Simpler Times


I was just watching an episode of "Everwood" and a reference to "simpler times" made me reminisce. The situation involved the daughter having friend issues and the father thought that a trip for rocky road ice cream might cheer her up. I guess I don't even have to think back too far to these times 'cuz I know that having ice cream always makes me happy! lol!


Whenever there's a reference to "the good ole' days" or the like, I'm always brought back to my elementary school days. For example, I always made a point to make it to school a little bit earlier because the times before the bell rang were the times I could "walk around the block" with my friends. Yes, we walked around the block. Our elementary school took up one entire block and so basically, I'd meet my friends early and we'd have our lil' conferences as we circled the school. It was so funny 'cuz back in the day, my friends and I would write letters to each other almost every night. What did we write about? Oh, let's see, we probably wrote about the guy we were liking on, who we thought was cute, or how we felt when so-and-so bumped into us in class...haha, come to think of it, boys were all we wrote about! Mommy Hernandez and I wrote letters constantly, even though we had talked on the phone the night before, too! It always boggled my sister's mind, too. She'd complain, "What do you have to talk about that's so important that you can't tell her tomorrow?!" Of course, me being in grade school and her being in college, well, I'm sure she felt she deserved the phone more. Plus, anyone else at home might've missed an important call while I was on, too! Ah yes, the time before call waiting! Funny how there's a whole generation of kids who don't know anything but the conveniences of certain technology, eh? I'm digressing...


I remember that through the 6th-8th grades, my lil' group of friends would hang out after school. Sometimes we'd hang out in the schoolyard and have these water fights or we'd head down Mission to have pizza. I remember feeling so secure with my friends. We were a mix of boys and girls and we always looked out for each other. Looked out for each other in the whole "Porky's" sense of friendship. "Porky's", as in the movie, yes. Okay, just subtract all of the pent up sexual energy and frustration that the movie centered around and just focus on the fact that these were a bunch of friends who'd do anything for each other. Yah, that was us.


I think this was one of the biggest things that I missed when I got to high school. I missed having guy friends around. The good ole' times will always be my Epiphany days. It'll always be the times when I supposedly went to the library to study (sorry Mom!). It'll always be the times filled with laughter and the only drama that we had to deal with was whose cootie boy's hands we had to hold during square dancing lessons. (Do they even teach that anymore or goodness forbid, were we the only school who learned that???) Of course when we got a bit older, the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thang took effect...egads, can you believe it, in grade school??? I don't even want to think about all the things these kids nowadays are doing today! But overall, I always look back on those years with such fond memories that it never fails to make me smile. Plus, all I have to do is take out my old pictures and check out how high our hair got or the very 80's fashion we donned on free dress days!


Things were just so simpler and easier back then, weren't they? When we were younger, life was so carefree and didn't involve such soap opera drama and bills. Back in the day, 'twasn't anything that some good ole' ice cream couldn't solve.


What I'd give for some Baskin Robbins' pistacio almond and jamoca almond fudge! =)