REMEMBER WHEN Remember when: Mom was at home when the kids got home from school. When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent weekly allowance. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When all of your male teachers wore neckties, and female teachers had their hair done and wore high heels. When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time. And you didn't pay for air, and got trading stamps to boot. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents. When the worst thing you could do at school was smoke in the bathrooms, flunk a test or chew gum. When a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car . . . to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races. When kids went steady, and a girl wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped scotch tape so it would fit her finger. When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked. Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a ......." Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had tried to poison a perfect stranger yet. Remember when being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited a misbehaving student at home. When basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents were a much bigger threat! But we all survived because their love was greater than the threat. Go back in time for a minute..... Before the Internet or before semi-automatics and crack. Before SEGA or Super Nintendo..... 'Way back..... Hide and Go Seek played at dusk. Red Light, Green Light. Kick the Can, Red Rover, Mother May I? Playing kickball & dodgeball until your porch light came on. Hula hoops, roller skating to music. Running through the sprinkler. Your first day of school. Bedtime prayers and goodnight kisses. Climbing trees. Getting an ice cream from the ice cream truck. A million mosquito bites, sticky fingers. Jumping on the bed, pillow fights. Running until you were out of breath. Laughing so hard that your stomach hurt. Being tired from playing all day. Your first crush (the agony, the ecstasy). Gulping iced Kool-aid, the drink of summer. Toting your friends on your handle bars. Wearing your new shoes on the first day of school. Class field trips. Decisions made by going, "eeny-meeny-miney-mo." Mistakes corrected by simply exclaiming, "do it over!" Race issue meant arguing about who ran the fastest. Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly." Catching fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening. It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends. Being old referred to anyone over 20. Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better. Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true. Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles. Rolling down a long hill. Water balloons were the ultimate weapon. Older siblings were the worst tormentors, but also the fiercest protectors. Those were the "good old days," and if you can remember experiencing most or all of these things, then you have lived! And with all our progress, don't you sometimes wish that you could slip back in time and savor that slow pace, and share it with the children of today?