Yet Another Screaming Meme

From Madame Sadie

Five Things I Miss From My Childhood

1. The Ding Dong Man: Now, I'm sure this sounds obscene to your adultified ears---either that or you have a serious Hostess problem---but the dude we affectionately called "The Ding Dong Man" is, in all reality, a guy who drove an ice cream truck around the neighborhood. That was just our nickname for him. He drove through the neighborhood just about every day, right around three o'clock. Methinks he was pretty crafty, knowing what time all the wee ones would be waking up from their naps. He also cunningly coordinated his timing with what could be considered the Industry Standard for snack time for the older kids in our neck of the woods. Two birds: one stone. Now, Mom was kind of a stickler in this department and only let us indulge in his treats every so often, but there was nothing better than a bomb pop when she would.

2. Happy Hollow: If you look at a map of Omaha you'll see that, near the vast expanse of Memorial Park, there is a street called Happy Hollow. Well, this isn't what I'm referring to, even though it's less than a mile from the old homestead and I used to cross it every day on the way to school. One of the perks of the bank presidency my dad held were a couple of country club memberships, and one of them was to Happy Hollow. Happy Hollow was, at that point in Omaha's development, out in what we mid-city residents considered to be the middle of nowhere. Now, however, most people consider where Happy Hollow resides to be midtown. During the summers, Mom would tell us relatively early in the morning if a trip to the club was on tap for the day. And, if it was, my sister and I were dumped into a state of heightened anticipation. I believe Mom scheduled these trips to west Omaha based on if anything interesting was happening on her "story" that day, but I'll never know unless she fesses up. Her "story" (and, yes, this is what she STILL calls it) is more commonly known as As The World Turns. If, as I suspect, nothing interesting was happening that day, we'd go right after lunch. If something was, well, we'd have to wait until afterwards. I remember the trip out to the club always taking FOREVER. I would finally feel a sense of relief when I could see the Witherspoon mansion. Across the street there was another mansion---I can't remember their name, but I'm sure the Omaha contingent will provide it when they read this---and attached to the mansion was a large field where the owner's horses ran free. Right after that field was a Sinclair station, which still stands at that corner, and that's where we turned left to get to the club. There's now a shopping complex where that field used to be.

We loved the club because the club had one big ass swimming pool and lots of kids. It also had a high dive, which made it infinitely better than Field Club, which was closer to where we lived and was the other club we belonged to, but where there was only a regular height diving board and if you wanted to use it, you were jumping right into the fray because the pool was small. At Happy Hollow, they had the diving area roped off to swimmers. Pure class. Christi and I were pool connosieurs at that point in time and nothing was better, in our humble opinion, than Happy Hollow.

One summer, when my mom was busy planning my brother's wedding and didn't have time to come to the pool with us, she'd drop us off right when the pool opened, we'd swim, we'd have lunch---they had a little grill shack that served the best hamburgers---then we'd swim some more, we'd have a Hostess blueberry or cherry pie for a snack and then we'd swim until our Dad would come to pick us up after work. Sometimes, if we were really lucky, Dad would want to go back to the club after dinner for more swimming. YIPPEEE! It was heaven for an eleven-year old fish like myself. This whole arrangement worked rather well until Dad freaked when he got the grill tab. Yikes, was he ever pissed off.

I still remember our member number: 606Z. Mom and Dad don't belong anymore---the membership went the way of the Dodo when Dad was downsized---but there are times when I'm back in Omaha during the summer and I wonder if they'd boot me out if I went in there and put that code down on the sign-in sheet.

3. Old reruns of decent tee vee shows. When we got cable, we were introduced to the glories of The Carol Burnett Show, The Addams Family, The Munsters and the like. Nothing was funnier than old Carol Burnett episodes. My favorite moments were when they cracked themselves up. Whatever happened to Lyle Waggoner? Does anyone know? I have to think he's who George Hamilton stole the skin cancer-schtick from.

4. Video Games At the 7-11. Tis where I learned how to play Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man. Donkey Kong was included, as was that little bastard Q-Bert, Asteroids and Space Invaders. Frogger ruled, but the ultimate was Pole Position.

5. Riding my bike: It's just not the same thing when you're an adult. The heady sense of freedom just isn't there when you're a grownup and you sling your leg over the chassis. It's fun, don't get me wrong, but it means less.

The rules:

Remove the #1 item from the following list, bump everyone up one place and add your blog's name in the #5 spot. You need to link to actually link to each of the blogs for the link-whorage aspect of this fiendish meme to kick in.

No Government Cheese
Villainous Company
Pirate's Cove
Fistful of Fortnights
Cake Eater Chronicles

Next, select four unsuspecting victims, list and link to them. Get the plank ready.

Who to pick, who to pick? Hmmmmm. Well, of course, I must choose Robbo. Because he's all about the meme, just like moi. RP would probably have some lovely answers (and who, inspired by The Girl Child, hopes your summer tastes like pear. Which is as lovely a sentiment as I've heard lately.) as would Miss Margi, our newest addition to the divesque ladies (and because she always humors me when it comes to these things). Let's see, I need one more. Hmmmm. Who to pick? Hmmmm. Aha. The Blog Child. Because she's a sucker for memes and maybe this will get her mind off the morning sickness.

Posted by Kathy at June 7, 2005 10:52 PM