Remember When...
Updated: Aug 23
Remembering the simpler times of yesterday
By Isabella Boston & Michael Harvey
Remember When...
Remember when children would play outdoors for hours, drink water from the water hose, and chase the ice cream truck like their lives depended on it?
I can still remember how excited I was at the first sound of the truck's carnival-like music. It sent me running into the house to beg my mother for money.
Some of the kids would run after the truck, shouting, "Ice cream! Ice cream!" But the driver wasn't just selling ice cream; he enjoyed the game of it, watching the children sprint down the sidewalk with dollar bills crinkled in their fists, slowing down just enough to keep their smiling faces in his rearview mirror before finally pulling over. (He should have offered a discount for making them run for it!)
Afterwards, I would stand in line with the other neighborhood children, carefully surveying the menu as we all thoughtfully counted the money we had been given.
Depending on the truck, some common favorites were: push-up pops, Chocolate Eclairs, Strawberry Shortcake bars, Fudgecicles, ice cream sandwiches, Screwballs, drumstick cones, creamsicles, traditional twin pops, and Toasted Almond bars covered in crispy cake crumble.
For many of us, this will be a cherished memory well into our golden ages. And we may not have realized it at the time, but for most of us, it was also a life lesson in money management and the first time we exchanged cash for consumer goods.
To this day, nothing beats ice cream like one from an ice cream truck!
Getting ice cream from the grocery store or from your home freezer doesn't compare to this nostalgic feeling & experience.
In fact, a few years ago, my husband and I were spending the day in Washington, D.C., when, much to my delight & surprise, an ice cream truck came! The child within me came alive, burst with joy, and exclaimed, "Look, Baby! An ice cream truck!"
My husband waved down the truck, hurried over, and purchased two vanilla soft-serve ice cream cones. The two of us, smiling giddily like two children, happily gazed out at the Potomac, under the warmth of the sun, eating our six-dollar cones. Ice cream has never tasted so good! That moment was the highlight of the day, and I will hold it dear in my heart for as long as I live. (And of course I have the pictures to keep, too!)
Remember when you could always tell where all the neighborhood children were hanging out? You could find them inside the house with the numerous banana-seat and high-handlebar bicycles scattered across the lawn.
And bicycle helmets? What was that? We never had those. We never wore seatbelts either.
In fact, I would lie in the rear window above the back seat of our Chevrolet and wave to the drivers behind us!
There were no cell phones either, but that was never a problem, because the community was a family and looked out for one another.
Remember when Saturday mornings were for eating your favorite bowl of cereal and watching Saturday-morning cartoons?
Unlike today, we did not have cable or streaming. In my area, we only had three major television networks: NBC (4), ABC (7), and CBS (9). (There were also PBS (26) and WDCA-TV (20), but they were not main networks.)
Saturday morning cartoons roughly started around 7:30 a.m. and lasted until 1:00 p.m. The adults in my house completely surrendered the TV and "vanished". They would disappear somewhere in the house, leaving me alone to enjoy the tube all by myself with shows: H.R. Puffnstuff, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, Land of the Lost, various cartoons, and interstitial three-minute episodes of Schoolhouse Rock!
Later in the day, the networks would immediately switch to sports programming, such as ABC's Worldwide Sports, ending the children's block for the week.
Many cereal brands also provided a toy or prize at the bottom of most cereal boxes. Sometimes there were mail-in offers, or the prize was located on the box itself.
I can still remember how happy I was to retrieve my many prizes from a box of Cap'n Crunch, Alpha Bits, Honey Comb, Fruit Loops, or Super Sugar Crisp (my all-time favorite as a kid).
(And by the way, Honey Comb cereal had massive quarter-sized honey-comb pieces that you could stack with your fingers, not like the much smaller ones today.)
Some of my fondest & most favorite cereal prizes were a mini set of plastic binoculars, a treasure chest with a Cap'n Crunch coin, a colorful lock and matching key, a glow-in-the-dark pen & skeleton, an invisible ink pen, and a baking powder submarine that would plunge and resurface after you filled it with baking powder and put it in the water. (As a future little crime-writer & writer, I really loved the pens!)
My grandfather surprised me one day when a brown package arrived for me through the postal service. Inside was a red Cap'n Crunch fire engine. Even though I was a complete and total girly-girl, I graciously accepted his gift to me with much gratitude, and I made sure to play with it in his sight. It was one of the kindest gestures someone has ever done for me. He was an extremely quiet and reserved man. And to think that he took the time to send in a mail-in offer for this special gift to present to me is very heartfelt. I am so thankful to God in Christ Jesus for this cherished memory.
In fact, he was the one who was present and fixed my cereal each morning, retrieved my toy prizes, and helped me with the cut-outs, instructions, and in some cases, the construction.
One precious memory with him was the thrill of carefully cutting out a cardboard vinyl record - whether it was a pop hit from The Jackson 5 or a fun song from Sugar Bear and his cartoon band.
It was a "flexi-disc" - a thin, clear layer of vinyl laminated directly onto the cardboard back of the cereal box. And I couldn't wait for my grandfather to put it on the turntable, hoping the needle wouldn't skip on the cardboard edges.
Honeycomb even featured a three-record set of spooky stories narrated by Wade Denning. The most famous and sought-after of the series was Record #1: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which told the terrifying tale of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. I can still hear that scary narration to this day!
But the real excitement came when Post swapped out little plastic toys & figurines for a miniature plastic terrarium! It came with a tiny packet of seeds and a flat, dehydrated black sponge.
The ultimate joy of discovery was pouring water over that little disc, watching it expand into 'dirt' and sprinkling the seeds on top. Snapping that clear plastic dome over it and leaving it on a sunny windowsill to watch real, live green plants sprout was a tiny, wondrous science experiment delivered right in a box of Super Sugar Crisp! I think I had collected all three of them, too.
These little "greenhouses" were a glorious way to connect children with God in Christ Jesus, teaching us all about the beautiful world that they created.
Remember when there was a late-night public service announcement to parents: "It's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?" It acted as a positive community tool - a friendly, universal reminder that kept neighborhoods safe and connected when parenting was a shared, local effort.
For many, it brings back memories of catching fireflies in a jar, screen doors slamming, late-summer bedtimes, and a time when local TV genuinely felt like part of the family.
As for me, I had to come inside way before 10 p.m. - as soon as it became dark, probably when the street lights came on.
In fact, while the other children were getting ready to play hide-and-seek, my mother was already standing on the corner yelling for me to come inside. I would later sit and listen to the laughter, hidden by the darkness of night, of my neighborhood friends playing from an upstairs open window.
But I have no regrets; she kept me safe. And for that I am forever thankful to God in Christ Jesus. (I did, however, catch lightning bugs with my numerous cousins during my many summer trips to the "country"; that is a cherished memory.)
In addition to the nightly service announcement, most television stations also went off the air by midnight, replacing regular programming with the national anthem, followed by a test pattern, and static until morning - I can still hear and see all three.
Remember when parents actually respected each other as parents? They didn't defend their children when they were in the wrong but disciplined them.
Remember when children brought gifts to school for their teachers, and not guns?
Some common presents were tins of fudge or fruitcake, homemade jellies or apple butter, an apple paperweight, or Avon perfumes and soaps.
There was no chewing gum allowed in class, and “texting” was a strategic system of passing folded notes to your friend on the other side of the classroom through your peers when the teacher wasn’t looking. (By the way, it was an unwritten code that no one opened and read your notes either.)
Remember when a backpack felt like it was stuffed with lead bricks because you had to haul massive, heavy textbooks home every single night? And in those days, we didn't just carry our books; we protected them, spending the first week of the school year carefully wrapping them in covers, either store-bought or made from grocery-store brown paper bags.
If you forgot your homework or dared to misbehave, there was no digital portal for your teacher to send a quick email to your parents. Instead, you were stuck at the front of the classroom after the final bell rang, inhaling chalk dust as you erased the board to write, "I will not forget my homework," fifty or one hundred times until your wrist ached - this taught responsibility!
Today's students, with their lightweight Chromebooks, digital eBooks, and interactive Smart Boards, will never know the distinct screech of a piece of chalk or the quiet dread of staying behind in an empty classroom while the rest of the world walked home.
Remember when an empty soda pop bottle could be cashed in for 5 cents?
My brother and I would round them up, load them on a red wagon, and haul them to the nearby store for a wide selection of penny candy: Mary Jane’s, Jolly Ranchers, Atomic Fireballs, Squirrel Nuts, Root Beer Barrels, Bazooka Bubble Gum, Jaw Breakers, Licorice Sticks, Tootsie Rolls, Caramel Creams, Pixie Stix, Lemon Heads, Bit-O-Honey, Smarties, and so many more!
Remember when $5.00 bought you two movie tickets, a large popcorn, and two drinks with change to spare?
Teenagers hung out at the roller rink, plaza, or the nearby diner, drank milkshakes & malts instead of alcohol, and listened to their favorite songs on a table jukebox.
They held summer and after-school jobs and learned to respect the value of a hard-earned dollar.
Children were raised to respect their elders. Boys were sent to mow their neighbor’s lawn during the summer or shovel the snow in winter.
Girls were taught that family was sacred, held babysitting jobs, and were taught to cook, sew, weave, and care for the home — things now frowned upon today...
Remember when Sunday was for a day of worship, spending time with your family, and doing good for others? All stores were closed for business, except for 7-Eleven, of course, and people greeted one another with “sir” and “ma’am”.
Remember when looking your best was a sign of self-respect?
Men wore suits and buttoned-down shirts with ties, while women wore dresses, pearls, and their favorite shade of lipstick, even when going to the store! And you wouldn’t be caught dead in church or a courtroom, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt!
Remember when gentlemen held the doors for women, and ladies allowed them with much gratitude and respect?
Remember when the neighborhood police officer was called “Officer Friendly”?
He/she was respected in the community and wore their badge with honor to protect and serve.
It was common practice for police officers to visit schools, speak with children, and build rapport within the community.
Remember when integrity was more than just a nine-letter word?
What happened to all these traditional values?
Where did our love for God in Christ Jesus, self, and community go?
What happened to good manners? What happened to pride & humility? And what happened to self-respect and respect for other people?
What happened to our sense of accountability? What happened to real community?
As I sit here and write this post, I am alarmed, concerned, and deeply saddened. I feel so much sorrow in my heart that our planet and love for humanity are slowly slipping away.
All that was good is now being replaced by greed, power, and the need for control.
We all need to stop blaming each other for all the "wrong" in the world and start looking within ourselves to make it "right".
The first step to change begins with US.
If we do not sincerely rear up our children in the way of the Lord (Proverbs 22:6) and with the old traditional values, morals, and virtues of yesterday, there will be no more tomorrow:
No more peace.
No more love.
No more respect.
No more HUMANITY!
But if each of us starts right now, here and today, one day we won’t have to say:
Remember when...
Author's Bio
Isabella Boston is a freelance writer, researcher, and advocate with a passion for raising awareness about important social and environmental issues.
Through thoughtful, evidence-based articles, she seeks to educate readers about topics ranging from human trafficking prevention and victim advocacy to wildlife conservation and the protection of endangered species.
Her work is driven by a belief that informed individuals can help create meaningful change for both people and God's planet.
Aside from being a writer, Isabella is a book & vintage fashion lover, a language enthusiast, and, most importantly, a woman of God in Christ Jesus!
Comments