All I needed was a Rock and a few Rolaids

If you are of a certain age, you will remember the television commercial in the 70s,  How do you spell relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S. 

Well, thank goodness for heartburn because antacids are basically chalk and just what I needed to keep me occupied whenever the adults were doing something outside that I wouldn’t find exactly scintillating. 

I remember going to the horse races with my uncle and aunt when they were first married in the mid 70s, and as an only child, I found ways to entertain myself.

There was an outdoor area near the Meadows track that was just a simple fenced in area that you could watch the races from.  I think now that perhaps you weren’t allowed inside with a child but I’m not sure.

I remember asking for Rolaids or Tums which all the adults that I knew seemed to carry around.  I would draw a hopscotch board on the ground, find a rock and play.  A good rock could also be used to draw on concrete.  Of course, gravel surfaces were a bust and harder to make work but a kid with a good imagination can find a game or entertainment pretty much anywhere and with anything. 

There was another game I used to play with a ball.  It was called 7 Up and is a simple game any person can play.  All you need is a ball and a wall.  I would spend ENDLESS hours doing this. 

I used to read a lot too.  I mean A LOT.  During the school year and all throughout summer I read books and there used to be this MS Read-a-thon where you would read books and get people to pay you per book.  I remember all the neighbors I pestered about this were alarmed at how many books I did read.  I mean, honestly, I had nothing else to do and I LOVED to read. 

Do you remember reading and re-reading the books that you loved?   I would often finish a book and immediately start reading it again.  I wonder now if there was something wrong with me.  I must have read Heidi 1000 times, seriously.

I would take as many books out of the library as I could carry and read them all, return them and get more.  My library card was a PRIZED possession.  I love to talk with my husband about his favorite childhood books and reading.  We are 8 years apart but really in the same generation pretty much and I was and am still very glad that he has a love of books too.  Reading more and more advanced books is how I got such a good vocabulary, spelling and grammar skills.  I love reading so much!!!!! 

While these days,  I mostly read books and magazines on health, cooking, gardening and raising animals, I intend to get a few novels and biographies and do a little non-work fun reading this winter.  I am dreaming of digging in to those books, with a mug of warm tea in hand and a soft blanket plus a kitty and puppy or two all snuggled up. The Howard Stern book about his best interviews is waiting by my bedside.

I wonder if the last several generations of kids use their minds to entertain them.  I worry there is too much screen time for everyone.  I mean, I get gas at the BP and as soon as you turn on the pump you get some guy giving you headlines and telling me a bunch of crap on a screen built right in the gas pump.  Can’t we have even a minute of no digital media???

Hand held video games were just in their infancy when I was a kid.  I had a football game that I would hide with at night under the covers and play play play trying to keep the bells from letting mother know I wasn’t sleeping.  I did enjoy that game immensely.  Then of course there was Ms. Pac Man.  I indeed spent lots of quarters on that game.  I am as guilty as all the other kids of that time trying to master the games in the arcade.  I could make a quarter last a long time though. 

As a kid, I did have a Sony Walkman and I would listen to the few cassettes I had over and over and over and never tire of them.    I remember listening to AM radio late at night in my bed too.  There was this guy named Doug Hoerth and I just loved his show.  I was a weird kid I’m pretty sure.   I didn’t have much but didn’t need much and I don’t ever remember being bored. 

There was no cable TV in my house.    When MTV came to be I do remember wanting to see music videos and looking for baby sitting work that I could do so I could watch Friday Night Videos.  I have vivid memories of watching David Bowie in this banana yellow suit with his hair all floppy just rocking my world.  Those were good times and again by myself.  The kids were soundly asleep! 

My childhood in the 70s and 80s was a simpler time I guess.  We didn’t have internet or email, cell phones or I-pads.  There were only a few networks on television so we all watched the same shows pretty much and you had to actually go to the theater to see a movie.  It was an occasion to go to a show, the theater, an amusement park…. It was a BIG DEAL and I looked forward to and appreciated those fun moments. 

Today, life is full of those moments constantly for kids.  There is no waiting for things.  The kids of today experience so much more than we ever did as kids.  Is it good?  I don’t know.  I liked having things to look forward to growing up to be ABLE to do.  There was an absolute separation of children and adult activities where today, there doesn’t seem to be.

I’m going to write another blog about all that.  Today, it’s just a rainy monsoon type of Halloween and I was thinking of my childhood games.  Oh and yes, we trick or treated in whatever kind of weather we were experiencing.  There was no rescheduling due to rains, even hard rains……. What is the world coming to????