Are you old enough to remember when................

[MiloMorai]

How many remember steam trains? Would stand with the brothers and watch them for hours when visiting the grandparents. There house was at the end of a freight yard at Hurdman's Bridge.



This photo could have been taken from the spot we watched the trains from as I remember the small building.

[Dichotomy]

Digging a cave in my backyard, camouflaging it so well that most people didn't know it was there, and hanging out in it with my friends swapping stories.  Building ramps to see how far we could jump our bikes.  Rabbit hunting with PA in West Texas and going to oil spills with him was a treat.  Being saved from a big rattlesnake by Rip the German Shepherd.  I remember watching Neil Armstrong step on the moon then running outside to see if I could actually see him.  Building a model of the rocket with my dad because it was just that cool.  Playing football in the front yard knocking the crud out of each other in the summer then the fire department would fill up a big hole in the vacant lot across the way in the winter so we could play hockey.  And yes you never EVER wanted mom to get a call from the neighbor so you watched your mouth and your manners around adults.   

[Shamus]

How many remember steam trains? Would stand with the brothers and watch them for hours when visiting the grandparents. There house was at the end of a freight yard at Hurdman's Bridge.

(Image removed from quote.)

This photo could have been taken from the spot we watched the trains from as I remember the small building.

Rode one between Brandon and Winnipeg back in the 50's 

shamus

[MiloMorai]

Dichotomy, that brought back memories.

And yes you never EVER wanted mom to get a call from the neighbor so you watched your mouth and your manners around adults.

If a neighbor gave us a boot in the bellybutton and we went home and complained we would get another boot in the ass. The second boot was because we were doing something we shouldn't have been doing and for whining.

Who remembers 4" firecrackers? In the spring we would build dams of mud in the main ditch (some were 3-4' tall). Just before the water would spill over the top we would light up to 6 of the 4"ers. Mud and water would be flying everywhere. On getting home the water hose would be turned on us to get the mud off before being let in the house in our underwear. Oh yes, we were not yet 13 years old.

Shamus, there is something about steam trains isn't there? In the early 60s took one from Ottawa to Pembroke and back in the winter.

[mthrockmor]

I remember as a kid  buying regular gas (versus unleaded) for about $0.30/gal for the old lawn mower. We were the high falut'n people in the neighborhood as most people still had the push mowers. Ours pushed though it had a little 2 horse power motor with it. The others pushed, no mower. People were skinnier back then.

As for cheap candy, we would go around the neighborhood and collect glass bottles, take them to the gas station and get a nickel for them then buy loads of candy.

And I was born in the late 1960's. The Federal Reserve has inflated our dollar to junk, though technology has really taken us to new heights...now riding lawn mowers.

[Penguin]

Penguin, that is a very interesting observation.  What change seemed to cause your little brothers to do that instead of the nifty things you and your pal did?

Their lack of interest in the outside world, my brother's inability to ride is bike without training wheels (He's in third grade, for crying out loud!), and his friend's general wimpiness.  That, along with our widescreen TV right next to the toys, guess which one gets more attention.

-Penguin

[R 105]

I think the last Drive-In Theater I went to was the Blue Sky Drive-in in Barberton Ohio In the late 1970s. We had one here in Ruskin Florida that was open up to a few years ago.  It may still be I am not sure. How about all the little amusement parks that were around Like Chippewa lake Park in Chippewa lake Ohio. I worked there from 1968 to 1971 before I went in the Army. Seems like every state had a few small parks like this. I think they are long gone now.

[dirtdart]

I remember getting on a C-130 in 1979 when the Sandinista Army overthrew Somoza.  We were evacuated from Nicaragua to Panama.  I will never forget.  I was drawing cars in my bedroom (7 years old) and my mom threw a suitcase on my bed and told me to put all my clothes in the case.  The next AM, our lives changed.  

I remember living in Bogota, Colombia from 1980-1983.  To conserve electricity you had power three to four nights of the weeks.  We did our homework by Coleman lantern.  When the power would come back on the M-19 would blow another terminal down.  We could not go beyond the block to play for fear of kidnapping or robbery.

I remember sitting on the can in Santiago, Chile in 1984. A car bomb went off two blocks away, rattling the house and sending chunks of car into our back yard.  They had a shoot first curfew in the late night early am.

I remember watching the value of the Austral in Buenos Aires Argentina go from 1 to 1 with the dollar to 14 to one with the dollar in under two years.  

I remember a lifetime of seeing truly poor and destitute people with little or no hope.  The favelas in Rio de Janiero for example.

I remember the simple life of the people in Paraguay who lived day to day on next to nothing, had little in terms of material possessions, yet seemed to not look for hand outs or blame the world for their circumstances.

I remember the faces of every Iraqi family I disrupted when my boys would kick doors in looking for bad guys.  

I remember that all.

Thank whatever you thank, that you were born in a country where things like this are not the day to day standard.

---Crusader