Back In The Day

Back in the day when this B-63 Mack was a working truck and not a shiny show truck it has become today fuel was hardly a concern. Heck, life in America was truly one long summer vacation compared to other parts of the world. We had Elvis and Harleys, hot rods and Saturday nights, roller skating bell hops and pixie sticks, Texas ice houses and drive in movies. Brother the things you could do with 5 bucks and a car.

Independence Day was the grandest party of the year. The biggest. Well, second to Christmas for sure but ya didn't shoot fireworks on that day now did ya! Black Cat firecrackers were to be feared and cherry bombs took out any plumbing flushed down a commode, just don't get caught doin it. There was a technique to throwing Black Cats, usually learned by experience. You lit the fuse and did an underhand toss. I threw one once, only once, overhanded. The dern thing blew up just as it was passing my right ear. Man that was loud. Took off my fingernail to boot!

Boys just had to take the family sedan and make it better. Not that moms approved. But what the heck, it was better than getting into trouble in other ways. Girls rolled up their bobby socks and chewed gum and generally drove the boys wild! They got the rest of the money left over from the car.


The music got loud and proud and sometimes crazy. It became the voice of the now generation. And we started misbehavin in all new kinda ways. Long hair. Dope. Protests. Dye tied shirts. Sit ins. Nonsense now. It started the decline of the indulgent American life. I miss it.

What is really bad about today's economy is that our children and grandchildren will never know the America I and some of you grew up in. They'll just have to hear stories from us old timers about the good ole days, much like it was for us when we were growing up. Except our folks left us a legacy to build on. We knew we were going to have a better life than what they had. Not now. Just what are we leaving for our kids? I sure hope we can leave them something better than a sun setting in a rain storm.