I was looking at an old movie on TV and was reminded of something from my childhood that brought back fond memories. I’ll list some of mine here:

Taking the train with my grandmother who packed a "shoebox lunch." For those of you too young to remember, folk used to pack their lunches in a shoebox to take on the train/bus. Usually it consisted of fried chicken, deviled eggs and homemade rolls. Seems like that shoebox made everything taste so special!

First day of school because I got to sport my brand new Buster Brown shoes

Last day of school because Mom would take me "to town" to get a brand new pair of Keds sneakers. Remember the kind with the rubber toe that came in either red or blue?

Valentines Day at school. All the kids would hang their handmade paper envelopes around the class and each student would get those little 5-cent paper valentines from classmates.

Blackboard duty at school. I used to LOVE to erase the blackboards!

My first lunchbox. Remember those metal lunch boxes with the thermos inside?

My first pencil box. I know some of you are thinking, "What in the hell is that?" Ask yo mama/grandmama.

School assembly where they showed those travel log shorts about all the different places around the world.

Christmas morning when I got my first bike and first pair of roller skates that you had to use a "key" to tighten.

Atlantic City when the Steel Pier was alive and well.

Family’s first dog, a dog named "Butch."

My own first dog, which I still miss today, named "Pusser". We’d go "exploring" in the woods together.

Penny candy from "Dominic’s," a little neighborhood store owned by an old Italian guy named, you guessed it. If you had a nickel, you’d have a sack of candy to last you a day!

Hearing my very first R&B tune: "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" by Frankie Lymon

Moving from "the projects" to a brand new house my daddy built.

Our first family car, a 1953 Chevy Biscayne



OK, so what are yours?

* Taking long drives, sans destination, with my father and brother.
* Going fishing with them.
* Me and my grandfather shooting birds with a slingshot against my mother's will.
* Lying beneath the tree on Christmas Eve with my cat, listening to music and smelling my mother's cooking.
* Old school MTV
* 1984
* Bike riding with my friends -- doing stunts and going to far-off places that would horrify my mother.
* Saturday and Sunday afternoons left on my own to rove the Cleveland Museum of Art.
* Autumn in my old neighborhood.
* The almost geometrically perfect 5-pointed stars my father painted freehand on my bedroom ceiling.
* Having the time and freedom to do nothing but draw and paint for hours and hours.

1. listening to my mom sing in the kitchen while she was baking up some home made bread rolls
2. listening to my sister practice her violin early on saturday mornings
3. exploring the vacant lot ajacent to my backyard and finding pheasant eggs, blue tail lizards and garter snakes. (yes, i was a tomboy as a child)
my first crush, a new student named blaine. i let him borrow my eraiser on his first day in school.
4. being chose as a cheerleader in the eighth grade (at a 95% white school)
5. my dad taking me for rides on his harley and taking me and my sis to his mc shop
6. snow sledding on the hill near my house in the winter
7. my mom letting me and my sis take potatoes to the sled hill. the parents who lived along the hill had a small fire going and let the kids bake their potatoes under the flames. those cooked potatoes tasted sooooo good
8. going fishing with my mom and dad in coeur d'alene lake (cat fish, bass, cropy) mmmmm good.
9. snow ball fights with the neighbor kids and my mom's snow ice cream
10. designing my first dress and having all my mom's friends say how neat it was
11. going to church and listening to the adult chior (my sis also played piano)
12. loving the feeling of being loved unconditionally by my parents

i've been blessed