Just one more time on resolutions

Folks, I have determined that New Year resolutions are a waste of my time. I did spend a little time with pen and paper in hand and I jotted down 10 of my character defects to use as the basis for my 2010 resolutions.

On rechecking the list, I determined that nine out of 10 of my defects had character and the one left really did not deserve a resolve.

I thought of a much more pleasant way to start this New Year. I sat in my favorite rocking chair and resolved to enjoy some memories that brought a smile to my face; things I would like to re-live, just one more time.

Now don’t think I am regressing to my childhood days to escape reality because I really do like much of what is going on today.

I like my computer, except on deadline days, and I like TV as long as there is a football game and my team wins just as the Vandals did on that nightmarish blue field down in Boise. I like indoor plumbing and I would not want to go back to trotting the path to that little house out back.

Yet, there are some things I do miss and I enjoyed 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, a cone of cream, not a cone of chemicals.

You people who have been around awhile know what I mean. I would like to stand just one more time at a penny candy counter, nose pressed against the glass, trying to make up my mind whether to spend my two pennies on chocolate drops, haystacks, or two orange slices.

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

It would be great to turn back the clock and hear someone say, “You are welcome” instead of “no problem,” and to talk to a young person (below 60 years of age) who did not say “like” every other word. “Like you know, like, what I, like, mean, dude.”

I want to again talk to someone who doesn’t say, “you know” after each sentence. My head gets tired bobbing up and down indicating yes, when I have no idea what they are talking about. I would prefer to live in a world where a compulsive person would not tell me that I just ended the previous sentence with a preposition.

I wish I could walk down a street without encountering some “dude” who thinks his trousers should be buckled around his knees rather than his waist.

He may be trying to show off the pretty underwear he got from Santa but I think it goes deeper than that -— but I am confused. I don’t know if he is trying to tell me he has one, or that he is one. 

I would love to visit a real service station where you get service. Wind shields 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 visit the meat counter where the meat is cut to order, held up so you can see what it looks like, and then wrapped in brown paper rather than entombed in plastic. I preferred the feeling that I was leaving a butcher shop rather than a chemistry lab.

Yep, as I rocked away, I wished I could persuade my grandkids to break away from the silly stuff they call music and develop a taste for the grand old songs of my era. Songs full of meaning that gave knowledge of life and eternal wisdom.

Do you remember how intelligent and mature they were? How about those three little fishes that swam in that Itty Bitty Poo — remember it? This grand old song ends with, “Boop boop dit-tem dat-tem what-tem chu — a true tonic for mind and soul.

In my day, the mentally 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 count your fingers to be sure they were all still there.