Memories & Nostalgia

Yes, that’s what we were called back then when we were bad, “naughty”, I guess it’s still a word that parents use. Especially this time of year, with Christmas on the way, and Santa determining whether to give you gifts based upon whether you have been “naughty or nice”. When I was young, you could expect some coal in your stocking if you were naughty…is that still true today? Some of you parents who may be reading this can comment and let me know, I’m between parenting and waiting for Grandchildren, so a little out of touch.

Here’s a story about a “naughty” experience I remember, the possibility of snow here in the northeast brought it on. It was a beautiful, sunny day after a nice snowstorm. The kind of snow that was great for making snowballs and building snow men. My brother and I, fairly young at the time, watched and watched as a neighbor built a huge snowman for his children…it must have been 7 feet tall! Really! It was taller than their Dad, and had arms with hands on hips and everything, a wonderful thing to behold.

We got into our snow outfits, gloves and boots, getting everything on always took SOOO long, and headed outside to get a closeup look. I am telling you I was a wonderful little child (haha) but something just took hold, first I bumped the arm of the snowman, and it fell off, next then we threw snowballs at it, and another part fell off. Then we just went crazy, and knocked the whole thing down…even as I type this I can’t imagine what possessed us to do such a thing.

When it was all over, we just continued to play outside, and went quietly in the house, not saying a lot, and it wasn’t long before the kind man next door was at OUR door, having a few words with Mom. After that, everything is kind of a blur, but my conscience over doing such a thing was more upsetting than any punishment Mom could muster up.