but I had a Big Wheel! I got it for one of my birthdays from my kick ass Aunt/God Mother. I rode it down the stairs, all around the yard. The street I grew up on had two hills and was a dead end, I used to ride that sucker up and down those hills all the time and hit the sand at the bottom and use the hand break and slide like 15 feet. It was AWESOME! I actually wore a hole in the back wheels.
Ryan: But we burnded down the freaking Whitehouse. I think that puts us slightly ahead in the game.
I’m always a good girl.
burnded? WTF? So our grammar skills are weak, maybe we did need more School House Rock.
Tam: But you have to remember grammar in two languages. You’re excused in my book (and I almost totally typed your excused…).
See, the benefit to today is that in my childhood if you missed Schoolhouse Rock, you had to wait an entire week, whereas as an adult, I can see the Complete Schoolhouse Rock DVD set in the store, immediately buy it, take it to work, say, “Look what I found!!!!!” and then watch 30 Schoolhouse Rocks at once. You know, hypothetically.
One I miss about childhood are Playdates, which were such a common thing throughout growing up but now people are busy and have spouses/families so it’s just not as common to invite someone over to hang out, and I usually have to pick up the house anyway. It was just ASSUMED as a kid that our rooms would be messy.
I also miss the magic of how when you lost your tooth you got a quarter under your pillow, and on your sisters’ birthday you’d find a small present under your pillow, and on Christmas morning the stockings had really been filled! I don’t remember being young enough that I didn’t know who did those, but it was still amazing to wake up and discover that Something Had happened.
Tam:
I think you amy like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofYmhlclqr4
Great list craig! and why doesn’t koolaid taste as good now as it did when I was a kid?
Legos are awsome and to go with them I played with Lincoln Logs over the weekend!
Hayden: Because you taste buds are now telling you that it should be spiked.
Craig: before i move, can we play legos!? PLEASE!
Paul: I LOVED Magic Garden.
While I had my share of challenges in my youth there were also some carefree days. I miss those days. I miss spending a whole summer day playing with my best friend (whom I adored), and feeling blissfully exhausted as the sun set and drew the day to a close. Those few untainted days may have been the happiest moments of my life. Things were simpler then. I was caught in the swift current of a raging river. Destination unknown, but sure of my direction. Now, in place of that river, I feel that I am in a vast ocean left to chart my own course in a bigger grownup world.
This morning I was told that I am on the verge of becoming an uncle. A whole new person is about to crawl out into this world! Obviously I knew this was coming. It all just seemed very theoretical, but now it is starting to hit me. Wow.
YEAH! David,
Did you see the special where they said that Sherlock was made out of a fuzzy pink toilet seat cover
We had to watch all of the schoolhouse rock videos in Grade 10 English because the teacher decided that most of the students were incompetent. It was awesome!
And way to go Craig! They were Turtle SCOOTERs. I couldn’t come up with the word. Imaginary gold star. http://www.toysthatzoom.com/bmz_cache/5/58aa4faca1141478b3e934874512f2f7.image.209×225.jpg
I remember the Magic Garden! I actually saw them at a live show when I was a kid. I also remember Romper Room. The host, Mrs. Molly, actually lived in my town. We used to see her at the town pool.
Romper Room!!!!!!!!!!!!! that bitch never said my name at the end!!!!
I believe that Paula and Carol still tour!!! can you believe!! I would love to go but have no small children to take, and kidnapping one seems like too much trouble.
Chris D: Congrats on the soon-to-be-unclehood. That is a big responsibility; it is your duty to teach the kidlet all the things that parents can’t. Things like how to make farting noises with their armpits, how to spit properly, how to make a potato gun, etc.
The Magic Garden was one of my favorites growing up. They just played in my hometown a few months ago and yes, I did go (that made the second time in two years) There were a fair number of other nostalgia seekers there so I didn’t stand out too much.
Paul, David, Chris: Did you ever hear your name sung in the Hello Song?
Paul: How come the Brits were pink? I thought there were a couple of lines at the end which were rather amusing:
“We’re gonna elect a president, he’s gonna do what the people want.” Oh really, when were you going to do that? Anytime soon?
“We’re gonna run things our way, nobody’s gonna tell us what to do.” Oh well, you’ve mastered that one.
Tam: One thing that you need to know about Americans is that we have a deep-seated fear of the King of England barging into our homes and taking over. Since there is currently no living King of England, we are forced to grapple with the even more terrifying nightmare of a zombie king.
I had no logs and no legos but I had something called Tinkertoys. They were kind of cool and came in a tube/can thing.
We had Legos at home and Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs at Grandma’s.
Now I am thinking about why my family would call it Grandma’s place when both of my grandparents where living there.
Paul – “that bitch never said my name” Ha ha ha ha!!!
Heather – I think it’s a little sad that kids can watch so many shows on DVD on demand. WIlly Wonka, the Wizard of Oz, the Peanuts specials, The Rankin Bass holiday shows. They all seemed a little more special because they only came on once a year.
Legos, Lincoln Logs and Matchbox cars were fun. When my brother would let me play with his. Which was very rarely, because he was a little asshole – now he’s a big asshole. But I digress. Girl toys were not as fun. I mean, how long can you brush a Barbie’s hair anyway?
I remember spending a lot of time drawing and coloring. There was nothing like a big box of Crayolas (I miss all the old discontinued colors – brick red, cornflower, maize. raw umber…).
Ryan: Cause Grandma was the boss, end of story.
I’ve had the whole summer (and most of the last year) off thanks to my FUNemployment (or, technically, FUNderemployment), and it’s not as thrilling as you remember. I’m not exactly complaining, but don’t you remember those long boring days of summer when you had nothing to do and television sucked and you already beat all your videogames and your friends were away on vacation and your parents were working or busy and Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet?
ryan: I know! My grandparent’s just had their 50th wedding anniversary, and everyone was calling it grandma’s anniversary party, and this confuzzled me.
See I told you she never said my name, unless she said it backwards in the beginning:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSuWW-m2UzY
Who has time anymore???? You watch 100 hours of TV per week!!!
FDot: Sadly I can’t remember the Hello Song, so I don’t know if I ever heard my name. Clearly, if it wasn’t mentioned I didn’t feel traumatized.
I also watched Sesame Street, and Mr. Rogers. I remember when Mr. Hooper died. I was sad.
I also had Legos and Lincoln Logs. I never had any huge Lego sets when I was a kid, just some of the smaller sets.
I had a lot of fun playing with matchbox cars. We had a big tree in front of our house with these really cool roots. I would build roads and forts around it for my matchbox cars.
I also played with Fisher Price figures and vehicles. We had blue carpet in our house, so I pretended it was an ocean. I would use simple wooden blocks to build marine science bases. I would imagine that there was a huge storm blowing in, and use all my figures to secure everything. There has always been something special for me about storms over water. It must be the last vestiges of my sea faring roots.
Michelle M.: You reminded me of one of my favorite toys: TONKA! I had several Tonka trucks and they kicked ass.
No More Kings is a fun Schoolhouse Rock.
Tam: We’re not all bad. I actually got a really nice compliment on Americans today. We have a visiting scholar from Russia who said that she was so pleased with how welcoming everyone has been, including the public transportation bus driver. She also added that she hasn’t had this good an experience in other countries.
I did have to respond that it was very nice to hear, but that we did have a great deal to make up for the last 8 years…
Oh crap, I forgot! Chris D. CONGRATULATIONS! Being an uncle is great! My oldest twin niece and nephew turned 30 today. Makes me feel old as the hills, but I have a fantastic relationship with them that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
Polt & Paul: Tell me you had Star Wars action figures when you were a kid. I remember getting the early bird figures set of Luke, Leia, Obi Wan, Darth Vader and R2D2.
1. The one ting I hatez mo’ than not having summers off anymore, is hearing my teenage co-workers who work one shift a week talk about their impending vacation. Ug. Chut up! I don’t benefit from you going to the beach and eating ice cream! Booo! I once wrote a poem about reflecting on long-lost summers and how I miss playing outside with my sister and terrorizing salamanderz in the river behind our house. Enricocopterz, did you ever read it?! I think I read it during my SRS performance.
2. Legoz were hotter than Ryan Reynolds’ abs when I was a little tot. However, I was quite a fan of action figurez. Jurassic Park, Ghostbusterz and Ninja Turtles rocked my ever-fudging world!
3. After having my heart ripped out of me earlier this year and nearly dying because of it, I’ve given up on dating and have accepted the fact that no one will ever lovez me like I lovez dem and that I will die probably cold and most definitely alone.
4. I still eat a lot and my metabolizm is my best friend, but now that I am getting older, I am trying not to eat shit-fest food. I also try to go running and exercise as often as possible, just so I can impress all my non-boyfriendz (see #3) with my decent figure.
5. Ew. I still like to play ignorant and I get upset when I can’t. Student Loanz?! Rent!?! Car Insurance!?!?! BUS TICKETS?!!?!? (No) HEALTH INSURANCE?!?!??! Lamezzzzzz.
PS> Craigerz-in-a-half-shell, I lovez when tu usas mi idioma.
John, I do recall having this:
http://www.zianet.com/comic-booksuperstore/starwars-merch/stawars-lndspdr-w-luke-2.jpg
Tam: Speaking of Kings, what’s with your Governor General? What does she do other than assist floundering governments from collapsing and eating raw seal hearts?
john – I had the Leia action figure (and coincidentally, just finished the book Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher). I remember my brother sending away for the Boba Fett action figure. And being miffed when I had to spend all my savings to buy my asshole brother this when he had his appendix out:
http://image02.webshots.com/2/2/26/6/176222606eDrmvD_fs.jpg
But I’m not bitter.