I miss blackberry picking. Biked 5 miles to the best patch which was in the gravelly right-of-way for high-power lines. Had the watch out for snakes, and it was really hot down in the gullies with the sun beating back and forth, but the berries were huge, plentiful and delicious. Stuffed my mouth with one hand while filling the buckets with the other hand. I had one of those huge paper-boy baskets on the front of my bike; it held two large pails and I wired two more pails to the sides of the basket. Biking back, I crossed over a shady, deep creek, and sometimes would stop and just wade into the cool water until only my hat was dry. Walking up the steep slope and then biking another couple miles home was our air-conditioning! Then we'd sort and fix berries: pies, tarts, jam, and of course big bowlsful with milk and sugar. Quite often, I'd repeat the process three or four times a week until the berries were gone for the year. Purple fingers, seeds in my teeth, and the wind in my hair...

Climbing trees although I have to admit from time to time I tackle a few of them around here just because. I miss my brother and growing up I never thought that would happen in a million years. LOL He lives in Texas and we see each other once a year but at this point in my life I sure wish he were closer to me.I miss ice skating. I used to do it all the time when I was younger but those days are long gone.

"Purple fingers, seeds in my teeth"

I remember that!

I miss riding the big yellow school bus;
we lived in a rural area, & that bus stopped to pick me up on the way *out* so I could ride the whole route.

Playing with the neighborhood kids. Since we did that both in Monterey, CA and Nashville, TN, I'm going with, it was we who prompted the games. So many. Red light/green light, bicycling, football, jumping through the sprinkler (and drinking fron the hose), baseball, war, roller skating, cowboys, wolf (our made up game), volleyball, badminton, hopscotch... I could go on forever. Early on, I lived where it was cooler and it was cherries that filled our bike baskets. I miss the jelly fish floating serenely on the surface of the ocean, as I looked down on them from the pier, above kelp forests. Some days I go to the Monterey Aquarium and check out the webcams. It's not as good, but the nostalgia runs deep. Seeing sailboats out of the livingroom window. Long drinks from the ice cold springs in the California mountains found in Yosemite after hiking to the top. Falling into the river there and being soaking wet for the day, drying in the sun, but waking up the next day freezing cold and eating pancakes made with beer to get them good and yeasty over a crackling fire. Dennis the Menace park with its Lion head water fountain and merry-go-round. White picket fences drenched with rambling roses, and red bikes. Burying my face in honey-scented alyssum. Opryland. Every last bit of it. From standing in sun drenched lines to eating caramel apples for Halloween and ice skating for winter. Watching my sister's kids play the same way there (mine didn't get to). Feeding the ducks dry stale bread. How did the saying "lucky duck" ever come into being?

Skiing right out the front door, cold bedroom with down comforter, the brook behind the house which lulled me to sleep, red raspberry/ blueberry and wild strawberry picking and hunting for mushrooms. Oh and I almost forgot, something I can't do here, going to a cafe (no, not internet) and have a good cup of coffee and the choice of about 20 different cakes and tortes. Our apartment on Governors Island, NY where the next door neighbor was the Statue of Liberty and when you looked out of any window you could see the boats go by, you did not even have to stand up if it was any of the liners.

anneliese, I also have fond memories about skiing right out the front door along with skating on the frozen pond. I think of them as fond memories, because I had such a good time as a kid. However, in my old age I don't miss the snow, and I'm perfectly happy living in the CA sun.

Marda, climbing trees and grapevine swings are the things I
miss. I miss my mom's cooking and I miss hearing my
grandmother singing Love Lifted Me.

I miss things being as they used to be back in the 1950's growing up. Today is the first day of the York Fair which runs for 10 days now. Back then the Fair only ran for 5 days and started on a Tuesday till Saturday. We had off of school on that first day of the Fair, and I remember and loved sitting on the front porch watching all the buses going down our street heading to the Fair.

That first day was special because we went as a family
mom & dad, Grandma & grandpa, my brother & I.
They had the harness races that day.
Never will forget them days.

I could pick out endless scenes from my childhood and young adulthood I would love to go back and re-live and they're all burnt in my memory somewhere. Sometimes they're layered so deeply it takes a smell or the light hitting a certain way to bring them back......and when they bubble up to the surface, butterflies go off in my stomach and I get to taste them again in my mind.

However, I think I'd rather talk about something I find for the most part missing in today's lives, and that's the delicious anticipation we don't have anymore. Christmas season didn't start until after Thanksgiving and that month to a child was endless. By that time the weather had turned and it was cold and dreary with the yellow blur of old electric lights and remnants of decor in most houses from the thirties. There were no artificial trees that anyone I know of had, so a Christmas tree didn't go up until right before the big day. The stores didn't have their seasonal merchandise out until the snows flew, either. Christmas shopping was a two week blur of excitement and gift wrapping usually happened the night before.

If you had a phone, long distance was something saved for emergencies. You corresponded with friends and family by mail and even if the person to whom you wrote answered immediately, there was a two week hiatus before you got a return letter.

I don't ever remember there being a carton of ice cream in our ice box, or a carbonated beverage when I was growing up. They were treats and you got them at an ice cream shop or a soda at the cinema. Speaking of cinemas they were one of the few places you could see a 'movie'. So a film was also a treat.

I don't know of anyone personally who had an air conditioner in their homes, either. Summer was summer and nights were hot. Winter was winter and mornings were cold until my Mama would rise and stoke up the coal furnace and I miss the smell of wood and coal smoke on the air in winter.

I never even heard of an answering machine until I was an adult, and nobody had heard of a cell phone either. So, if you were away from a phone, somehow you got along until a message got to you. LOL. I miss the privacy of being unreachable when I wish to be.

And if you lived in a town, there was never a school so far away you couldn't walk to it or a corner grocery so far you couldn't walk to it either for emergency supplies like a quarter's worth of lunch meat and a loaf of bread.

The only people who worked through the night or on weekends were emergency personnel, and everyone was home on a Sunday evening.

You waited until early afternoon to see a television program if you were lucky enough to have a set and the test pattern came on again at eleven p.m.

Everyone had slamming screen doors their parents told them not to slam, and front porches where you sat and watched the world go by.

Not much of anything was instant.

beautiful remembrances, calliope.