| Stephen Lewis: Whatever happened to cartoons, penny candy, baseball cards |
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By: STEPHEN LEWIS, Post Columnist
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Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2009 8:01 am
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Before I start this week’s nonsensical ramblings I’ve just got to ask the question on everybody’s minds: “Where the heck did all those blue signs come from that popped up overnight?”
If you don’t know what I’m talking about you haven’t been out in a few days because there are signs along every major thoroughfare in M’boro pointing to everything from MTSU to the spot General Rosecrans’ dog stopped to relieve himself. I mean these signs are everywhere. To my knowledge nobody tried to contact me to see how I felt about the signs. Not that anyone has ever contacted me to see how I felt, but it might have been nice to have been in on the decision.
But alas this week’s waste of paper space isn’t about signs or even how Murfreesboro has grown so much that we even need these signs. I think we can probably agree that most, although not all, of the people who have lived in M’boro 30 plus years wish it wasn’t so crowded and busy and those who have been here 10 or fewer years probably think we don’t have enough. I’ve given up on wishing for the way it used to be. Like when the area where SportsCom currently sits was considered out in the country.
But while flipping the channels recently I did mourn the thought that many of the activities I enjoyed as a kid would be lost on today’s generation of kids that unfortunately includes my own children. I suppose what really started me to thinking was a recent marathon TV special on Cartoon Network. It was an entire day of “Looney Tunes.” You know what I’m talking about don’t you? If you’re over 30, I sure hope you do. I’m speaking of the real Saturday morning cartoons starring Bugs, Daffy, et al.
Cartoons were great back then. They all had the same theme: Random and senseless violence. No matter how many times I saw the Coyote fall off a cliff or Yosemite Sam get blown up, it was hilarious. Then the experts came along and said we couldn’t separate the violence in the cartoons from our real lives. I don’t know about you but I never tried to hit my baby sister in the face with a frying pan or drop an anvil on her head. Although when she was two, she did hit me in the forehead once with a building block while I was sleeping, and I may have picked her up by the ankles and climbed up on the kitchen table and dangle her over the side ready to drop her ‘till my mom saw it and screamed at me to put her down. And I may have seen that once with Bugs and Elmer Fudd. but I don’t think there was a correlation.
Anyway, I lived for Saturday mornings. Now kids can literally see cartoons 24/7 if they’re willing to sit and watch a giant yellow sponge befriend a talking starfish and squid. Hello people? I was a science teacher. Have any of you heard of the word “invertebrates?” They don’t walk and certainly don’t talk. Geez.
And what about walking down the road collecting returnable bottles? That was a favorite pastime. We would walk from my grandma’s house to the store up the road and pick up all the returnable soda bottles on the way. When we got there, we would trade them in for a nickel or dime apiece and then spend all the money on what we then called “penny candy.” Wax bottles with colored sugar water, chocolate footballs, Kits, Pixie Stix, gum and Tootsie Rolls were just a few of the favorites. Whoever was running the store would put it all in a brown paper sack and you were good to go. If you felt like being really cool, you would pull out a candy cigarette and take a few drags before chomping down. Those things would be so politically incorrect now I doubt you can find them anywhere outside of Kentucky and North Carolina. Now we go into a store and my kids want me to lay down a buck and a quarter for a Twix bar. Ain’t happening.
And what in the world happened to baseball cards? I know they still exist because I see them at Wal-Mart. I mean when did they go from being a quarter a pack for twenty cards to $3.50 for 10? Me and my buddy Steve used to ride down to the Kmart and buy a large Icee and as many packs of cards as we could afford. I didn’t like the gum in the packs since it was hard and powdery so I gave it all to Steve. We would head home with our stash of cards, Icees and his mouthful of gum. That was back when I first realized I knew how to give the Heimlich maneuver. He owes his life to me.
Those are just a few of the things I wish my children could experience. Of course there are many others including going to Hickory Hollow Mall when it was the cool place to be. And being able to watch a music video when more than 50 percent of a woman’s body was actually covered with clothing. And how could I forget swimming at Oakland’s mansion when there was no possible way to fit one more person into the pool? But all good things must come to an end, and I guess it’s up to us to find new favorite things to do around town. I think tonight I’ll take the family out and participate in Murfreesboro’s newest favorite activity: waiting for red lights to change! |
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