Ah, the Good Old Days!

  

 

 

Lend an ear, my young friend, while I sit in my recliner and recall the good old days that I miss so much. A time when all the men wore fedoras (including plague doctors) and the women vacuumed up pearls from the living room carpet. I ask you, where did all that elegance go? 

 

We may not have had the latest technology, but we could communicate just fine through improvised “phones” made from rusted tin cans and lengths of barbed wire. We may not have had bikes to ride, but we did have unicycles made of junkyard tires, that we’d tie together to make one treacherous “vehicle” careening through town. We didn’t follow dangerous internet trends like the Tide Pod Challenge. No, we came up with MUCH MORE dangerous ideas, all by ourselves! Life in those bygone days was pretty rough and tumble, but you know what? We survived! Except for those of us who didn’t.

 

Instead of modern fancy-schmancy colleges, we all attended Ye Olde Schoole of Harde Knockes, learning to construct catapults with which to hurl projectiles over castle walls, in anticipation of lucrative careers as knights. We were so proud, clanking down the street in our shiny suits of chain mail! Can you imagine going through the TSA checkpoint at Newark Airport wearing those today? You would be laughed at for sure. Then probably arrested.

 

My grandchildren are not allowed to hitchhike on the turnpike. They are forbidden to throw lawn darts at one another while jumping on a trampoline. Nor do their overprotective parents permit 2 AM swims in the old abandoned quarry. What a shame. Those poor kids will never experience the thrill of being picked up by a psychopath in a windowless van, the exhilaration of surviving a catastrophic backyard fall while bleeding from dart wounds, and the joy of almost (but not quite) drowning in 30 feet of frigid, inky-black water.  

 

I cherish the memories of my band of buddies roaming freely through our neighborhood, those jolly games of pickup baseball, and the informal mastodon hunts.  We used our bats instead of spears, and believe you me, those prehistoric beasts stayed clobbered! We’d play until it was time for our late-night quarry swim, and no one ever came looking for us. With households averaging 40 kids, only the most doting parent could keep track of everyone. In the interest of simplicity, we were all named Gorg. 

 

Now, in 2026, I am a stranger in a strange land. My skills as a rower on a Viking longship are no longer marketable, and it seems no one wants to hear me play “Babylonian Rhapsody” on my Mespotamian lyre anymore. I’m just whiling away the centuries, waiting for my final journey to Elysium Fields. Or New Jerusalem. Or the Happy Hunting Ground. One of those places.

 

Thanks for listening, kiddo. 

 

Say, how about we go grab some rotten meat that has been heavily spiced to cover the smell? 

Gorg’s treat!

 

Not hungry?

 

That’s OK. More for me.

image by Echonn on Pixabay

Remembered Laughter

Baby C's grin. Mo must've just told a joke.

I laugh a lot. It helps to have quite a few funny friends, and my hubby and kids (and now grandkids) are hilarious too. I’ve also learned to laugh at myself, the best approach to my daily catalogue of mishaps and missteps.

But I had forgotten the unique delight that is laughing with a sibling. Back in the day, my sister Mo would laugh until she literally fell off her chair at something one of us had said (and she was plenty side-splitting on her own). In the 44 years since Maureen’s death, my other sister Carolyn and I have drawn ever closer, largely because of shared funny memories. There’s something about having the same family of origin, that makes for prime humor material. 

 

Who else remembers the wit of Uncles Jack and Gerry (who, had they not been insurance execs, could have gone on the road as a comedy duo)? Who else survived a comically horrific rental house in Marshfield, Massachusetts, as Mom and Dad frantically house-hunted so that we wouldn’t end up living permanently in said rental? Who else embarked on boredom-inspired trudges down Peachtree Industrial Blvd. in blistering Atlanta August heat, ducking into the air-conditioned Robert Hall clothing store, not to buy anything (of course not!) but as a cooling respite en route to our reward—day-glo blue Slurpees at 7-11? Who else found all of this hysterical? Only my siblings.

 

Fast forward to the 1990s, when our life paths really diverged. C and Rob found each other, while Steve and I made a life with our five children in suburban Philly. Even during Carolyn’s seven years in Lewes, DE, we knew we were on borrowed time, proximity-wise. And so it was that we parted ways in September, 2012, when my sister and brother-in-law at last put down roots in Honolulu.

 

Our visits since have been wonderful, but quite sporadic, and as I prepared to travel to Hawaii this month, I wondered if we could still crack each other up.

 

Now, back home again, I recall the crazy experiences C and I shared during this time together in Paradise. Riding with a clueless Uber driver, who relied on us to constantly redirect him, while driving in ever-widening circles away from our destination; our ridiculous plod from a Maui condo billed as “oceanfront,” across a huge, sodden field to reach a teensy strip of windswept beach; our Plein Air art morning in Ala Moana Park--my pathetic watercolor of a nearby tree, her beautiful one (were we even painting the same tree?) We both decided that, instead of joy-killers, these were memory-makers that transformed adventure into entertainment.

 

My sides still ache from laughing, and I’ve been home almost a week. I will never forget this special time with my precious sister, and I vow to pay the chuckles forward, into a world badly in need of cheering up.

 

We all have to get through this life somehow, right?

 

Why not with tears, not of sadness, but of mirth?

One of these was painted by an actual artist. Can you guess which?

Getaway Car

Poor Mr. Magnavox!

Remember when you were a kid, and you’d spend hours inventing stories about the secret lives of inanimate objects? 

You didn’t?

 

Well, Iittle me often lived in a dream world. Not the Barbie kind of make-believe, although I did my share of dolling Babs up for madcap Mattel-esque outings. And weren’t those high heels impossible to fit on her ridiculous arched feet? 

 

But I digress.

 

Actually, my typical imaginary scenarios were—atypical. I was an anxious child, and worried about our refrigerator getting lonely when we were all at Mass (“Hey! Anybody home? The milk is about to spoil! Don’t forget about the hamburger meat on my lower shelf, over by the Gulden’s mustard. That should make a tasty meal, no doubt! Helloooo?”)   

 

Ditto the TV set. When I was in school, it was forced to show endless hours of Mom’s soap operas, when Mr. Magnavox was surely yearning to entertain my sisters and me with the far superior Soupy Sales and Captain Kangaroo. If I could have fit the iron and washing machine in my backpack, I would definitely have schlepped them around. No wonder The Brave Little Toaster struck such a “cord” (appliance humor 😊).

 

By the time I was old enough to drive, I had outgrown those whimsical notions. When my friends were busy naming their first autos (Mary’s Ford Mustang was dubbed, naturally, Sally), I had zero interest in my bright orange Gremlin’s inner life. Oh sure, Mo, C, and I christened it The Great Pumpkin, but that was as far as it went.

 

Well, last Tuesday night, we had a Car in Peril situation. Our Hyundai Elantra was stolen from our driveway. Sheridan noticed it was missing, and soon the police arrived at the house. I’d read about a car theft ring operating in the area, who’d been hot-wiring cars and then selling them on Facebook Marketplace. The kicker: Hyundais are top targets! Undoubtedly because of their classy, BMW-like reputations, NOT because they are relatively cheap, and lacking sophisticated anti-theft devices. Mystery solved, yes?

 

I won’t keep you in suspense. The car and drivers were found a short while later. And it was not a slick bunch of bandits after all; it was a group of stupid teens (one of them was only 13!) out for a joyride. They still managed to drive over 20 miles, though, and really messed up the steering column. 

 

But I have been thinking about the incident from our auto’s POV. Such a boring life, those endless treks back and forth to Shop N Bag, to the post office, to CVS. Then, suddenly—excitement! Thrills and chills! On the lam with daring strangers! Wheee!

 

Traumatic as this was for us, I guess I’m glad our Elantra finally had a Big Adventure without the Seyfrieds. She deserved one wild story to tell her buddies around the old gas pump. But enough! After an unforgettable Grand Theft Hyundai, it’s back to normal for you, little vehicle!

 

Don’t YOU get any ideas, stroller!

steering wheel of misfortune!