Spend new year in the past 'just one more time'

Folks, this year I am not going to waste my time making New Year's resolutions. I am just going to live with my character defects for; after all, some of them do have character.

This year I plan to spend my time in a much more pleasant way. I am going to sit in my favorite rocking chair and think about things I would like to re-live, just one more time. I don't think I am regressing to my childhood days to escape reality because I really do like most of what is going on today.

I love my computer, except on deadline days, and I like TV as long as there is a ball game in progress. I like indoor plumbing and in no way would I want to go back to trotting the path to that little house out back.

Yet, there are some things I do miss and I plan on going back to visit them in my memory. Let me tell you about some of them.

I would give anything to have a real double-decker ice cream cone. I know there are things around they call ice cream but I mean the real stuff.

I am talking about a cone oaf cream, not a cone of chemicals that we often get today. You people that have been around awhile you know what I mean. I would like to stand just one more time at a penny candy counter, with my nose pressed against the glass, trying to make up my mind whether to spend my two cents on chocolate drops, haystacks, or two orange slices.

I would like to step into an old-fashioned bakery and just look around for a time and experience the smell of bread baking and the magic of the doughnut machine as it dipped each doughnut in its sugary coating.

I would like to be able to lick my fingers after polishing off one of those gems. We didn't have to use a pump bottle of hand sanitizer to "leave our hands feeling soft and refreshed." We licked them clean.

I would like to turn back the clock and hear someone say, "You are welcome" instead of "No problem."

The way I think about this is if you didn't go to a little trouble doing what you did for me then why did I thank you in the first place. I would like to talk to a young person (below 60 years of age) that did not say "like" every other word. "Like you know like what I like mean, dude."

I want to again talk to someone that doesn't say, "you know" after each sentence. My head gets tired of bobbing up and down indicating yes when I have no idea what they are talking about.

I would love to visit a real service station where you got service instead of getting robbed. Windshields washed, oil and tires checked, and a real person offering help instead of machines offering stale food.

I would once again like to walk into a grocery store where clerks wear aprons and a smile.

I would like to visit the meat counter where the meat is cut to order, held up so you could see what it looks like, and then wrapped in brown paper. I preferred the feeling that I was leaving a butcher shop rather than a chemistry lab.

In my rumination, I would like to make a phone call and have it answered by a person in English rather than by a computer spitting out numbers to punch, none of which fall in the category I need. I would like to experience, just one more time, people who return their phone calls and show up on time for an appointment.

Yep, I am going to rock away and remember those grand old songs we used to sing. Songs full of meaning that gave knowledge of life and eternal wisdom. They were nothing like the crazy songs the kids sing today. Do you remember how intelligent and mature they were? How about those three little fishes that swam in that itty bitty pool — remember it? This grand old song ends with, "Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem chu. A true tonic for the mind and the soul.

I recall the gifted kids would sing: "Hold tight, hold tight, hold tight, hold tight-Foo-ra-de-ack-a-sa-ki-Want some sea food mama?" Brings tears to your eyes, doesn't it? (You younguns ask your grandparents to sing these songs for you.)

Last but not least, I would like to return to a time when human greed was called human greed, not business. And when you shook hands with a person you didn't have to check your fingers to be sure they were all still there.

I want to come back to the present and wish every one of you a happy and peaceful new year.