Happy Memories

Happy Memories

These days all you hear about is how to eat healthier, lose weight and get fit, and don't even mention the nightly news! There is nothing like being fit and in the know, but sometimes it’s fun to find a quiet place, and with a cup of your favorite beverage, in your mind, take an eyes-closed journey back to when you were a kid.

Remember all the games you used to play? Board games like Scrabble, Monopoly, and Life. Tag, hide n’ seek.

Running around, riding bikes, skating, rolling down grassy hills, one of my favorites.

Ok, I’m getting a little idealized here. So let’s have a little fun. Let’s remember the candy!

What were your favorites Licorice, Chocolate, Leafy, and Taffy?

Believe it or not, I not only remember, but have greeting cards that were also part of those fun times when life's responsibilities were not so many. I can recall some milestones with delight, like the days when I was first old enough to go to the store to buy candy on my own. No parents to tell me I couldn’t have it. Hot dog bubble gum and Lemonheads were always one of my favorites.

My brothers and I no doubt spent way too much of our allowances on candy, and some snacks we dubbed or midnight snack, but it was sooo much fun! We’d hide it so that our mother wouldn’t find it, but throw the wrappers straight into the trash after eating the candy. My mother even laughed about that to me once a couple not long ago, but I still think the logic works. The candy had been eaten after all; she couldn’t undo that, so what did it matter if she knew then?

The other day while going through some boxes I found a collection of greeting cards held together by a very old-aged-rubber band and taking the time to look at a few of them brought all of the above, and memories below flooding back from my childhood. One of them was a Halloween Card from a relative who passed away years ago but their words of joy and encouragement were still there bring back childhood memories of the time my brothers and I got older and we got to be the kids that went around the neighborhood later than just about anyone else, so the people who didn’t want to have leftover candy would just dump their excess on us, no worries back then.

By then my brothers and I had made hiding our Halloween candy was pretty much a competitive art form. We were always trying to find the best places to hide each individual piece. I would not be surprised at all if after we move out of our house on Egbert Street, the new owners continued to find candy stashed here and there for years after we left. The greeting card I found brought back a memory I had actually forgotten about and long since replaced with the memory of my own children growing up and experiencing Halloween for the first time.

Because of my workshop discovery made while preparing for our neighborhood clean-up-day, a little over a year ago, I have started a greeting card scrapbook and I find my greeting card collection as emotionally inspiring as any of the photographs in my photo scrapbooks. Yes, it does pay to eat healthily, stay fit, and keep up with daily news happenings. But everything in moderation, sometimes you just have to enjoy a few old memories. Share them with your kids, which I plan to do, or its okay to keep them to yourself, but just enjoy.