memories, like the corners of my mind....

I was laying awake in bed last night thinking about really random stuff from my childhood. These are some things I remember with fondness...

1. Tang orange "juice", you know, like the astronauts drank. I liked the grape and grapefruit kind, but orange was most authentic.
   


2. Those dessert sticks -- there was vanilla, chocolate, and (horrible) butterscotch. They were individually wrapped, about 3 or 4 inches tall, and kind of tasted like pudding, but were sort of like a really really soft Tootsie Rool. These were cool because again, the astronauts ate them. I can't remember the name. Oh please help me remember!
   


3. Chinese jumpropes -- the springy kind


4. Sunday night church...EVERY Sunday night, and in the summertime, the Jr. High get-togethers like ice cream parties, ice-blocking on hills, playing "Make Me Laugh" and singing around the campfire.
   


5. The candy counter at Meredith's Five & Ten Cent Store. I got to choose a few pieces from jars it was handed over the counter in a little tiny blue bag. I made it last a few days.
   


6. Being the only kid in gradeschool with plastic lunchboxes every year...my Dad was a plastics engineer. I had a yellow Snoopy lunchbox with a blue thermos that leaked. One year I had an orange Fat Albert lunchbox with a thermos that leaked.
   


7. When fruit leather first appeared at the grocery store, and it actually was made from fruit.



8. Going to Grandma's house. I miss her so much.



9. My parent's big honkin' 1973 Buick Riviera. I used to bring my sleeping bag on long trips and stretch out completely in the back, just like I was in bed.
   


10. Iowa Test of Basic Skills week at school. It meant one thing to me: GUM in the classroom!
    


11. Grape Bubble Yum.
    


12. Bazooka gum.
    


13. Fruit Stripe gum.
    


14. Mom trying to convince me that sugarless Trident fruit flavored gum (the kind in the orange package) tasted just as good as 8, 9, and 10.
    


15. Riding lime green Free Spirit (my Mom worked at Sears) banana seat bike without a helmet. (I know, I know, I know...of course I know after Chad's accident, but those were carefree days, weren't they?)



16. Freakies cereal.



17. For that matter, cereal with GOOD prizes at the bottom of the box.
    


18. "Banana Splits Adventure Hour" (the TV show) -- "Danger Island" (Uh oh, Chongo!"), "New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (I wanted to be Becky), and all of those other Sid & Marty Krofft shows like "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters", "The Boogaloos", "Land of the Lost", "Dr. Shrinker", "Electra Woman & Dyna Girl" (I always had to be the older, less cute EW, because my alpha best friend Lowell demanded that she be DG).