I Remember When: Playing

I know... it's been a really long time since my last post. I'm going to finish up my "I remember when" series today because I've got lots of other great things to post when I get home this week. So here's my tribute to growing up... and all the fun things I remember about playing as a kid.

Back in the day you really had think to play... meaning you had to come up with your own stuff because you didn't have the TV plastered with cartoons 24/7, a computer to entertain you, hand-held video games & if you were "rich" you were lucky to have an Atari video game (I didn't have one). So, here's what I did growing up. It was fun. Really fun & thinking back I wish my kids can have some of these experiences that I did.

I grew up an only child, so I had lots of imaginary things & people to play with. I did have my best friend Julie to play with. We were BFF's from 1st grade on. We stayed at each others house most every weekend and played everything under the sun. One thing that I remember the most was us recording our own teen talk show... Teen Beat. We probably have a dozen or more tapes of us talking & interviewing everyone from New Kids on the Block to Michael Jackson to Kirk Cameron & Ralph Macchio (all pretend of course... sometimes we roped her brother into posing as one of the interviewees). We also would dress up in our dance costumes & perform The Bangles in front of our parents & fight over which one of us would be Suzanna Hoffman (because she was the prettiest).

My parents lived in the woods, so I would clear out a spot beside the house & take some old logs & build a "house" (it was really a pretend house with pretend walls & the logs were usually the stairs from the living room to the kitchen). I would take walks in the woods with my Daddy & we would go to the creek behind our house. I remember him killing a few snakes too.

I loved to go to the skating rink. That was really "cool" then. I had my very own pair of white skates with pink wheels & huge pink pompoms tied to the toes & I would skate around the carport to Wham ..... Wake me up before you go-go, Jitterbug, Careless Whisper.

I didn't have a barbie doll house, so I made my own dollhouse on the hearth of the fireplace. I would lay out baby blankets to separate the rooms. I used shoulder pads for the living room furniture & I used the little white round table-looking-thing (that used to come in the middle of your pizza to keep the box from sinking down onto it) as the TV stand. I had a box of candy that looked like a stereo & used that to set up in the bedrooms.

My parents house is kind of up on a hill & I would ride my hot wheel up & down the driveway for hours. I would also half kills ants & put them in the back of a Hot Wheel ambulance & let it race to the bottom of the driveway & crash. Yes, I liked to play with hot wheel cars.

Saturday used to be the only day that cartoons came on TV. I always looked forward to getting up Saturday morning and watching the Smurfs & Looney Tunes.

I don't remember going out to eat at fast food joints very much. It was a treat to get to go to McDonald's once in a while.

I had lots & lots of dolls. My favorites were Martha-Ann & Martha-Nelle... don't ask! I also had a real adoption doll that had blond hair & blue eyes just like me. Her name was Emily. Cabbage Patch kids were big back in the day. I had a boy doll named Franklin Theodore... I called him Frankie for short... and a baby Cabbage Patch that I have no idea what her name was.

It's fun thinking back to all the wonderful memories I had growing up. It really doesn't seem that long ago, but when I look at my own kids... 8, 6 & 2.... I think, "wow, I'm getting old". I would love to hear some of your favorite memories of growing up. Leave me a comment.