Flashback
As I mentally prepare for the extended trip to my hometown to care for my parents, I also anticipate the usual childhood flashbacks that will follow. This particular trip I will be cleaning out some long forgotten areas that will undoubtedly unearth a few treasures..including some embarrassing ones, I'm sure.
This post features another Saturday morning cartoon flashback...and I do mean flashback. Lidsville was one of Sid and Marty Krofft's patented psychedelic shows featuring several giant foam hats(including a chef's) and Charles Nelson Reilly. Between that hallucinogenic half-hour and the sugar rush I was embarking on from my heaping bowl of Count Chocula, I was experiencing the seven-year-old's version of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
Oh, the seventies...my Disney lunch box. My friend Richie Dale had a Pet Rock. Kristy had a mood ring that was always black....it just meant she was always cold but we thought it just meant her mood was eternally foul. The combination of sugary cereals and HR PufnStuf along with Sigmund and the Sea Monster must have done lasting damage to my psyche. After all, it wasn't long before I decided I loved disco music and tried to save up enough money to buy a satin disco jacket. Once I had it, I just knew that Kristy and I would be discovered as the long-lost siblings to Kristy and Jimmy McNichol and we would all stroll merrily off to Studio 54 together.
While I cringed putting that into print, my childhood was largely blessed while growing up in that little town of St. Marys. My Dad's garage was our playpen where we ate mustard sandwiches and hot fudge sundaes while reading Archie comic books. We played flashlight tag and Red Rover and ate Chicko-Stix and loved the Midnight Swims at the County Swimming Pool.
I need these memories desperately through this process of caring for my parents. My childhood gifted me with some of my greatest treasures...my friends who are still with me. These friends will collect around me and help me right through every torturous moment to come....even if I start listening to disco again.
I had that Disney Lunchbox too! In Kindergarten. I wish I had it today because I understand it's worth a couple of grand. As for the mood ring, well, let's just say the first one was faulty and the second one I got was always blue (cause i kept rubbing it to get it warm so ppl wouldn't assume I was Satan.) We never did make it to Studio 54 did we Greg. Looking back that was probably a blessing. We did enough damage in WV. God help us in NYC. But I can assure your readers that yes, we disco danced in that garage. We even had paper footprints taped to the floor to learn the Latin Hustle. And we ate cheese and mustard sandwiches and hot fudge cake and pickles. And we personally paid for Stan Lee's retirement given the number of Marvel comics we read in one summer let alone six. Flashlight tag, Red Rover, Red Light Green Light (on my back porch), Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, shelling lima beans and watching it thunderstorm (on my front porch)all wonderful memories that we could never replace. Midnight swims at the pool were great until I became a lifeguard and had to work them. The Lion's Fall Festival, complete with fireworks - our last bastion of freedom before school began the next day. Chicko Stix, Sprees and Wacky Packages. Chili and cheesecake on football nights. Band Camp, 4-H and "the dam." We had it all Greg. We really had it all. And for those of you reading this who don't know me but are Greg's dear friends, be assured that he will be well taken care of on his extended return trip home. And even through the worst of it more memories will be made; important ones. However Greg, about that disco music. I just may really have to shoot you if you start listening to it again. I'm mean really. No, really. Love ya Quang. See ya in a couple of days!!!
ReplyDeleteP.S. Do you remember that I had the Kristy and Jimmy McNichol album on 8 track tape? LOL. We were SUCH geeks HEE HEE!
ReplyDeleteWe are children of the 70s aren't we. I was obsessed with Sid and Marty Kroft's The Lost Saucer and Scooby Doo. Cereal favorite was Captain Crunch's Crunch Berrys. I had another version of the Disney lunchbox, then upgraded to a Star Wars one when it fell apart. My favorite records were either Donny and Marie or Shawn Cassidy... I was also a fan of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. Shawn was so hot.
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