I REMEMBER WHEN

I remember when100 octane gasoline sold for 15 cents a gallon, you could fix your Model A Ford with a screw driver and a pair of pliers: cigarettes sold for 15 cents a pack and you could buy a loose, single cigarette at the corner store for a penny: when you could identify "crazy" people as the ones talking to themselves as they walked down the street: when you had to go to a carnival side-show to see "freaks"  I remember being able to walk anywhere in town, day or night, and feeling safe: baseball games at the playground that started at 8 in the morning and were still going at dinner time

I remember when I spoke to my mother in Italian and my father in English: when my older brother came home from a nearby school kindergarten when the teacher gave him  permission to go to the bathroom;  my mother's trunk full of "bargains" she couldn't resist even though she didn't need them: my oldest brother, who loved to fish, getting up to take me fishing at the crack of dawn to be the first one there, and the last to leave, even as the mosquitoes were biting and the bats were dive-bombing, with the never ending plea, "Just one more cast!"

I remember that Sunday morning, sitting on top of a step-ladder and painting our kitchen ceiling when the music stopped to announce that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor: wondering exactly what that meant: watching my oldest brother leave for the Army and war while the other was in school training to become an officer in the Marine Corps: wondering if it would last long enough for me to go: turning 18 and leaving for the Navy.

Most of all, I remember we all came home and shortly afterward, I brought home a beautiful young WAVE I had met in the Navy and made my bride: ten of the cutest babies you've ever seen, five of each and I remember we lived happily forever after, at least until now.