Here comes summer and childhood memories

Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to another Cecil’s World in Print. As you well know, summer will be beaming down on us this Saturday and I sure hope you are ready for some fun in the sun.

This morning when I rolled out of bed, I started singing a song that reminds me of summer. It was a 1959 hit by Jerry Keller that says it all: “Here Comes Summer.” Summer takes me back to those good old days growing up in Darlington. It makes me think about all the games we used to play outside because we didn’t have computers or video games. Around my neighborhood, we played cowboys and Indians, you’re it (tag), hide and seek, Simon says and a game we invented called “lemon ball.” We used an old hoe handle and an artificial lemon my grandmother bought at Winn Dixie to play ball. She would make lemonade and give us the lemons to play our game. Oh, yes, I just remembered how we used to choose teams: by counting potatoes or by “eeny meeny miney mo.” If you can’t remember this, ask a friend who is a little older.

Bike riding was also a favorite pastime. A few of my friends, Steve, Mike, Bill and George and I would ride our bikes everywhere. I’m talking about from one side of town to the other. We didn’t care how far it was; that was the way to travel. If one of our bikes broke, you guessed it, we would ride that person on our handle bars. All of us went through a phase where we would take clothes pins and put baseball cards on our wheels to make them sound loud and cool. The only problem is, later in life, we found out how much those baseball cards were worth that we destroyed.

How many of you baby boomers remember growing up with no air conditioner? We used fans and left our windows open to enjoy the fresh air. We had a window fan that would pull air through the house and, believe me, no matter how hot it was, you would need cover by morning. Today, however, people are afraid to sleep with their windows and doors open to enjoy the night air. I can remember how neat it was lying in my bed, talking to my neighbor out of the window. Sometimes I would throw rocks on their windows to get their attention. Nowadays, the police would lock you up if you did that and you would be labeled a peeping Tom, but back then it was OK.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have “Sesame Street” or Mr. Rogers to watch on our black-and-white television. I watched “Captain Kangaroo” and “The Lone Ranger.” We had only one television and it was in the living room. And can you believe it had no remote control? I was the one who had to get up and change the channel when the “Old Spice” commercial came on. When I went to bed, all I had was a small transistor radio with an earplug. I would hide it under my pillow and listen to “Cousin Brucie” and Ron Lundy on WABC in New York. Now we have flat-screen TVs that hang on your wall and Bose radio systems piped throughout our homes. Yes, my friends, we have finally arrived in the high-tech world.

How many of you remember getting an allowance? Most of us back then had to do chores to get a little spending money. I remember when I turned 12, I started getting a whole dollar and that was a lot of money in 1960. I could go to the movie on Saturday, eat everything I wanted, buy my girlfriend some popcorn and have money left to go to the dime store on the way home. After writing this column, I now understand why everybody refers to the old days as the “good old days.” We had it made and didn’t know it. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my childhood and I would return to those good old days if I could take my cell phone, computer, air conditioner and color TV with me.

That’s it for another Cecil’s World in Print. Enjoy your week and I’ll see you back here next week, right here in the Morning News and on the tube.

— Cecil Chandler is a veteran reporter at WBTW News13. His column appears Mondays in the Morning News.