Truckin' down Memory Lane

I don’t know if there’s a Memory Lane in many towns. I’ve seen Shady Lanes in a couple of towns, and if that causes the Ames Brothers’ song, “The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane” to go coursing through your mind, then I’ve done my civic duty as a pest.

Memory Lane seems to be a popular place, but it’s full of potholes. I find myself stumbling down that well-traveled lane lately, and it really ticks me off that I recognize the landmarks on Memory Lane but I can’t remember squat about what I need to buy from the grocery store.

My cousin sent me an e-mail not long ago about some of the landmarks along Memory Lane.

Do you remember when —

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? I do; I also remember that the day after I graduated from high school I burned mine. It felt good.

It took five minutes for the TV to warm up? Not only that, but the picture would occasionally flip upward rapidly and you had to turn a knob to make it hold still. And when you turned it off, there’d be a little round light in the center of the screen.

You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? Ha! I still do! Those things add up.

You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking — all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot? Yeah, and I remember when gas was 30 cents a gallon, but let’s don’t go there.

They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did? It didn’t seem to bother anyone’s self-esteem either. We were too busy learning grammar and spelling and punctuation, along with math and history and science.

Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? No one then had to suffer from lacerations caused by trying to open a blister pack to open a DVD or a CD, never mind they hadn’t been invented then. It almost takes a blowtorch to get past the cardboard, the plastic blister and then the cellophane wrapping.

Can you remember, candy cigarettes, wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside, big red wax lips, soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles? I remember that the bottles cost a dime and you brought them back to collect a deposit.

Remember coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes? The coffee didn’t taste like a liquid candy bar and usually cost a nickel or a dime.

Blackjack, Clove and Teaberry chewing gum? None of it was sugarless.

P.F. Fliers? Or Keds. They didn’t cost three figures and were appropriate for all sports, or just running and jumping.

Captain Kangaroo and Howdy Dowdy? Did you know Captain Kangaroo (Bob Keeshan) was Howdy’s friend Clarabelle the Clown? Today much would be made about a male clown named Clarabelle.

45 RPM records? I still have some.

78 RPM records? Them too. They were my parents’.

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures? Saturday morning cartoons were actually funny, not violent — Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester the Cat.

I must have ventured too far down Memory Lane. I was going to do something important, but now I can’t remember what.