Pocket watches.
Camera settings: 4.0 seconds – f/20.o – 70mm – ISO 800
Today is indeed a different time. When I grew up, you walked to school, even if it was ten blocks away. Lunch was served at home… if you could get home and back to school in time for your next class… or you could just go down to the nearby delicatessen and pick up a hero, if your time was limited. Our playground was the schoolyard or the street and we made most of our playthings ourselves. Stick-ball and roller-hockey were two of my favorite sports and soapbox racing was a passion. If you came home bloodied, mom just cleaned you up, put Mercurochrome on the wound and told you to “never do that again!” Lawsuits were unknown in my time, I guess.
Your friends were different in the fifties and sixties too. Loyalty was a given. Anyone considered a friend was always there with you through thick and thin. No one was a here today, gone tomorrow friend. You spent little time inside, even in the nastiest weather. You could always find something to do outdoors. I can remember going down to the bus depot looking for old bus transfers in pouring rain. Why I wanted those transfers is still a mystery to me today.
We had our worries back then too. I always wondered who’d be the first to drop the atomic bomb. I seriously doubted it would be us, so I paid due diligence whenever we practiced an air-raid drill. But I was never very worried. I knew my parents could handle anything and they’d surely take care of me.
Today is so different. Today, kids can’t even bring guns to school! Hey, my senior speech was about firearms and I even brought my gun collection to school… including ammo. The class loved my speech and nobody felt threatened. Oh, how times have changed.
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