I was 5 years old in 1977 (oops) and lived in an old fashioned neighborhood in a small town that is still a part of a large state. Geez, I hope I'm not hoping getting overtly candid here. I get all red faced when other people do that.
Anyway, we lived one block away from an Elementary School and a large public park and two blocks away from a Junior High School. It was a great time to be alive with the forerunner of the current hipster, Jimmy Carter, as my President. There were peanut shells all over our dear nation as an unabashed display of our excess. Our family had a nice house with Cable TV that received almost 20 channels. We were basically out of control and knew it but just didn't care.
However, I had one 'hard and fast' rule that my parents made me promise to follow. I could walk around the entire block on which we lived but could not cross the street in any direction. I was landlocked and was not allowed to 'sail out to sea.' The was a place located on a block between the Junior High School and Elementary School that I just had to visit. All of the popular toddlers wanted to be seen there. It was originally a neighborhood grocery store but by the time I was hip to the scene it was a combination candy store and game room.
One day I was just sitting around learning how to add and subtract when my Mother asked if I'd like to go to this sugar coated mecca. I just about spit out my Fruit Loops but ended up not doing that because I really liked Fruit Loops. It was then my Mom lowered the boom on me and said I would be going with one of the neighbor's sons. His name was Kevin and as much I hate to rhyme he was eleven. This meant he might as well be Walter Brennan to my John Wayne.
But this was not going to be a John Ford picture. No sir; this was gonna be a groovy far out good time and I was definitely in! Kevin came over a little later and we walked over the store. I pretended that we were Sweathogs and that Mr. Woodman was after us.
We Kevin opened to door to the place and I walked in, my mouth could not be open wider. The store was everything I had imagined and as much I as I hate to rhyme it was so much more. There was a jukebox! And a pinball machine! Hell, this was the 1970s so there may have been more than one pinball machine! There was also a table where some older kids who were hangin' and stuff. The joint was hoppin' and then Kevin bought some candy for each of us. My head was spinning at this point. We hung out eating our candy and soaking in the atmosphere for about 20 minutes and then we headed back to our block. This was just too much excitement for one fast living 5 year old and when I finally got home that afternoon, I feel asleep and woke up mid-Carson. I think Buddy Hackett was the guest. My Dad was always mad for The Hackett.
No comments:
Post a Comment