A time filled with fun, fresh air, free from fears of today

"Childhood is that wonderful time of life when all you need to do to lose weight is take a bath."--
Author Unknown

"This is good!" announced the e-mail in my inbox. It was a message to all the kids born from 1930 to 1979. That was enough for me to open it. It brought back some old childhood memories.

"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads," the message, from an unknown source, reminded us. Times have certainly changed. I remember riding my bike up 23rd Street, down Jackson Avenue and down that steep hill on East 25th Street. It was a great feeling -- the wind blowing in your face, gaining momentum that carried you halfway up the other side. I would zigzag up the hill -- that made it easier to climb -- and ride back down again. That was fun.

The next section took me back to those hot summer days, when friends played outside, all day. "We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle," it stated. That's true.

"We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar."

I was laughing at this point. I can see that big pitcher of red Kool-Aid with a couple of cups of sugar added on the kitchen table.

Not only did we drink that colored sugar water, but we also made our way through the short cuts from one street to another, between houses, to the local mom-and-pop store, Mr. Samuels'. There we would buy those two-for-a-penny cookies -- chocolate chip, coconut or ginger snap. And the biggest candy bars in the world, especially those Baby Ruths.

"And, we weren't overweight," the message stated.

Of course, that is a general statement. I think I was in the "husky" category. I earned my nickname, "Big D." We would go outside in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back in when the streetlights came on. You didn't need a watch to know when to come in. No one was able to reach us all day.

The message continued: "We did not have PlayStations, Nintendos and Xboxes. There were no video games, no 200 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no MP-3 players, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms."

We survived and had a good time doing so. We played "rolling bat" in the street. A ball, a bat and a few children equaled fun. We were occupied for hours.

The message must have been written by someone who grew up with me. I could identify with the statement, "We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents."

I remember once throwing a football to a friend, Wallace. "Go deep," I yelled. I pointed down the street, and he did. The problem was, he ran into a parked car trying to catch the ball. I think he chipped a tooth from the collision. We played in his backyard, and in June's yard next door -- ping-pong in the basement or horseshoes out back. In our backyard and the neighbor's next door, we had great sandlot football games.

We played "hide and seek" and "it." We were creative. Maybe that is why we ran behind the DDT truck, holding our breath as it sprayed the neighborhood. I am amazed we are still alive.

I don't remember eating worms and mud pies made from dirt, as was mentioned in the message. But I did have a BB gun, and we made up games with sticks and tennis balls. I don't remember any eye injuries, though I did get a bloody nose once playing with a stick. My mother was not happy when we called her on the job at the hospital. We played Little League baseball. I played with the Reds. We didn't win many games, but I remember men like Mr. Mitchell and Peyton Hairston, who invested so much of their time and money and influenced so many boys.

To those of you born after 1979, what is your trip down memory lane going to look like? Just as interesting, I'm sure.

■ Nigel Alston is a Dale Carnegie trainer and motivational speaker who lives in Winston-Salem. He can be reached at nalston1@triad.rr.com.