I Must Be A Hundred Years Old...

 So these are the skates that kids are skating on today...Is that an exhaust pipe on the back where the jet fuel propels you along? I remember when TJ got his first pair of inline skates. The first time I took him to the skating rink I tried a pair and had to turn them in for ones similar to the picture below.

 The first pair off skates I ever got for Christmas came in a box exactly like the next picture. I had skates before but they were hand me downs and didn't come in a box, they were thrust into my hands from my older sibs once they outgrew them. The first time I saw that red box was thrilling. My very own brand new skates! When you were the youngest of three in a middle class family growing up in the sixties and seventies you got used to hand me downs...and were grateful for every item your older sister and brother outgrew or got tired of.

 They had steel wheels and no toe stops. We would skate all over the neighborhood. When a street was newly paved it was like a new rink opening up. Smooth asphalt was Heaven!! Girls skates were white boots and boys were black.

 When I first learned to roller skate it was on a pair of shoe skates. You squeezed your tennis shoe into the frame and wedged the front of your shoe between two prongs that held your foot in place. Then you inserted a key and tightened them to fit, Next you buckled the leather strap around the top of your shoe to hold them on. Dang!

My kids would read this blog and think I grew up in a third world country or at the very  least an orphanage. I consider myself quite lucky to have grown up this way and looking at these pictures brings back many fond memories.

It was a time when you learned to ride a bike by your older sibling holding you up on their bike which was so big for you that you had to lean against a wall to get started because neither foot could touch the ground. They held on to the back and gave you a push. You rode until you simply fell over...got up and pushed the bike back to the wall and started all over again.

It was one of the first lessons I learned in life...when a problem seems too big, keep trying long enough and you will finally succeed!

My parents were born during the depression and the lessons THEY learned stuck with them their entire life time. They knew the value of a dollar and made it stretch like nobody's business. They didn't spoil us but loved us and taught us what true happiness meant. We never wanted for anything but were raised NOT to want but  be grateful for what we had.

My kids are all spoiled and I have no one to blame but myself.  My Mother died pretty young and would have undoubtedly spoiled my kids rotten had she lived to know them...I simply did it for her.

They aren't bad kids but lack the motivation my parents demanded from my brother and sister and me. If you did something bad, when my Diddy got home from work my Mother would tell him about it and then you would have to meet him in the green bathroom, pull down your pants and lay across his lap as he sat on the closed toilet lid and gave you a whipping with his belt. We were all excited as kids when cloth belts came into fashion but Diddy still kept that leather one and it was one heck of a reminder.

I am the person I am today because of that leather belt. I have survived the past couple of years because of that wall I leaned on to learn to ride that huge bicycle and because of the push my brother and sister gave me.

I am nowhere NEAR the parent either of  mine were, but am a better parent for having the wonderful upbringing they so sternly and lovingly gave me.

 My kids aren't perfect and I don't expect them to be. I simply hope  the values I taught them stay with them and one day help them turn into the great person they are destined to become.

I learned to skate on rickety steel wheels strapped to my worn out hand me down Keds. My kids all had cell phones by middle school.

The saying is "Life goes on" but can't it slow down just a bit to let kids grasp the reality and reason for a meaningful life and the inspiration to make not only THEIR life greater but make the world a better place for future generations?

A mom can only hope! 

Til next time...COTTON    A greener earth