Senior Scene September 26,2016

Following a couple of weeks with columns that were very serious in nature, I thought I would share the contents of yet another email from one of my senior friends in BC. To the best of my knowledge and research, there has been no one credited with the creation of this poem, but it surely rings true!   Unfortunately I had to delete a couple of verses due to length, but the essence remains intact.  It is “A Poem That Was Us”…

A little house with three bedrooms,

One bathroom and one car on the street

A mower that you had to push

To make the grass look neat.

 

In the kitchen on the wall

We only had one phone,

And no need for recording things,

Someone was always home.

 

We only had one TV set

And channels maybe two,

But always there was one of them

With something worth the view

 

For snacks we had potato chips

That tasted like a chip.

And if you wanted flavor

There was Lipton’s onion dip.

 

Store-bought snacks were rare because

My mother liked to cook

And nothing can compare to snacks

In Betty Crocker’s book

 

Weekends were for family trips

Or staying home to play

We all did things together –

Even go to church to pray.

 

Sometimes we would separate

To do things on our own,

But we knew where the others were

Without our own cell phone

 

Then there were the movies

With your favorite movie star,

And nothing can compare

To watching movies in your car

 

Then there were the picnics

At the peak of summer season,

Pack a lunch and find some trees

And never need a reason.

 

Get a baseball game together

With all the friends you know,

Have real action playing ball –

And no game video.

 

Remember when the doctor

Used to be the family friend,

And didn’t need insurance

Or a lawyer to defend

 

The milkman used to go

From door to door,

And it was just a few cents more

Than going to the store.

 

There was a time when mailed letters

Came right to your door,

Without a lot of junk mail ads

Sent out by every store.

 

The mailman knew each house by name

And knew where it was sent;

There were not loads of mail addressed

To “present occupant”

 

There was a time when just one glance

Was all that it would take,

And you would know the kind of car,

The model and the make

 

They didn’t look like turtles

Trying to squeeze out every mile;

They were streamlined, white walls, fins

And really had some style

 

Oh, the simple life we lived

Still seems like so much fun,

How can you explain a game,

Just kick the can and run?

 

And why would boys put baseball cards

Between bicycle spokes

And for a nickel, red machines

Had little bottled Cokes?

 

This life seemed so much easier

Slower in some ways

I love the new technology

But I sure do miss those days.

 

So time moves on and so do we

And nothing stays the same,

But I sure love to reminisce

And walk down memory lane.

 

With all today’s technology

We grant that it’s a plus!

But it’s fun to look way back and say,

“Hey look guys! That was us.”