I'm glad I'm old!

I NEVER thought I would say that, much less write on a global forum about it. But I realized that in many ways it is true. Oh, not the age itself, nor the things we go through to keep our ever aging bodies halfway together. No. What I am talking about how times have changed in a relatively short time. A few things came to mind the other evening which made me so happy to grown up in the times that I did.

No seat belts! I remember, as a pre teen to young teenager, my parents and I going on our usual summer vacation, driving through the various States. When it was hot, I would roll down the window of the backseat of the car, pull myself out and sit on the lowered window/door as my father drove along the highway, loving the wind hitting me.

Another memory is of my friends taking me places, rather their parents taking us all places. A family with five children, plus me. All in one car. I can remember the routine. One person sat "back", one sat "forward" on and on, to get five kids in the backseat of the car (one sat up front with the parents...bench seats back then). This could never happened today, with the seat belts.

Then there was the fun of going to the stores with mom or dad or both, and you would go off to the toy department while they went shopping, knowing they would pick you up later, or you would go looking for them. There was no fear back then of people taking children. No thought was given to anything sinister. I can recall how kids would "lose" their parents and stores would use the intercom to announce so and so was looking for such and such and to "Please come to" whatever department the child was located.

Along this same vein, neither children nor parents gave thought when it came to children going out to play. There was no evil out there, waiting to snatch kids from homes, from playgrounds, from stores. We could, and often did, play well into dark. The only limit was the time we were to be home. We could walk home from school, through vacant lots, no matter how young, to reach home.....no fear!

I remember my friends and I not even 9 years old, walking in the early evening through a cemetery near our house. We would sit in the cemetery, surrounded by woods, and tell stories to scare one another. While this may be done now, it is a danger, especially if young girls were to do this. "go play on the freeway" gave way to what? "you can play in the yard but I need to keep an eye on you". How sad.

In school, the pledge of allegiance was said and nothing was thought of it. No biggie. No problem. It was okay back then.

Schools had dress codes. I remember one teacher in high school told us we needed to dress up in school. This teacher said we were "preparing" to enter the adult world and would need to know how to dress for work etc. Now, not only teachers and their students, but for many of us, jeans and tee shirts are work "attire". I would have been sent home if I'd come to school in the clothes I now wear to work.

Lastly, on my rant of how times have changed. When growing up I used to love an old movie that was shown on TV every now and then. I think it was made in the '40's. Called "Margie". Based in the '20's I believe, it was a young, romantic and idealistic girls movie. A high school student (Margie) had a crush on the very handsome Principal. He liked her too and as the innocence of movies back then, there was the "accidental" meetings, whether at the ice skating rink, or if the principal would be at Margie's house to talk business with her father,etc.

Only in the end, if memory serves me correctly, did we see via "the future", that Margie and the Principal married and had children. Speaking for myself, as a girl who had various crushes on her male teachers, this movie made my "dreams" seem feasible. I don't even have to mention what would happen now days if this went down in the times we now live.

How sad what the passage of time has brought, not just to what I've written above, but to all I don't remember as of this blog posting. How sad for the kids now, the ones who never got to enjoy the "freedom" I took for granted, but in looking back see it was so precious. They will never know what it was like "in the good old days". Yes, I'm glad I'm "old".