I want it back.....
I know, I know. Impossible, you say. It was such a small window of time: the war was over and the troops had returned home. Korea was on some other planet, perhaps. Life in small-town America was coming together again.
In the summer, the grass was greener, the trees were bigger (really) and the fruit and vegetables were abundant. I had no idea how much money my daddy made and I didn't care: we had enough to eat. And my mother made sure I had flouncy, frilly dresses to wear. Too many dresses: I preferred my overalls. I never got in trouble for getting my overalls dirty....
Life was home and family, friends, school and church. A HUGE treat, once a month or so, was to go out to dinner. My older brother hated it: we had to share a dinner and I always got to choose and I always chose fried chicken.
We stood in class, in the morning, and said the Pledge of Allegiance. With gusto, mostly. We knew our fathers had gone off to the war and fought hard and kept our freedom safe. We didn't know where, or how, but we knew they were heroes.
We had one car and Daddy drove it to work. If my mother wanted to use the car, she had to take Daddy to work in the morning. If it was raining, she might drop us off at school but mostly, we walked to school, rain or shine.
And when it did rain, we took our roller skates to school. During recess, we were allowed to skate on the walkways outside our classrooms. Teachers were posted at the corners to slow us down, if we were going too fast. And if someone got hurt, there was a nurse in the school office.
I knew every kid in the neighborhood. Played with the ones who were close to my age. We ran all over the neighborhood, barefooted, all summer long. We didn't have to go home until our mothers called us and then we hurried home. For supper.
My mother wore an apron when she cooked. All our meals happened at the dining room table. My brothers on one side, me on the other, and my parents at each end of the table. I didn't have to have a sibling “elbowing” me when I ate. I had something worse: when the telephone rang, I had to answer it, since my chair was right next to the phone table.
On summer nights, we sat outside, on the patio, and talked or read or played games. The windows were open so we could hear the radio and the tunes wafting out the window on the summer breeze. Sometimes, we listened to music, sometimes to news, and sometimes to a program like “The Lone Ranger.”
When we finally got a television, we were only allowed to watch it for an hour a day: “it'll ruin your eyes!” My mother said that constantly. My parents chose the program and, if we were interested, we watched it, too.
I could go on and on, but it's futile. The memories will have to sustain me. Thomas Wolfe was right: we can't go home again....
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