Cartoons with cereal
Captain Crunch with Scooby-Doo
on the black and white TV.
Pink Panther, Bugs Bunny and Casper the Ghost
until mother announced that it was time
to put on clothes.
The Tony the Tiger bowl, spoon and cup I saved for and bought,
carefully put in the sink.
I saw the ad on a box of Frosted Flakes,
brother helped me fill out the card,
Mother gave me the stamp, the envelope …
A long six weeks and daily disappointment.
Then joy and a prized possession
Sometimes I put the spoon at my dad’s place at dinner.
Jeans bought last September, now cutoff shorts,
and a white tee-shirt were the uniform.
No need for shoes.
At Bob’s house were the Matchbox cars, kids and dog.
Bob’s older brothers had a record player and all the Beatles albums
we’d listen to Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper as we raced little cars around the room.
Dave had a transistor radio that played
Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, and Creedence Clearwater Revival.
My older brother had a radio in our garage
sometimes he’d let us listen as he worked on his train set and slot cars.
We’d crawl on the big table made of plywood and setup track for him.
Sometimes he’d let us run the train - until we made it go too fast and broke the engine.
That song still haunts my memory,
In The Ghetto, Elvis’ voice,
but not his usual style,
it moved me, confused me, and friends didn’t understand the sadness I thought I felt.
The Tonka trucks were in my backyard
in the dirt,
near mud,
piled with sticks and rocks.
Three of us were there when mother called me in for lunch.
Baloney sandwiches with Kool-Aid.
We all got sandwiches.
Then Bob said his mother was making peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches
We got milk with those.
Dave’s mother was on to us, so we only got apple slices there.
The late afternoon shade spread across the lawn
where we’d jumped off our bikes and rest from the afternoon heat.
From the house came the sound of a piano.
My mother, practicing for a concert she never gave.
We were her only audience as she played,
Clair de Lune
Haunting
Demanding
Pulling
Flowing
One by one the dinner call came
for those lost and precocious times.
About Andrew Reynolds
Born in California
Did the school thing studying electronics, computers, release engineering and literary criticism.
I worked in the high tech world doing software release engineering and am now retired.
Then I got prostate cancer.
Now I am a blogger and work in my wood shop doing scroll saw work and marquetry.
Andrew's View of the Week 
Wow! So many memories! Loved it!
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It was fun going done memory lane on this one.
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Interesting to Google “color TV” and read it was invented well before 1969. Like you, my 1960’s memories of TV are black-and-white. Must’ve taken several years to go mainstream. B&W also makes me remember the Star-Spangled Banner sign-off at the end of the night, followed by a static image of the network logo until the following morning. Or just television snow.
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Color TVs were expensive and most couldn’t afford them. Also it wasn’t until the mid sixties that TV most shows were were filmed in color and TV stations upgrade their transmitters to send the color signal.
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So many memories.
My father-in-law passed away last year at the age of 95. He used to say during his first sixty years life went on as it had for generations. Then there were so many changes, he said no one would have imagined life would change so much. I wonder what he would have said to what is happening now.
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Just in my life there have been so many changes. My father use to say the same thing.
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Fun memories. I have a set of 6 Tony the Tiger miss with metal tray. They’re G.R.E.A.T!
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They are!!!
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A lovely walk down memory lane so beautifully told, Andrew. I found myself nodding as I read your words, relating to many scenarios, TV shows, and music.
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Lots of good memories.
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Wow, lots of memories there. Beautifully written. Besides cartoons, we had a shelf of comic books, maybe a hundred. Did a lot of reading on rainy days.
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We read Mad Magazine. 😉
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Lovely. Clair de Lune is a wonderful memory from my childhood, too, although it played from a record player instead of the piano. 🙂
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The only time I remember this song is when I think of my mother.
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I am from the same era (born 1961). I grew up on the south side of Chicago. I loved it. So many wonderful memories. Thanks for the post. I really loved this one. ❤
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Glad you enjoyed it!
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Yep, sounds like 1969 to me. You captured it perfectly…although I was 15 then, not nine.
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Ah, one of the “older” kids we liked to annoy … 😉
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You got it! Ha!
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You captured the feelings of that year, and era, perfectly, Andrew.
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Thanks, I remember that year so well.
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Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane… 🙂
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You’re welcome – I enjoyed it too.
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I loved this! It’s a poem that causes one to go back in time and feel what it was like. Excellent!
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Glad you liked it. Summer is just starting here and the memories have been coming back to me.
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Wow. There is so much in there — I can feel those days bygone.
Thanks for sharing!
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I could have written a lot more – memories just kept popping into my head.
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We are the same age and the years around 1969 were the same for me. …and I still like Cap’n Crunch today.
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Cap’n Crunch was the best, but I also liked Apple Jacks.
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That brought back one or two memories! Alas, only two Beatles left now! And is it just one Monkee?
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Two Monkees are left, both in their late 70’s.
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Beautiful.
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Thank you.
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