Saturday, October 1, 2016

Saturdays In the 1970s

I'm sitting here tonight. as the rain falls outside and I'm relaxed. It's Saturday night and I've been thinking about what Saturdays were like for me as a child. I'll focus on 1975 when I was nine years old.

Every Saturday I had my Cub Scouts meeting to attend. This meant being driven there by my father. I'd usually get there early and we'd all watch cartoons until it was time for the meeting. Our den mother lived in a very large, very old farmhouse in which the only heating sources were fireplaces, and we'd hold the meeting in the living room.

After the meeting, I'd walk down the dirt road to where it met the main road and wait for Dad to pick me up. In the fall, I might have had a football game to go to, or not. as some games were played on Sundays. If there was a game,we'd go right to it. If not, we'd head home.

Once I got home, it was clearly understood that I had to do my chores. Typical chores included doing the dishes and vacuuming the carpets. After that was done, I was free to play with friends or watch television or just hang out in the bedroom I shared with my brother.

At five in the afternoon, one of two things would happen. Either we'd have dinner, or we'd start getting ready to go somewhere. Some of the places we went on a regular basis were to the stock car races, the drive-in movie theater or to visit my grandparents. If we stayed home, we'd have what my parents referred to as a party. This usually involved watching television together and eating snacks. My dad would make root beer floats or milkshakes.

If we went out, we'd watch television after returning home. Saturday was the one day of the week mom let me stay up as long as I wanted to, provided I could be reasonably alert and ready to go to church in the morning.

All that was now forty one years ago. Dad's dead. My brother lives several hundred miles away. But Mom lives just up the street, I talked to her on the phone earlier tonight. I hope her memories of all this are as good as mine are.

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