07/05/2002

Ah Yes- - I Remember It Well - - -

By Ursula McCafferty

There was a great little song that began with "When I was just a little shaver back in Brooklyn." I remember it well, just as I remember the halcyon days of growing up as a "city kid" in the 1930s.

We "survived" without television, video games, movies with explicit sex, raucous noise passing for "music," and fellow students on shooting rampages. I remember it well. It was an age of innocence that we will never recapture; more is the pity.

The children of this enlightened age will never know the simple pleasures of playing "hide and seek," "ringelevio," or "Simon says" on a summer evening. They will never enjoy "belly-whopping" down a snow covered city street with all the neighbors' kids and their parents.

Summer was a time for swimming at Coney Island or Jones Beach. It was a time for sunburns and "Unguentine" ointment and the subsequent ritual of "peeling," (something we have fortunately learned to avoid), but it was also a time for sitting on the stoop and singing the latest tunes such as "Take a Number From One to Ten", " Love is Just Around the Corner" and "Jeepers Creepers, Where'd You Get Those Peepers?", a time for making up stories and looking for pictures in clouds.

It was a time before casual sex. The boys, even then, wanted the girls to 'prove' they really loved them. The few girls that played the game were considered "fast", and virginity was nothing to scoff at. The big thrill was to dance, cheek to cheek, with that special someone, and share a lingering goodnight kiss at the door (before your dad turned on the porch light!) Your wedding night was a "revelation" not a rerun. And, with the exception of really serious difficulties, marriage was a lifetime commitment.

Only the wealthy had "nannies" and the rest of us took care of our own children, the cooking, the cleaning and yet didn't feel that we were underachievers. Too bad that our enlightened age has made it necessary to change the family structure. When someone refers to "The Good Old Days" I always reply, "Ah yes, I remember them well!"

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Ursula McCafferty is an octogenarian widow who was born in Germany and emigrated to the US in 1925. She was married for 52 years and is the mother of 5, grandmother of 12 and great grandmother of 3 (with a 4th expected in Oct.) A late blooming writer, she wrote her first book, Acorn Academy, after turning 80.

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