OldiesCountry

HAVING A (it is not a Jack Daniels, are you shocked) GLASS OF MILK AND A MILKY WAY (as a child, loved Milky Ways and milk) and thinking…

TO BE SIX AGAIN:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult, in order to accept the responsibilities of a 6-year-old. The tax base is lower. I want to be six again.
I want to go to McDonald’s and think it’s the best place in the world to eat. I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make waves with rocks.
I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them. I want to play kickball during recess.
I long for the days when life was simple. When all you knew were your colors, the addition tables & simple nursery rhymes, but it didn’t bother you, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care.
I want to go to school and have snack time, recess, gym and field trips.
I want to be happy because I don’t know what should make me upset. I want to think the world is fair and everyone in it is honest and good.
I want to believe that anything is possible.
Sometimes, while I was maturing, I learned too much. I learned of nuclear weapons, prejudice, starving and abused kids, lies, unhappy marriages, illness, pain and mortality. I want to be six again.
I want to think that everyone, including myself, will live forever because I don’t know the concept of death. I want to be oblivious to the complications of life and be overly excited by the little things again.
I want television to be something I watch for fun, not something used for escape from the things I should be doing. I want to live knowing the little things that I find exciting will always make me as happy as when I first learned them. I want to be six again.
I remember not seeing the world as a whole, but rather being aware of only the things that directly concerned me. I want to be naive enough to think that if I’m happy, so is everyone else.
I want to walk down the beach and think only of the sand beneath my feet and the possibility of finding that blue piece of sea glass I’m looking for.
I want to spend my afternoons climbing trees & playing stickball with my young Brooklyn, NY friends, letting the grownups worry about time, the dentist and how to find the money to fix the old car.
I want to wonder what I’ll do when I grow up and what I’ll be, who I’ll be and not worry about what I’ll do if this doesn’t work out. I want that time back.
I want to use it now as an escape, so that when my computer crashes, or I have a mountain of paperwork, depressed friends, or a fight or bittersweet memories of times gone by, or second thoughts about so many things……….
I can travel back and build a snowman, without thinking about anything except whether the snow sticks together and what I can possibly use for the snowman’s mouth.
I want to be six again……..

-S.S.

Reply:

Very good. When we’re young everyone wants to grow up fast and be an adult and when we get there-faster than expected-we want to be young again. Nobody told me to savor my childhood but looking back those were probably the best days even though we might not have thought sonm then. But we can still go back in our minds and even in reality. If u have your health u can go to the beach etc and still do some of those
things. As grandma Rose would say’ It’s never too late . Will add an appropriate picture later when I find it. Thanks Stan

Who Knew POPEYE the Sailor Man really existed…..

His real name was Frank “Rocky” Fiegel.  He was born in 1868 in Poland and, as a child, immigrated to the United States with his parents, who settled down in a small town in Illinois. As a young man, Rocky went to sea.  After a 20 year career as a sailor in the Merchant Marines, Fiegel retired.  He was later hired by Wiebusch’s Tavern in the city of Chester, Illinois as a ‘Bouncer’ to maintain order in the rowdy bar.

Rocky quickly developed a reputation for always being involved in fighting (and usually winning).  As a result, he had a deformed eye (“Pop-eye”).  He also ‘always’ smoked his pipe, so he always spoke out of one side of his mouth.  In his spare time as a Bouncer, Rocky would entertain the customers by regaling them with exciting stories of adventures he claimed to have had over his career as a sailor crossing the ‘Seven Seas.’

The creator of Popeye, Elzie Crisler Segar, grew up in Chester and, as a young man, met Rocky at the tavern and would sit for hours listening to the old sailor’s amazing ‘sea’ stories.’  Years later, Segar became a cartoonist and developed a comic strip called ‘Thimble Theater.’ He honored Fiegel by asking if he could model his new comic strip character, ‘Popeye the Sailor Man,’ after him.  Naturally Fiegel was flattered and agreed.

Segar claimed that ‘Olive Oyl,’ along with other characters, was also loosely based on an actual person.  She was Dora Paskel, owner of a small grocery store in Chester.  She apparently actually looked much like the Olive Oyl character in his comics.  He claimed she even dressed much the same way.

Through the years, Segar kept in touch with Rocky and always helped him with money; giving him a small percentage of what he earned from his ‘Popeye’ illustrations.WHO didn’t love the cartoons???  We watched them religiously… so funny, so moral… each story had a good ending… wonder if kids these days even KNOW who Popeye is???  who knew he was a real man??  awesome!!!