What did you have in your childhood area that you dont have now in your current area?

[Dude111]

I mi$$ alot of the good things I had in the 80s and before....


Good food,etc.............

[dakert]

LaCrosse WI a great place to ride a bike. Altoona PA not such a good place for bike riding

[TJ]

I miss being within walking distance to any stores. We lived in an area where you could walk to everything.

I missed my extended family and childhood friends when we moved away from the Chicago area. It was never the same to only see them once or twice a year. Moving twice in four years sucked.

I missed Burger Chef when they closed their restaurants. I miss the 1980s.

[Caroline13]

I didn't have an ocean in my young years and we got ourselves to NJ beaches, drove or flew....now I iive probably a mile or so from the Pacific.

Most of all I miss a strong good walking body.


I believe I got the answer upside down...

[treky]

I MISS WALKING!


I HATE being in a wheelchair

[GentlemanJim]

Independently Owned Neighborhood Grocery Stores At one time quite common, just about every neighborhood had at least one within a 3 block distance. But as the big chains grew, the independently owned stores started to dwindle. By my time in the 1960s, only the strongest remained in operation. For a kid, they were great, if you wanted a candy bar or just a piece of gum, you didn't have to go through an ordeal to find one. But the real value to the entire family, were the grocers who were also specialty shops. For instance if your grocer's core business was that he was a butcher with a grocery store "wrapped around" him...man you really had it made. Truly deluxe cuts of meat, the kind of which you would NEVER find at Kroger, or A&P. Of course the down side of that being that the really good ones were quite popular, so a large crowd regulated by the dreaded "take a number" torture system. I remember as a kid absolutely loathing the tedium of having to wait while mom waited her turn. Now days I really wish we still had something like that to choose from. There are a couple pretenders, but no one that truly captures the experience.

Sen Sen Officially a breath freshener for smokers, these tiny, match-head sized balls of resin were heavy on the taste of liquorice, but with an "atomic fireball" type heat to go with them...they were quite a treat.Could only find them at tobacconists and finer drug stores.

Truant Officers We had a doozey. Officer Bickle. Officially a part of the city police department, I recall his ubiquitous presence riding his department furnished Harley 3 wheeler....always with the black leather jacket even on the hottest day, the mirrored sunglasses, the big "fighter pilot" style helmet with the built-in mic and speakers....he was quite a terror. Armed with an encyclopedic knowledge of which schools served which neighborhood, the school boundaries, and the names of the key officials at each school....you had better have your story straight if officer Bickle came asking if you "needed assistance" He could smoke out a phoney alibi in 5 questions or less. If you were playing hookey and out on the streets, you were constantly listening for the putta-putta-putt of his Harley.

Fairly common sight seeing him storm up and down the alleys near the local high schools, looking for delinquents smoking grass, and other no good pass times.

He was a legend.

40 years later, I had the treat of meeting his son (also a city cop, of course) And enjoyed swapping stories with him. He claimed that just about everyone to cross his dad's path, had a story to tell.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by treky

I MISS WALKING!


I HATE being in a wheelchair

Oh my I am so sorry sweetie,I had no idea

[GentlemanJim]

Muscle Car Era Having the big Detroit automakers at each other's throats with their "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" sales strategy, was great for the automotive performance enthusiast. The sanctioning bodies that regulated auto racing required that any car or engine entered in a race must have first sold at least so many stock versions to the buying public, in order to qualify for race day. So the manufacturers had to put "de-tuned" versions of their hardware on dealer lots, in significant numbers...beforehand. Hence the "muscle car" era. They called this requirement "Homologation" , but most buyers just called it "zoom!!"

The Counter Culture...this was really a fanastic epoch in American history, having such a broad swath of the population devoted to retrograde ideology. Barnardine Dohrn, the Weathermen, the Summer of Love....the Right wing's fear of "the monster within"...Great times!! Music with meaning!!
The only thing even close today, is the "woke" mindset, but, IMO, the cost of entry there is too high for me.

[Babalu]

Originally Posted by GentlemanJim

Sen Sen Officially a breath freshener for smokers, these tiny, match-head sized balls of resin were heavy on the taste of liquorice, but with an "atomic fireball" type heat to go with them...they were quite a treat.Could only find them at tobacconists and finer drug stores.

Interesting. I only know that word from Robert Preston's soliloquy in The Music Man. The song makes it clear what it's for but being that the show/movie takes place at the turn of the 20th century I had no idea Sen Sen lasted into modern times. Being I abhor smoking there's no chance of finding me in a tobacconist.

[GentlemanJim]

Originally Posted by Babalu

Interesting. I only know that word from Robert Preston's soliloquy in The Music Man. The song makes it clear what it's for but being that the show/movie takes place at the turn of the 20th century I had no idea Sen Sen lasted into modern times. Being I abhor smoking there's no chance of finding me in a tobacconist.

Regrettably, Sen Sen is no more.

My first experience with it, I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. And (looking back on it all), was a miserably spoiled child.

My father's only uncle, a widower, cigar smoker, skirt chaser, and likely a grown up spoiled child as well, I suspect had grown tired of my insistence that it was always about me.

Asking him for a treat, he gave me a couple SenSen, and probably thought he had given me what I "deserved".

And gosh, those things were like putting a couple tiny coals in my mouth....extremely intense. If you've ever touched the terminals of a 9 volt battery to your tongue, that is what I was experiencing.

But then, the liquorice flavor takes over, and it was intense, too. It's truly remarkable they could pack so much flavor in such a tiny spec.

I liked em!! Once you knew what to expect, the initial sensation was not quite as unpleasant.

When Great uncle passed and we cleaned out his estate, I made sure that I got his SenSen stash

[treky]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Oh my I am so sorry sweetie,I had no idea

thank you

I'm sure everyone's wondering why so I'll tell you-I have a rare muscular condition called HSP that's similar to MS and causes gradual muscle weakness; especially in the lower extremities.

::::::::::::::::::::::If .you want to know more feel free to ask; I don't mind talking about it.

[Babalu]

Originally Posted by GentlemanJim

Regrettably, Sen Sen is no more.

My first experience with it, I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. And (looking back on it all), was a miserably spoiled child.

My father's only uncle, a widower, cigar smoker, skirt chaser, and likely a grown up spoiled child as well, I suspect had grown tired of my insistence that it was always about me.

Asking him for a treat, he gave me a couple SenSen, and probably thought he had given me what I "deserved".

And gosh, those things were like putting a couple tiny coals in my mouth....extremely intense. If you've ever touched the terminals of a 9 volt battery to your tongue, that is what I was experiencing.

But then, the liquorice flavor takes over, and it was intense, too. It's truly remarkable they could pack so much flavor in such a tiny spec.

I liked em!! Once you knew what to expect, the initial sensation was not quite as unpleasant.

When Great uncle passed and we cleaned out his estate, I made sure that I got his SenSen stash

I'm not much of a drinker either; generally just wine, and even that, not often.

But the one hard liquor I do enjoy is anisette, and the one brand I stick to is Marie Brizard. If you want an intense licorice flavor like nothing else, that's it.

[GentlemanJim]

One other fond childhood memory from the 1960s, we had this mega-dimestore downtown, or you could call it a "Junk department store"....it was sort of a Kmart before it's time....and they had a lunch counter where this old man smoking a pipe and reading a newspaper, was ALWAYS seated there.

And the blend of his pipe smoke, the hot co-co aroma from the dedicated dispenser, and the smell of carmel corn being made fresh at the adjacent confection counter...just blended together to create a heavenly smell I have never found anywhere else.

Cavendish I believe was his tobacco.


And, TAA-DAHHH!! I'm a forum veteran now. Man, that journey from 2,999 to 5,000 posts was like a trip through the desert on a horse with no name!

[biffbronson]

Congratulations on #5,000.

I miss the revolving display of Matchbox cars at one store, and the well-stocked pile of boxed cars at another.

Having a mailbox on the corner of my street, to drop off letter mail.

Sunday comics sections of 12 pages or more every week.

Peanuts comic characters on Hostess fruit pies.

Homemade Greek desserts.

[Caroline13]

Oh one thing that has been missed by many are 5&10 stores in general. Woolworths, Kresge's, Newburry and others.

A good friend used to say we can't even buy a spool of thread or needle anymore.