HollisToo

This is one of those times that I have thought about much through the years. It is funny I suppose but did not seem so at the time for this young baby boomer. I was only about five and was a tag along with my older brothers.

Here’s the story. It was Easter and the little town of Sturgis, Kentucky always had sponsored activities of one sort or another going on. Today, if you are a motorcycle enthusiast, I’m sure you have heard of the ‘Little Sturgis’ motorcycle rally. It is held at the Sturgis Airport just outside the town of 2500 people. Back then, one of the activities was a county Easter egg hunt. Any and all of the kids from who knows where was invited to come and hunt.

We lived on an off road across a couple of big fields from the airport. My older brothers and a cousin decided that the best way of going to that Easter egg hunt was to just walk across the fields. (more…)

I don’t know if there is any particular age limit that applies to this subject. Baby boomers, in particular, are sure to remember those years. I do know that for me there were several years that did.

You have to realize that for a red headed, shy, freckled faced boy from a family of eight boys and no girls that anything related to a girl was cause enough to get red faced. This story begins in the 1950’s at school when the teacher sends that note home instructing your parents that on such and such date the class will be exchanging the thing that causes it all, the ‘Be My Valentine’ cards.

The cards would be purchased, brought home and of course we had to be the one that wrote the note and signed the thing. Today, my grandchildren buy cards that are Sponge Bob, Bratz, Disney, Hanna Montana, Transformers, Spiderman and on and on. Back then, they were cards with hearts and a very personal message like ‘Be My Valentine’ or ‘Your My Valentine’ on them. (more…)

No, I’m not talking about the 1956 John Wayne movie ‘The Searchers’. It was Christmas and time for the real searchers to come out. That was me and my brothers. Mom and dad were the best at hiding the gifts which included the bags of nuts and fruit that they got each Christmas. They knew that if they put the goodies out too soon, eight boys would have them devoured before Christmas arrived.

We never knew when they got the goodies but the nuts and fruit always showed up on Christmas eve day and many of the presents on Christmas morning. (Some were put under the tree to keep us focused on those.) It almost got to be a tradition. When we got to be a little older, we knew by then that they had them somewhere and it was just a matter of searching.

We would hunt for the presents and believe it or not we never (never!) found them. We did find the bags of fruit and nuts in the trunk of the car one time. Evidently, after that, the pace picked up. We never found them again as long as we were young enough to search.

Let me share at least one experience. (more…)

I usually have a story in my life that matches with a given season. This one sort of matches with thanksgiving. Well sorta, it involves a turkey.

If you have read any of my young baby boomer stories, you know that I was raised in the country and as such was around a lot of farm critters. Those critters included horses, hogs, goats, cows, chickens and a few turkeys.

I know well that any one of these can be quite contrary if they want to be. Well, to the story.

The day had been going very well. All the usual things that we liked to do we did. Then, it was time to make a stop at our friend’s house for an ice tea and some cool down time. I kept noticing this big tom turkey that I had never really paid much attention to before. He seemed like he was in rare form. What do I mean by that? (more…)

It was like any other day during the middle of the summer. We were up early, had breakfast and was on our way to catching the ponies for a good day of riding, exploring and anything else we could find to do, well almost anything. My brother and I was about thirteen or fourteen and spent most of our days with a friend riding and doing what ever.

In recent days we had started swimming or ’skinny dipping’ in some of the local ponds. These ponds were not the most healthy. They were mainly to water cattle that belonged to a local farmer.

Now for those of you that do not know what that means is this. Cattle will at various times (more…)

I couldn’t have been but about eight or nine years old and it got ripped from one end to the other. Let me explain. We grew up in the country and loved it. We had a lot of space to run and usually covered most of it even in our younger years. There was not a whole lot that we did not try at one time or another. Probably, as most kids did back then, we just enjoyed exploring and finding new things to do.

This particular day started, as I remember, on a Sunday and it was a beautiful day. We went through the usual activities of the day finding things to do. Then our parents informed us that we were going to grandma’s.

Well, we were not much for car rides. There were a bunch of us, all in one car and not much space. It wasn’t pretty after a while. But the bright side of the trip was that we got to explore new territory.

We finally arrived and there it was, (more…)

Summer days and summer fun and plenty of time to enjoy them both. That it is how it was supposed to be. We would get up in the morning and most of the time had no particular plans for the day; just take each hour as it came.

In the country we had plenty of room to run and roam. When we got to the end of our property, we just crossed the fence and kept going. There was not as much to be afraid of in those days for young children as there is now so in a days time we covered a lot of territory. Just about every inch of the distance covered had some kind of different adventure. Swinging on grape vines, crossing over ravines, swimming in dirty ponds, you name it we probably did it.

For those of you who are thinking (more…)

As I continue the ‘Blogging through the Years’ thoughts and remembrances, one particularly horrifying memory comes to mind. It was horrifying at least to a five or six year old.

To a young kid in those days of the early fifties, there was nothing quite as exciting as one of the real life super heroes. Hero’s such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and the Lone Ranger was at the top of my list. We spent many hours playing cowboys with nothing but our hands or a stick for guns. Let’s face it though, trying to sneak up on someone like they did was never quite as easy in real life as one of those guys made it seem.

On that rare occasion when (more…)

As I sit here and write and this being a new site, I wanted to begin at the start. What I mean by that is as a baby boomer I do like to reflect back and think of the ‘good ol days’. Reflections, that for many of us, even our children have not heard.

However, when I was in my sophomore year of high school one teacher at that time was talking about the very same thing and he said “Yes, the good ol days were good in a way”, but (more…)