#MemoryLane Mondays- Gotta Go Back, Back to School Again...

School starts for my kids this week, which means, I'm singing my "mommy" version of Back to School Again by The Four Tops, ala the beginning of Grease 2-

A lot of parents right now are probably also singing their own versions of some sort of giddy ♫kids-are-going-back-to-school-and-out-of-my-hair-and-off-my-last-nerve♫ medley, as well. I know I can't be the only one and I'm sure there are also some who envy my position because school isn't starting back yet for their children. Here in Kentucky it's not uncommon to start school at the beginning of August, some don't start till the middle of the month and other summer-worn parents have to wait until after Labor Day.

I'm thinking that's where the Phineas and Ferb creators get 104 days of summer vacation. We sure didn't have that many days when I was a kid and right now I'm counting only around 75-76 days on my kids' break, but you know what, if I count the additional days of August until after Labor Day weekend- yeah, there would be 104, almost exactly.

Of course, I'll miss them when the step aboard that big yellow bus and I'll probably miss them for a few more minutes after that, but then I'll be so tickled with the peace and quiet and the entire house to myself, that I'll run around doing my happy dance all over the furniture. In the nude.

But seriously- I wouldn't let a little parental freedom go to my head like that, or not for long anyway.

I have an 8th grader who's dreading the beginning of school because he'd rather stay home and play his DS all the time and I have a 4th grader who's starting a new school and is overjoyed to be heading back so she can see her friends, make new friends in her classes now that they've jumbled them up and get to learn about traveling from classroom to classroom....4th grade is, after all, the beginning of training students how to move between multiple classrooms and answer to several teachers.

I had to stop and think back on it, but yeah, 4th grade was that year for me, too. My homeroom teacher was Mrs. Harlow and I had two other teachers, just like my daughter will this year. For her the learning curve is going to be how to open her combination lock without getting flustered between classes. We didn't have that. We had lockers in our classroom that didn't have to have locks.

What do I remember most about elementary school?

Taking my Cabbage Patch dolls on Fridays so my friend and I could play at recess.
Swinging.
The field trip to the State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion.
The trip to Shakertown (aka Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill) in 5th Grade- got to see them shear sheep and ride the Dixie Belle Riverboat.
The Sidewalk Chalk Art contests (I participated in 4th grade on my own, in 6th I was paired with Ted B. for it because we were two of the best artists in class).
The field trip to Fort Boonesborough.
The 6th grade dance on the last day of school.
The last song? Bon Jovi's Never Say Goodbye.

8th grade is also prominent in my recollection.

Brand new 8th grade wing and shiny new lockers. Nothing like the "smell" of a newly added on building.
Feeling a little more like a grown-up every day.
Still dreading P.E. class.
Listening to Mr. Kays play his guitar in Science class.
Art classes were still out in the old building- but we had access via a long hall instead of having to go outside to it.
Mrs. Smith discussing Cats, the Broadway musical in Reading.
Hoping to not be picked on like I'd been in 7th grade.
Being challenged to "math" races by Jason M. I STILL don't understand his fascination. He always got his math done well before me, but *nenner-nenner*ing me about it baffled me. I didn't know it was a sporting event.
Mr. Fallis falling asleep during study hall and sometimes health class.
Oh, and Mr. Hawkins {sigh}, my homeroom and history teacher. 24 didn't sound that much older than 15 at the time. Yeah, that's just some of the things I remember about 8th grade.
 

Do you have kids of your own now? What do you remember about YOUR days in school? Are there things that still remind you of way back when? Music, Movies, Places, People, Things?

Share with me some of your memories.

♫Stranded at the #drive-in...branded a fool..." A #family fun first...

 

Franklin Drive-In Theatre in Franklin, Kentucky

(image linked to their website)

This past Saturday night my husband and I did something together we've never done. It was actually really special and different. Of course, I'd never done it before at all with anyone, but he had a lot of times in his life. I mean, he did it with his parents and his friends, and now we've shared the experience with our kids.

We took the kids to see movies at the drive-in. 

(Yeah, I can't get "Sandy" or John Travolta's falsetto whining out of my head now either, much as I love Grease)

My parents first date was at the Twin Hills Drive-In in Harrodsburg, KY in the 1970s. My mom said she didn't eat before they left, so while my dad tried to smoke a pipe to impress her, she snuck off to the concession stand and wolfed down a burger to quiet her rumbling stomach. But, in all the time I was growing up we never went to the drive-in, which was closed in the mid-80s. Truth is, we never went to the movies when I was growing up.

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was on my first date when I was 18 or 19 years old- We went to see "I Love Trouble" with Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte. It was the longest, most horrible movie I'd ever seen and it could have tainted my view of going to the theater altogether except that my date and I got the biggest kick out of laughing about how horrible it was and how it was the longest 2 hours of our lives.

My next experience was better- "Billy Madison" with my friend and her boyfriend. That movie went over much better and after that, going to the movies became more commonplace for me. I went with friends or on dates. And then there was the time period after having my daughter that we didn't go to the movies much at all. Taking little kids to the theater just does not happen. Now that my stepson is 13 and our daughter is 9, we go a little more often, but not a lot because we have to weigh the cost of the tickets and concessions against what's in the bank and what bills need to be paid. Indoor theaters are not cheap.

BUT- this past weekend when we realized we'd have both kids (stepson stayed the weekend with us instead of going to his mom's) we tried to come up with something that we could all do together. At first, we thought about going to the zoo. Nashville's not that far, nor is Louisville, but the idea of walking all day long was a bit daunting, especially if it were hot. And then the idea of whether there were any old-fashioned drive-ins still around these parts came up.

We did some online searches and there was one in Tennessee we were looking at but then we discovered there was one open a county over from us and they only charge $15 a carload. Not too shabby and the movies playing were suitable- The Pirates: Band of Misfits and Men in Black 3, which hubby and I'd been wanting to see.

 We got there just before the gates opened around 6:30 and soon they began allowing the cars through, so we found a good spot and headed to the concessions to get supper. My stepson said their chicken poppers were great and their tator tots. Hubby, daughter and I got cheeseburgers- the good kind like you get at the fair- the kind  you just can't get anywhere else. Daughter's fries were great as were the spicy wedges hubby and I got. We ate in the car and relaxed until it got dark.

The family next to us had teenaged daughters, so they blew bubbles to pass the time. The only thing that might have been better was if we'd brought some folding chairs to sit in outside the car, but it was a cool evening, so sitting in our car worked all right, other than my daughter not being able to see while my seat was in the upright position and she overdid it eating Junior Mints and cotton candy during the movie and felt a little sick on the ride home around midnight.

At intermission, my husband went to the concession stand and got himself a couple slices of Domino's pizza and got me a warm powdered sugar plate of heavenly goodness I call a funnel cake. YU-U-U-MMY! Overall, it was a great family outing, and also a first for myself and both the kids, so it's an experience we can always say we shared together as a first and hopefully it won't be our last time. The movies were good. The Pirate movie was okay, in my opinion but I was way more interested in seeing if the MIB 3 movie would be better than it's predecessor (the 2nd one) as I loved the first one, but wasn't that impressed with the story in the 2nd one and I personally found the 3rd one to be laugh out loud funny, it was nice to see those characters again and I have to give props to Josh Brolin for his Tommy Lee Jones impersonation and it also had a very heart-warming part that made me love Agents J & K even more. I truly enjoyed it and I can't wait until we can go again!

 Please don't forget that I'm also visiting at

Teresa Reasor's My Muse's Musings

this week and would love it if you stopped by to chat or say hi!

Memory Lane Monday- Barbie & Ken

Barbie & Ken
A Romance for the Ages

Note it says
Make her kiss! See her lips pucker! Hear the sound! See the lipstick mark!

Long before I put pen to paper and let Love bloom with words, I was playing out the workings of relationships and Love with my Barbie and Ken. I mean, after all, THEY were made for each other- I mean SERIOUSLY made for each other. There was never another man in Barbie's life. Her "parents" were conveniently absent, though she did later have to take on the responsibilities of her younger siblings who came out of the woodwork, it was just her and Ken, right?

And what little girl, any time after 1961, didn't want to believe that someday she would grow up and find HER Ken and live happily-ever-after?

This was the way most girls were taught to believe in love besides what they learned from their parents and what was on television- I took a lot of cue from watching Days of Our Lives from the time I was 5 years-old and up. What didn't my mom's soap opera have? Love triangles, marriages, divorce, deception, reunions, amnesia, etc.

And Barbie and Ken were also all those fairy tales I'd heard brought to life a la marionettes sans strings. You had some say in what happened, how long they were together, whether they fought and made up, whether they might ever get married, have a career, have a family.

Note it says
"Shave" him! He's athletic. He's all man.

And you probably made them do all that. I know my younger sister and I sure did. We spent a lot of time setting up detailed story lines about how Barbie and Ken's date would go, or fighting over who got to play Barbie and who got Ken. Sometimes our ideas didn't mesh, so Ken would say or do something annoying and Barbie would kick him to the curb and my sister and I would pout and put the dolls away, vowing we'd NEVER play with them together EVER again. But we did.

There might even still be old audio cassettes somewhere of us playing dolls. We were always recording how the story played out, like some sort of 1980's version of a radio soap opera. I always got stuck talking in a deep manly voice for Ken.

The images I've used today are of two dolls I once had. I don't know what I ever did with them, but I don't have them anymore- I just have really fond memories of them and from what I gather online they are now very collectible if still in mint condition as they are rather rare.

Kissing Barbie came with a tiny tube of "lipstick" that you could put on her lips. I think, from descriptions I've read on ebay- more of a "stamper" that you pressed on her lips. When you depressed the button in her back, her lips would seem to pucker and she would make this "smooching" sound.

The Sport and Shave Ken came with a bunch of athletic, sporty accessories and a marker that you could "draw" his beard on and then a toy "razor" that you could "shave" it off with.

I believe Barbie and Ken taught me something though- how to take what's fictional and give it heart. I still love my old dolls- some of which I've passed down to my daughter- the ones that are still in decent shape and haven't lost their heads or become discolored by pigment separations in the plastic/rubber. A lot of the stuff has deteriorated over time, but the one thing that hasn't are the good memories I have that remind me that stories of the heart have been with me for nearly all my life.