Remember your grandpa's house?

[MoseyWalker]

There was no air conditioning, but you didn't have to worry about people breaking in and chopping your heads off, so you left the windows, and sometimes the doors, open all night.

A cool, late summer breeze that was beginning to feel like Autumn.

You trusted the people around you, even if you didn't like some of them.

Remember trusting your neighbors? And your friends?

I feel a cool, late summer breeze blowing across me now.

It feels like Autumn.

Trust and belief.

Powerful thoughts and powerful words.

They lead to truth.

[liberal N proud]

1. K&R

[BrotherBuzz]

2. I live in my Grandpa's house

designed by my Great grandfather. You described my house and neighborhood to a T, right down to the lack of that 'money consuming' air conditioning.

[driver8]

14. My parents live in my great grandparents' house, which is

right next to the house my Mom grew up in. Lots of good memories in those houses...

[Subdivisions]

43. I lost my Grandpa when I was just 5 but I remember the smell

of his pipe as us kids would run up on the porch (in Newport News, VA) on an early-Autumn night after playing hide-and-seek with the big kids and showing him the bugs we caught. Were there still lightning bugs then...during the early Autumn?

But he died and we missed him. But Grandma is still alive today and hers was the neighborhood you described in your elequent and nostalgic piece. No AC and the doors and windows wide open all the way into early Winter, when it became cool enough to fire up the oil furnace.

That seems so long ago now. Sad. We grew up all too soon. The closest we can get now is old reruns of Leave it to Beaver. And don't think for a second my TV isn't tuned to TVLand at 4pm Central, taking a break from Wolf and the Gang.

Would that we could only go back.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

3. Nicely said. K&R for nights in Liberty MO.

[onecent]

11. LIberty, Mo. I lived there for six years, and now live in Kearney,

Mo. Nice to see someone from around here.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

12. My great Grandfather had a farm in Kearney... Right across from

the James' ranch.

He had all kinds of tales about Jessie and Frank.

[MoseyWalker]

13. MO has such a great history of strong people

and independent people.

and sometimes fearless!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

22. It has an amaziing history filled with heroes and villians!

[Leopolds Ghost]

31. "Oh, I've been in this town so long I'm back in the city...

went around, lost and found for a long long time...

Fell in love years ago with an innocent girl from the Spanish and Indian town called the heroes and villains.

Kearney Missouri, just look what you done, done..."

--Beach Boys, Heroes and Villains (almost)

;-)

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

45. Wow! That was one of my first albums!

And a great one at that!

[midnight]

4. What a very sweet reminder of the innocence that was our

childhood. From what I have read about the Bush family from years ago. They started a drug running business that has contributed to the lack of trustworthiness that is detectable.

[gaspee]

5. I live in a place still like that

And go figure, it's a city of around 100,000 people. I don't even lock my doors (when I'm home.)

But I do have six dogs. And one of them will bite your ass if you just walk into my house. And if you come over after dark, he doesn't want to let you in, even if I do. The other dogs will let you in and show you where we keep the good stuff. Silly dogs.

Locks aren't going to keep out someone determined. A barking dog, even a nonbiting one, will deter the casual thief.

I don't lock my cars door either. I don't have a good stereo and I don't want my windows broken if they really think I have sometihng for them to steal out of my car.

I refuse to live in fear, whether of terrorists or my neighbors.

I think we were listed as the 6th safest city of 100,000 in the country.

[saged52]

6. that cool late summer breeze -

always gets the unhealthy crap out of the air, too
(are you reading my mind this evening?!)

[El Supremo]

7. I remember the smell of the burning leaves in the Fall.

You could do that back then.

But before I was born his house had polite people come to the back door asking for bread and any food that could be spared. My Grandmother would accommodate them. Grandpa had a job with the railroad. The others were victims of the Great Depression.

[MoseyWalker]

8. Anyone who had a good grandpa that lived by the railroad tracks

gave what they could.

Your people were good people!

I won't use a smiley, but you can guess what I'm thinking.

good people

[Bozita]

16. I really, really miss that aroma

[Seabiscuit]

24. I do too. I grew up loving the smell of burning leaves in the fall.

[Synnical]

9. Yeah, I remember that - Grandma Pierce.

Thanks for this.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[texanwitch]

10. My Grandparent were farmers, I can still hear the clock in the living

room, and the sounds of the animals.

I would like to go back for one night with my camcorder.

The house had open windows, nice and cool.

[tenshi816]

27. Me too, and I remember exactly the same things.

Unfortunately, back in the 90s, my father's greedy younger sisters convinced my widowed grandfather to cut my dad and uncle out of his will. After he died in 2001, my aunts had the house my grandparents had lived in since the 1940s torn down and the 250 acres of farmland it sat on apportioned into lots for houses. My father's childhood home is dotted with new homes now and the aunts call it progress...

[Rosemary2205]

15. Oh do I miss that

I grew up in suburbia. In the summer the only time the windows were closed is if rain was coming in that window or we went out of town for an extended length of time. It has often saddened me that within 30 short years my parents went from enjoying night breezes to having an alarm system complete with floor sensors.

[kineneb]

17. not in the grandparents house anymore

it unfortunately was badly damaged by a fire and was completely redesigned/rebuilt.

But our manufactured home (read "double-wide) is out in the country, and although we do run the AC for health reasons, we open up the house every night. Got a window fan and let the cool air go thorough the house so that the AC only runs for a while in the afternoon. It has been getting cooler recently, and I can tell that fall is on its way.

We only lock up the house if we are out, otherwise the back doors are usually unlocked. I don't bother locking the car it I park it in the driveway.

[REP]

18. Ah, the Truthiness of Nostalgia

Remember Charles Starkweather? His killing spree happened in those good ol days when people trusted eachother and houses didn't have air conditioning, etc.

Or when a man came into breakfast carrying a doubletree and beat his second wife and her daughter to death with it, and his son from his first marriage rode bareback to the nearest house to get help. You probably never heard of that one, because communications weren't well developed back then (1916), but stories like that were common. Check the morgues of any small town newspaper.

Oh, and my grandparents (born in 1895 qnd 1896) got air conditioners as soon as they were available for the house my grandfather built. Even though people did go out and sleep in the parks in the KC MO in the '30s and '40s when it was hot, it was nicer to stay in your own bed!

[pitohui]

21. charles starkweather -- that brings back the memories!

sad to say it but a fantasy image of "cool" to me as a kid!

there was never any innocent time, not really

people were people even when they lived in caves, weren't they?

[Seabiscuit]

26. Cynical bastid!

There have always been serial killers out there.

What an irrelevant and cynically irreverant post!

You completely and deliberately missed the point of the OP.

There are a lot of huge differences between that time and this time.

[REP]

29. Like What - The Excesses of the Wilson Administration?

The way I see it, there's a lot we're forgetting about the "good old days." Trust your neighbor? Not if your neighbors had a German surname - then you had better report them, so we can be safe at home. Criticize the president? Better watch what you say.

My post is 'cynical' and 'irrevelevant' because it gets in the way of your sentimental blinders.

[LostinVA]

38. Wilson's segregation of the Civil Service, brutality towards Suffragettes

Eugenics, work farms... and that's just the Wilson Adsministration.... racism, sexism, homosexuality as a mental illness, children and animals had even less protection than now, etc. Ah.... the good old days....

No, I haven't missed the point of the OP... but there never were "Good Old Days." People were robbed, murdered, and raped, and proportionally I would say just the same, especially in urban areas. Incest and child abuse was at least just as high and had no real recouse... the same for domestic violence. Serial killers were certainly around, just not as well reported, etc. The same for children being abducted. I guarantee that proportionally it happened just as much... but these cases stayed local news.

And, I have horrible sinus and allergy problems: praise the gods for AC.

(and, I still smell burning leaves every Fall)

[tech3149]

19. I remember

and my parents still live there. It seems your point is to remind us how good things were back then. In some respects you are right. Life was easier and there was a level of trust and community that made you feel there was not much to be afraid of. The sad part is that we could go back to that comfortable feeling of community with very little effort. Turn off the TV and go sit on the front porch(if you have one) or walk around the neighborhood. Talk to your neighbors and get to know them. Babysit their kids or water their flowers or loan them whatever they might need for their next big party. We can live in that world again, it just takes a little effort.

[pitohui]

20. there was no indoor toilet either

much less no air conditioning

now i really do feel old

crap!

i remember the great day when my grandparents got indoor plumbing, they actually got a color teevee FIRST, that's appalachia all over

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. pitohui, I thot you were from New Orleans! My dad grew up in rural LA

on a cotton farm. He didn't remember it well (Franklin Parish). Said the ground was poisoned by arsenic because of the boll weevils. It was one of the last places in Louisiana not to get paved roads because the voters in that part of Northern Louisiana hated Huey Long.

[Seabiscuit]

23. My grandpa was a dentist and lived on Lake Erie...

He worked in Buffalo, N.Y., and built his final house on the south shore of Lake Erie, about 35 miles from Buffalo.

When I was a little kid it was a beautiful place to explore and to swim in and to take a motorboat ride on and to go fishing in. It seemed pristine.

That was in the late '40's to early '50's.

By 1963, when I graduated from high school, Lake Erie had become a toxic dump, and I witnessed almost a decade by then of dead fish washing up on the beach I once loved to spend time on, frolicking in the waves.

Grandpa died in late 1965.

It's sad, I can't remember my gandpa's house without remembering what happened to Lake Erie.

It's a lesson this country has never learned. At least not the public officials.

Today we have a pResident who denies global warming, and countless politicians who turn a blind eye to environmental disasters such as Lake Erie, in favor of payoffs and bribes from the oil industry and other enviornmental pollutors/rapists.

[Seabiscuit]

25. Kick

[BuyingThyme]

28. There were turtles around the side.

I still dream about the turtles. Not so much as I used to.

[pitohui]

30. ah turtles the other white meat

also there was squirrel

:-)

[I_Make_Mistakes]

33. I lived in a row home, born in 1960 and lived the same thing. In the

70's we were robbed, just money and coins (grandma was a collector, so mint sets were the std. presents). When the information got out (I was a young teen), the majority of the money was returned with a note stating "Sorry, I took your money!". Yes, they were the good old days.

And I remember the smell of burning dried leaves and the open windows (which let bats and birds into the house on occasion!). It is difficult to see that the very things WE took for granted, are now luxuries for the very few!

[laylah]

34. Beautiful metaphor! k!

[liberal N proud]

35. I was back home in my small Iowa town this summer

It was so peaceful, you can still leave the front door open at night. Go for a walk at midnight and not worry about who is in the shadows. I did that a couple of times during the week I was there. My brother was visiting as well, we both would just go out in the late eventing and walk through town trying to remember who lived where and what business used to be this building.
It sure was a refreshing change from the cities most of us live in today.

[LostinVA]

39. Well, of course you still have to worry

Sociopaths exist everywhere -- that small Iowa town has its share. Small towns are statistically safer because there are fewer people. But stuff still happens.

I live someplace where you can technically keep your doors unlocked, too -- no murders or robberies have happened in the last 30 years. But I still lock up. Why? Because I realize that "In Cold Blood" happened in a small, All American town.

[Art_from_Ark]

36. My grandfather's house was a fantastic place

Located on a (then) quiet street with walnut and hickory trees in the yard. There was a farm and a barn at the end of the street, which was always like a mystical place to me. Inside the house was solid walnut furniture made by my great-grandfather and an absolutely wonderful upstairs bedroom with a 4-poster bed and lots of old clocks and other nifty things from the '20s, '30s and '40s. The smell of the freezer in the back of the house was so delicious, and even the garage, which was decorated with license plates going back before I was born (people got new plates every year back in those days), had an indescribably fragrant aroma that I will probably never experience again in my life.

But the neighbors were a different story. The neighbors on the south had a son who was always in and out of juvenile hall. The neighbors on the north had some kids my age who decided one day to start a rock-throwing fight with me, and hit me right smack on the crown of my head and just about sent me to the emergency room.

[Vinca]

37. At Halloween you could go trick or treating without your

parents because everyone knew everyone else and someone was always watching over you. The biggest threat was the class bully trying to grab the UNICEF box.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. The first Halloween I remember

was back in 1963. We went trick-or-treating in my grandparents' neighborhood, and I got a caramel popcorn ball. When my grandparents found it in my bag, they immediately threw it in the trash, because "you can't trust homemade Halloween treats". I cried for days over that little episode.

And I still remember the house where I got the popcorn ball.

[Bridget Burke]

40. Not really. And I never met either grandfather.

My father's parents came from East Galway to a New England mill town. My grandfather became a policeman & died while my father was a boy. I visited the family home a few times--they lived on the first floor & rented the two floors above. I believe "tenement" described the arrangement. It was far from squalid--hey, there were lace curtains--but not exactly Norman Rockwell* country.

http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=Manchester,+NH

My other grandfather died about the time I was born. The house was still standing when my newly-widowed Mom moved her 3 kids back to Texas. My grandmother lived there, but it was in sad shape. No indoor plumbing, of course. Mom used my father's GI loan to build a new house--with plumbing. And AC as soon as it was available--late summer breezes on the Gulf Coast aren't all that cool.

* Apologies to Norman Rockwell. He didn't have such a narrow view of life in the USA:

[MoseyWalker]

42. Your mom seems like she was (is) a smart lady

wow. Thanks for not pulling back one of my numbskull posts!

Sorry about your grandparent experience, but thanks for sharing your story.

O8)

[bobbieinok]

44. remember many things

--visiting grandparents in Tulsa during WWII when I was very young; milk was delivered by a horse-drawn cart

--visiting when all the kids slept on pallets on the floor

--eating a tomato just picked from my grandma's garden

--going down in the cellar and being able to smell the wine my grandpa made years before

--their fridge with its very small ice cube compartment and the pedal you could step on to open the door when your hands were full

--my grandpa showing us pictures of Switzerland (he came to US in the latter part of the 19th century when he was a young man), telling us the story of William Tell, and singing Ach, du lieber Augustin

--my grandma, my aunt, my mother, the boarder, and grandpa all washing and drying dishes after Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners

--walking downtown with my grandma and eating at the lunch counter at Woolworths

--the Thanksgiving when we had meats and fish that the man my aunt was seeing had hunted and fished

--the New Year's Eve that I stayed up and my cousin (in HS) came in with a snowball

--going to the same grade school my father had gone to

--roller skating on the sidewalk in front of my grandma's house (the skates screwed on to the shoes)