Ted Alexander

See me there with the bright blond straight thin hair with the bowl cut. 1979! That's right, the good ole days.

These were the days when kids could play outside on their own for hours on end. Take off a couple blocks down the street to a friends house, then have your mom whistle super loud to where your friends would say, "Dude, I think that was your mom whistling." We all knew it was time go home. After all, it was almost sundown, and we'd hate right our bikes back in the dark.

These were the days when I'd wake in the morning, get ready to leave for elementary school, and walk out the door saying by to mommy and the siblings. Not to mention that school was a mile and a half away. Well, since I had my lunch money, at least I could stop and spend it at Granny's Donut shop to I can enjoy my long walk to school.

Yes, good ole days when mama was a stay-at-home mommy. That's what they call it now, right. Don't think there was a name for it then. I remember before we left to go pickup daddy from work at the Long Beach shipyard, we made spaghetti. She let me get up on the chair by the stove and put in all the ingrediants for the sauce and cook it. It was my first big meal making at 7.

Then we hopped in our '69 Chevy Nova, revved it a bit, then raced off to the shipyard - about a 20 minute drive. The clutch was so hard on that muscle car that mommy had to ask someone at the grocery store to press down on the clutch while she put it into first gear-hmmm?

School, lots of play, dinner and family time (TV :-)). that was our life in childhood - good times!

High school, college, a job, then marriage. Then we had our prize - our princess Talia. Then more gifts, Alexa and Eric.

And the cycle starts all over again - but it's different times...