Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads.
Play dates are such a strange idea and something we didn't have growing up. These days people seem more transient with job changes, divorces and moving to bigger homes which may have something to do with the rise if the play date.
I like the tribe idea!
Anybody else remember the only two times you had to remember was lunch and dinner. You knew it was lunch time when they tested the fire siren which happened each day at noon, and dinner was close when you noticed which dads car was in their driveway. Mr P was home at 4, my dad at 5:30 and Mr. M at 6. If you saw Mr. M's car then you knew you were late and in trouble.
I agree that play dates are so damn strange. We had our friends and our mother had theirs. Now days it seems that women become friends with other moms of kids that their kids play with.
I watch my middle schooler heading off each morning looking like a refugee. The standard 20 pound backpack, a viola (he's all-county) and either his football or wrestling gear. The younger son just has a 15 pound backpack. And the amount of homework they get makes my head spin. Thank God they're self motivated and get they're work done, and still manage to get plenty of play time in.
I showed my kids how to flip baseball cards and the rules for different games, none of their friends would play as their cards were too valuable. They're just freakin bits of cardboard with pictures of millionaires on them for crying out loud.
TV
On rainy days, the 4:30 Movie on channel 7. They had some great theme weeks but Gladiator week and Beach Party week were favorites with us. Anybody remember the Soupy Sales show?
Soupy Sales I remember well. My sister's boyfriend at the time did the artwork for his backgrounds. Now,those were the shows. Can you see the kids today watching Soupy Sales?
Remember when Soupy told the kids to go through their Dad's pockets and look for those pretty green papers with the pictures of the presidents on them & then send them to WNEW c/o him ?
Remember Zachary ? He was the best !
I have a Soupy DVD that has the Rat Pack pie fight show and even the revealing camera for the stripper episode. You could tell even as a kid that the cast and crew were having a great time.
How about this fellow?
Remember...
"It's 10:00 p.m. ... Do you know where your children are?"
Sandy Becker and Sonny Fox hosting Wonderama? Imagine doing a weekly kids show that ran from 9am to 1pm today. http://www.tvparty.com/lostkids1.html
Great posts - it seems we all yearn for the old Long Island - it was a unique experience. I was in my old neighborhood a few weeks ago driving around and it has changed a great deal - hardly any kids, everyone was old - the homes were showing their age, it just seemed dead.
That's traditionally been the norm for LI. I remember when my parents and their friends were young, raising kids and making some great neighborhoods. The problem was that they never left. Instead of moving up as their families grew, downsizing after the kids left or moving away to warmer climes as they got older our parents stayed right where they first bought. Little did they know they were hurting their own kids who needed those starter homes in NB or Levittown more than they did.
I moved away and now live in a neighborhood that has the same qualities that I grew up knowing. Lots-o-kids, house parties and neighborhood BBQs. We Long Islanders never really embraced change until it got forced on us.
Its nice to remeber growing up on LI swimming at the beach with no floaties, riding in the back of my Fathers station wagon with no seat belts, and riding on the handle bars of my friends bike with no helmets. Living like rebels without a cause
The scary thing is how much more dangerous things are now; the time kids spend inside staring at a screen of some sort. The pre-processed foods that are leading to the increase of children with Diabetes, whoever had a meal in a box growing up?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Welcome to City-Data.com forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with 700,000 other registered members. User profiles and some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your free account you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 15,000 posts/day about local topics and you will see fewer ads. 
Linear Mode
