Those were the days

When I was a kid, I never knew at my age I'd get nostalgic while talking about the days of my youth, like my Dad used to do so often . I’d never lament a simpler time, or refer to any period of my life as “the good old days.” I’m nowhere near old, so I’m going to say this with as much youthful exuberance as I possibly can: Kids today are missing out, because summer will never be as awesome as it was in the ;70's and early 80's

Obviously, the music was on-point, but that’s not the only reason summers were so much better back then. Let’s start with the thing that made all our summer shenanigans possible— we weren’t supervised quite as well as kids are today. I’m not saying we were running wild in the streets, but we were in some ways, we were always in the neighborhood and could usually hear another kids Mom or Dad hey so and so time to come home. and we all dreaded hearing our time.We would sleep with windows up and box fans in , no air conditioning just simple pure night air..

It wasn’t because our parents were neglectful; it was just a different time. (There’s another one of those old people things I swore I’d never say.) We enjoyed a kind of freedom that no longer exists. We spent hours playing outside, and didn’t come in until the street lights came on. No one worried when they couldn’t find us, because we were probably eating Freeze Pops over at the neighbor’s house.We were rarely inside, because daytime television . When we weren’t riding bikes in the street or playing ball in the back yard, you could find us at the nearest swimming pool. We swam for hours, until our fingers turned prune-y and our eyes burned from chlorine.

We wore pony tails with scrunchies, and used Sun-In to lighten our hair. Okay, some of us just used lemon juice, but still, it got the job done. We worshipped the sun, because we didn’t know any better. We kept a bottle of baby oil and a Cosmopolitan magazine next to our beach towel, and we listened to music from battery operated radio with CCR blaring, Those were the days :)