There is something about the silence of the morning, a cup of coffee, and mind that is bent just a little, that transforms the space between my ears into a time machine. In that mystical machine I call my memory, I go back to places I once was a part of. As I view the images of my youth with the experience of my present age it makes me a bit melancholy. Not sad for myself, but sad that my kids will never know some of the simple joys that time, technology and the legal system have taken away.

 

sears wishbook
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The Sears Christmas Catalog In Your Mailbox- Next to actual Christmas Day, your birthday or the last day of school, the day the Sears Wishbook arrived was about the best day a kid could have. It usually showed up in the mailbox around mid-October and there was a fight to see which kid got look at it first. This catalog was an impressive array of toys, games, gadgets, bikes, trikes and things you didn't know what they were, but you wanted them.

 

tonka trucks
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Metal Tonka Trucks- They still make Tonka trucks. They are still big and fun to play with. They are made of plastic and this makes the truck of today and not the truck of my youth. The Tonka truck of the mid 1960's was made of metal. It was strong enough to support the body weight of a toddler riding it down a hill. It was strong enough to withstand the force of being hurled across the backyard because your older brother destroyed your sand fort.

 

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Perforated Edges on Printer Paper- If you didn't think I was odd before now, you can officially start thinking it.  Tearing the perforated edges off of the printer paper was quite therapeutic for me. It was a simple mundane task that gave me just a few minutes of stress free living. It is similar to how bubble wrap is to a lot of people.

 

 

 

 

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Actual Prizes in Cereal Boxes- The cereal aisle in the grocery store of my youth was not so much about what we would eat for breakfast as it was about what new treasure I would now have for my toy box. The marketers of the 60's and 70's new that kids were the master manipulators of most buying decisions. Therefore the emphasis on the cereal box cover became less about the food and more about the toy. The cool thing was that when said cereal box was opened there was an actual toy inside.

 

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Drive In Movies- I have to admit these were on their way out even when I was a kid. Still there was something very intriguing to my young mind about being able to sit in a car and watch a movie! That's something our kids do everyday now.They do it in the back seat with their very own personal DVD player and headphones! At the real drive in the sound quality was terrible and if you were short you couldn't see squat over the grown ups in the front seat.

 

So how painful was that trip back in time? Did you remember a lot of the things that I did? I guess we can find comfort in knowing that things will always be better in our memories. Just like we always look a lot better when there are no mirrors around.

 

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