OT - For Old Time Sake

[DaddyChoc]

What do you miss about your childhood: places, activities, events.

G. Fox, Downtown Hartford (Christmas Display and electronics section on the 9th floor)

Blonders, cars junkyard (any part you wanted) Windsor Street Hartford

Colonial Theater (karate movies) Farmington Ave, Hartford "Bruce Lee flicks"

slingshots... wooden frames carefully selected from trees, rubberbands and a cloth patch to hold the rocks

Hartford YMCA (Jewel Street) - Saturday Morning YBL (Youth Basketball League) a nice stack of pancakes in the cafe before the game

Peter the Candy Man in the lobby of the Hartford Civic Center

 

[TDiNozzo]

In Bridgeport at Christmas time, on Main Street, every light post had a huge light display hung across the road. When you started at one end, it look like a huge tunnel covered with lights and lasted what seemed like a mile.....(at least to me when I was 6 or 10 ???)

That's when Bpt actually had stores and movies and.....

Savin Rock in West Haven...was a fun place.... very close

 

[vtcwbuff]

Opening day of deer season
care free eating - bacon, sausage, stuff fried in bacon grease
pick up baseball games
Beansie's fries
trout fishing for "brookies" with my father

 

[uconnell]

In South Norwalk the Christmas lights and shopping at the nice stores on So. Washington st. Hot popcorn with real butter,($.10 a bag) and lemon ice from Dicks ,across from the Empress Movie theater. Dish night at the Rialto theater $.12 admission, a neighbor gave me the admission money to bring home a dish to add to her collection. They also had kids movies on Saturdays for aa dime. The Crystal Ice Rink to ice skate when the local ponds weren't frozen.. Sledding on the hill across from my house, before the city dumped clinkers so it, which made it unusable. Soo many more great memories.

 

[johnnyc]

Knishes
Nedicks
Stickball
Taking the subway to the beach

 

[DaddyChoc]

Opening day of deer season
care free eating - bacon, sausage, stuff fried in bacon grease
pick up baseball games
Beansie's fries
trout fishing for "brookies" with my father

care-free eating... doesn't eating these days suck!

 

[Carnac]

Downtown Los Angeles in the mid 1950's:
ALL of the big retail department stores i.e.; The May Co, F.W. Woolworth, S.H. Kress, Macy's etc. (and some other stores I can't remember), all had elaborate Christmas displays in their windows. I used to love going downtown with my mom, (to do our Christmas shopping) and walking up one side of the street and down the other, to see all of the window displays.

There were also bright and wonderful Christmas displays in all of the stores too. The stores were always crowded, and Christmas music could be heard throughout the store.
The sounds of Christmas were ways in the air, as yuletide music blared from outside store speakers as you walked up and down the street going from store to store.

ALL of the large department stores featured a Santa Claus for children of all ages. I remember the first time I saw a store Santa. I thought he was the real Santa. I had only seen him on TV, but there he was in person, and in the flesh. I had that dear in the headlights look, and I almost peed on myself. I had to wait in a long line to get to him. All of the kids in front of me had "laundry lists" of things they wanted. Finally, it was my turn. I climbed on to his lap, and told him what I wanted for Christmas, but I didn't hold out much hope because I knew I had been a little "turd" all year, and was told by several adults that he only brought toys and gifts to kids that had been good. I figured that let me out.

Somehow though, Santa always came threw for me. Even though we were not wealthy, my Christmases were always exciting and good. I have fond memories of my childhood Christmases...........until I found out that there was no Santa, and he was only a commercial symbol of Christmas, and that our parents was the real Santa.

Those days can never be replicated. That was a special time. We can never go back in time to some of the most wonderful times in our lives. Most of the people that made those times special are gone too. I've always dreamed how much fun it would be to have one more Christmas celebration dinner with all of the family members that have passed on. How special would that be?

Every holiday season, I watch some of the old Christmas movies made back then. "It happened on 5th Ave. and It's a wonderful life.

Like the song says.....It's the most wonderful time of year.

And opening day at Dodger Stadium in the 60's. I loved baseball back then.

 

[DaddyChoc]

Downtown Los Angeles in the mid 1950's:
ALL of the big retail department stores i.e.; The May Co, F.W. Woolworth, S.H. Kress, Macy's etc. (and some other stores I can't remember), all had elaborate Christmas displays in their windows. I used to love going downtown with my mom, (to do our Christmas shopping) and walking up one side of the street and down the other, to see all of the window displays.

There were also bright and wonderful Christmas displays in all of the stores too. The stores were always crowded, and Christmas music could be heard throughout the store.
The sounds of Christmas were ways in the air, as yuletide music blared from outside store speakers as you walked up and down the street going from store to store.

ALL of the large department stores featured a Santa Claus for children of all ages. I remember the first time I saw a store Santa. I thought he was the real Santa. I had only seen him on TV, but there he was in person, and in the flesh. I had that dear in the headlights look, and I almost peed on myself. I had to wait in a long line to get to him. All of the kids in front of me had "laundry lists" of things they wanted. Finally, it was my turn. I climbed on to his lap, and told him what I wanted for Christmas, but I didn't hold out much hope because I knew I had been a little "turd" all year, and was told by several adults that he only brought toys and gifts to kids that had been good. I figured that let me out.

Somehow though, Santa always came threw for me. Even though we were not wealthy, my Christmases were always exciting and good. I have fond memories of my childhood Christmases......until I found out that there was no Santa, and he was only a commercial symbol of Christmas, and that our parents was the real Santa.

Those days can never be replicated. That was a special time. We can never go back in time to some of the most wonderful times in our lives. Most of the people that made those times special are gone too. I've always dreamed how much fun it would be to have one more Christmas celebration dinner with all of the family members that have passed on. How special would that be?

Every holiday season, I watch some of the old Christmas movies made back then. "It happened on 5th Ave. and It's a wonderful life.

Like the song says.....It's the most wonderful time of year.

And opening day at Dodger Stadium in the 60's. I loved baseball back then.

wonderful, thanks for sharing

 

[Bliss]

Winter mornings following an 8" overnight snowfall, especially when school was called off because the "boiler broke"
Pond skating and hockey games using sticks and tin cans
Riding a bicycle everywhere
Pick-up games of baseball, basketball, and football with guys who would eventually become high school phenoms
The local swimming pool
Just being a kid

 

[Joe6cats]

My grandparents
The Berlin Pancake my mother made every Christmas morning.
The sky rockets that Sea View Amusement Park sent up on balmy summer evenings
Sea View Amusement Park. Especially the bumper cars
Finding arrow heads on the beach, Virginia Beach
Virginia Beach, before it got all built up

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Going to Newark (yes that Newark) the day after Thanksgiving to shop at Bambergers and Haynes with my Mom and Grandmother (travel by bus). Then going to Menlo Park Mall and Grants with my Dad the next weekend.

And expanding outside the "holidays" - all "those" stores - Grants, Woolworth's, Montgomery Ward, Caldor, Bradlees, Two Guys, Orbachs, Kresge's, etc. Can't even remember them all. How times have changed.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

Going to Newark (yes that Newark) the day after Thanksgiving to shop at Bambergers and Haynes with my Mom and Grandmother (travel by bus). Then going to Menlo Park Mall and Grants with my Dad the next weekend.

And expanding outside the "holidays" - all "those" stores - Grants, Woolworth's, Montgomery Ward, Caldor, Bradlees, Two Guys, Orbachs, Kresge's, etc. Can't even remember them all. How times have changed.

You bring back a lot of memories from Jersey; especially Two Guys and my mom schlepping me to their sidewalk sales.