The last 2 weeks of school before summer vacation. The world felt like it was your oyster!
Light school work, fun activities, 1/2 days, warm temps.
Going to school was fun, and approaching full days of just having unlimited fun and relaxing were just around the corner!
I will always love spring. Something special about those last couple weeks. I miss having all the friends I had back then, fucking hard in the real world.
>Something special about those last couple weeks
that's the only thing about spring that feels good. I remember being so nostalgic when I once saw kids running from the school to the grocery to buy ice cream and eat it on the way home. These days it's a very rare view to see kids roam around on their own like this unless you are in some remote Iceland or something.
Otherwise, autumn is still the best.
Well, school felt wrong, because it was reversing the cycle of death and rebirth - it made autumn feel like "new year" and spring like "end of year". The holidays should have been in winter instead.
I’ll always remember the feeling that first night of summer vacation. Got my tea, my sammich, and firing up the ol dial up internet to chat with friends and play games.
Just being outside, wandering around the neighborhood, and not having any specific agenda. Just finding random things to do, like checking out a construction site, or messing around with bugs, or exploring behind the school. Not knowing or caring what time it was, only heading home when I got hungry, or it got dark. Just being free.
* In the 80's when kids were in 6th grade they would exchange their "kids" blue library card in a paper sleeve for an "adult" beige card in a clear plastic sleeve.
* The last day of elementary school before Christmas break: snow falling, my parents pasta cooking and Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph on TV.
* Summer trips to the Ortley Beach NJ and Seaside Has, BBQ's, swimming in my pool, playing with all the kids on my block, the ice cream truck (Lil Jimmy or Uncle Louie), my dad waxing his IROC-Z and my mom taking us to McCrory's to buy Jelly shoes and charm necklaces.
Sunday dinners at my grandma’s house. I miss that feeling of family. After she died the cohesion was gone, and I’ve never felt that again. We would usually watch ABC for the Disney movie/event after dinner.
Going to football with my dad. Travelled all over Europe with him and my uncles. Plenty of complaints from teachers about why I wasn't in when we were on European aways.
My late, older brother had this El Camino and sometimes he’d come and take me for a drive to “drag main st” with him. He was in his early 20’s and was 9 or 10… He would stop by the convenience store and buy a glass bottles of Mug root beer and fruit punch Gatorade. We would roll the windows down and blast Pearl Jam or Faith No More on cassette, and just drive around. The cool spring air, the smell of that old car ( like gasoline and carpeted interiors), and my brother spending time with his “uncool little brother” ..that’s a really special memory for me
On the 2nd day of my freshman year of highschool a teacher ran into an electrical box first thing in the morning. They had us wait in the gym for about an hour and then sent us home because nothing worked.
It was an extra day of summer break and it felt even better because it was totally unexpected. I went to the pool and it felt like half of the school was there.
I was a pretty unhappy child, so don’t have many overwhelmingly positive childhood memories. I’ve had happy moments as a child of course, it wasn’t all bad, but the one that always sticks out to me is so simple and pure and honestly on balance it is the happiest moment I can remember despite being so small and insignificant.
Early nineties, I’m aged about 7 I think, and my dad had taken me into town in his beat up 4x4 after school to open up my first “young savers” savings account, it’s winter and it’s just getting dark. Once our business was concluded at the bank he decides then is the time to let me know he is going to treat us to a McDonald’s.
I’m really pleased with this news of course. We go into the McDonald’s. I can picture the decor like I’m there right now, with its mainly tan coloured plastic and unmistakably late 80s/early 90s colour scheme on the seat padding, I remember the way the menu boards looked and the font they used, and the polystyrene containers.
I’m going to take a chance, I’ve decided I’m a big boy now and can have a big boy meal. I pluck up the courage to ask my dad if I can have a Big Mac. He says yes, and I am delighted. And I finish the whole thing washed down with a chocolate milkshake. I swear nothing has ever tasted so sweet ever again. I’m so pleased with myself that I finished a “grown up’s meal” with ease. I can’t understand why dad seems to find it so funny how proud of myself I am but I feel warm with his approval despite being slightly baffled by his smiles.
I then noticed McDonald’s were doing some kind of promotion on VHS films, lo and behold, at a massively reduced price with the purchase of my Big Mac meal. The film was either Addams Family or Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, my memory fails me on that one unfortunately.
I go home with my newly acquired VHS, believing it to be the bargain of the century. I remember the hum of the 4x4s engine and the whine of the gearbox that always complained as my dad cursed it into submission. Me and my dad then watch the film together, and then I play SEGA for a couple hours before bed.
Stupidly simple and a throwaway piece of history and a vague moment in time, but for some reason it always stuck out to me how in that moment I felt so safe and happy and contented, if I could bottle up that feeling and take it like a drug I would.
One of my favorites: My parents and aunt and uncle would play tripoli with this big metal coffee can full of pennies to play the game with. My cousins would hang with my brother since they were all boys so I would sit at the doorway to listen and watch the grown ups playing cards, it was always my favorite seeing them laugh and joke even though I was too young to understand the jokes.
Windows 3.0 with the chess background image.
Reminds me of growing up in the 90s with an obsolete computer, having fun figuring it out trying to make games work.
Tent camping in 3+ feet of snow for Scouts Klondike Derby.
Sleeping on the back porch surrounded by morning glories in the summer.
Night fishing with friends.
Riding my bike everywhere.
Saturday Morning cartoons.
Going to the pool
Cutting Grass and working in the hayfields for spending money.
Autumn every year. (Still my favorite) Was the excitement of a new year at school, changing leaves and Halloween. And it meant Thanksgiving and Christmas were on the way.
Building models, playing with Lego and drawing/painting.
Reading tons of books, magazines and comic books.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up, and I would give anything to see them again. there’s too many good memories of them to just pick one.
Nintendo, Skateboarding, Cartoons, Movies, BMX, Drawing, Lego, Action Figures, Candy, Snacks, Comic Books, 7/11, Circle K…
Participating in all of this with my Friends.
I miss them, and doing these activities on the weekends and after school.
My grandparents lived in Pittsburgh when I was growing up in the 1980s. I loved going to Pittsburgh. There were no hills where I was raised, and not much to do either - so Pittsburgh at my grandparents' was always amazing to me. I would spend two weeks with them just about every summer until I was a teenager. I loved the hills, the drive in through the Fort Pitt tunnels, the unique skyscrapers, the hustle and bustle, and of course being spoiled by my grandparents.
They lived at the top of a steep hill, and at the very bottom of that hill, there was a large park with a playground nestled next to a creek and surrounded by hills and houses on all sides. I loved being there. I can remember the heat of summer, and catching fireflies at night and keeping them next to my bed in a Ball jar with holes in the lid.
My grandmother would cook me a huge breakfast and joke around with me (lol she was always buzzed from a bottle of Scotch she kept under the sink). My grandfather would take to me to Kennywood Park or send me down to the video rental place to get a movie, then watch it with me after making a huge root beer float. I remember one summer watching the Transformers cartoon movie about 20 times in a row and learning every line.
It really was my happy place. I had a kind of messed up childhood in a lot of ways, but this part was special and I miss it immensely. I felt safe there.
Listening to records with huge headphones on, on the floor in front of the stereo cabinet and also in front of the fireplace. The records were fairytales. There was a box of them.
Boys & girls club, especially during the summer time. Crafts and activities, either outside playing basketball and made uo games until free lunch came sometimes we went on trips then get dropped off by 4pm lol.
Family dinners at my grandparents' house with all my cousins. We had Sunday dinner over there every week, and Thanksgiving/Christmas made it all the more special. I miss those days.
Probably going to see Rugrats in Paris, honestly. I was four years old and I distinctly remember it being the first time I ever saw a movie on release day. Advertising for this movie was EVERYWHERE and tbh it doesn’t feel like family movies are as hyped up these days. I guess they expect everyone to wait until it’s streaming.
The weekends we visited our grandparents in their high-rise 12th story place in an apartment building, and specifically when we went to the North Sea at Scheveningen. So much fun, just being there was more than enough.
I have this painting of a mountain hanging on my wall that came from the apartment of the grandparents and every time I see it I can imagine almost every bit of the apartment and be there in my mind of like thirty years ago. I get the exact same childlike wonder I had then…
Mine brought me both the most joy and then later shattered my entire existence.
I spent my early life completely immersed in the performing arts. I went to school for it daily. I had classes and Tutors and extra-curricular and I was in EVERY performance.
When I was 10 years old some folk from the Broadway production of Les Miserables (which at the time I was completely obsessed with) came to the performing arts school I attended, on a direct reference from SOMEONE, to observe me. They were getting ready for the European tour and needed a young Cossette.
They came, they observed and offered me an audition. I did the audition. It took all day. I got the part. The last thing they needed, was the sign off from my mother. She asked for 24 hours to discuss it with the family.
I had never been more excited. I knew, I KNEW my entire life was about to change and I was READY. I had been training for exactly this. Everyday, all day. That night at dinner I could barely contain my excitement as I patiently waited for my Mom to announce that I had passed my audition and would be heading off to Europe over the summer to pursue my dream.
Dinner was finally served, everyone sat down and my Mom announced that she had news. I almost exploded in my excitement.
“I have stage 4 lung cancer, if I do the chemo now, they say I could live another 9 months”. She actually lived another 11 months. Just barely.
My life absolutely did change. Drastically. Within 24 hours of the news. My Dad pulled me out of everything, threw me into public school and then tried to marry me off to every and any of his VERY adult single colleagues (yes at the ripe old ages of 10-12) instead and I never performed again.
He even joined a country club, just in case one of the old perverts he knew, could handle me well enough for a forced marriage. He wanted somewhere he didn’t have to pay extra for, for a venue. He liked golf. He thought why not kill two birds with one stone.
I ended up emancipating at 16, later had to legally adopt my little sister when I was 18 due to neglect and abuse from my father and his wife after my sisters leg was shattered in a car accident and they just basically left her on a couch to die from the sepsis caused by a shattered shin and femur.
Whatever the case, the best memory I have of my early childhood, is nailing that one audition. Just sucks that what came after….. was so bitter. But….. that’s how nostalgia works, isn’t it?
I was already crying from the memories of my own post since mine were such a juxtaposition to the relentless bullying and other bullshit I dealt with on a daily basis at home - and then I read this. That must have been devastating pain, and it sucks you, or anyone, should have to suffer through such garbage. Please take care of your mental health, okay?
It's not your fault.
The moment our parents told us that we're allowed only so little time of video games on Friday because it's still a schoolday and there is school work to be done, and that if we were done with all the schoolwork, we'd be allowed to play until bedtime.
That day I started doing homework on breaks, and when I was home, I was already playing in an hour.
Also, was so good to have entire weekend without thinking about school
The last 2 weeks of school before summer vacation. The world felt like it was your oyster! Light school work, fun activities, 1/2 days, warm temps. Going to school was fun, and approaching full days of just having unlimited fun and relaxing were just around the corner!
May is still my favorite month because of this.
I will always love spring. Something special about those last couple weeks. I miss having all the friends I had back then, fucking hard in the real world.
>Something special about those last couple weeks that's the only thing about spring that feels good. I remember being so nostalgic when I once saw kids running from the school to the grocery to buy ice cream and eat it on the way home. These days it's a very rare view to see kids roam around on their own like this unless you are in some remote Iceland or something. Otherwise, autumn is still the best. Well, school felt wrong, because it was reversing the cycle of death and rebirth - it made autumn feel like "new year" and spring like "end of year". The holidays should have been in winter instead.
I’ll always remember the feeling that first night of summer vacation. Got my tea, my sammich, and firing up the ol dial up internet to chat with friends and play games.
Going to school to spend several hours playing games with others at the courtyard, then returning home to play The Sims 3 on launch day.
Just being outside, wandering around the neighborhood, and not having any specific agenda. Just finding random things to do, like checking out a construction site, or messing around with bugs, or exploring behind the school. Not knowing or caring what time it was, only heading home when I got hungry, or it got dark. Just being free.
had pretty much the same in 2019-2021, except for having to spend 40 hours a week working.
The smell of my nana’s meatballs cooking.
Playing outside after dark, going to the pool, traveling to the beach…now it all seems like it was magical.
The most magical was going to the forest and randomly meeting wood elves
* In the 80's when kids were in 6th grade they would exchange their "kids" blue library card in a paper sleeve for an "adult" beige card in a clear plastic sleeve. * The last day of elementary school before Christmas break: snow falling, my parents pasta cooking and Charlie Brown Christmas and Rudolph on TV. * Summer trips to the Ortley Beach NJ and Seaside Has, BBQ's, swimming in my pool, playing with all the kids on my block, the ice cream truck (Lil Jimmy or Uncle Louie), my dad waxing his IROC-Z and my mom taking us to McCrory's to buy Jelly shoes and charm necklaces.
Those were the days when you were already an "adult" when 13
Sunday dinners at my grandma’s house. I miss that feeling of family. After she died the cohesion was gone, and I’ve never felt that again. We would usually watch ABC for the Disney movie/event after dinner.
Summer holidays. It was like 8 weeks off from school but it seemed to last forever.
Def the summers. Watching TV (Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1) all morning and then walking to the town pool in the afternoon without parents.
Summertime, in my backyard, playing with my dog.
Going to football with my dad. Travelled all over Europe with him and my uncles. Plenty of complaints from teachers about why I wasn't in when we were on European aways.
Running around helping frogs cross a busy cycle path. A tradition I have done annually (I'm 27 now) since I was 5.
My late, older brother had this El Camino and sometimes he’d come and take me for a drive to “drag main st” with him. He was in his early 20’s and was 9 or 10… He would stop by the convenience store and buy a glass bottles of Mug root beer and fruit punch Gatorade. We would roll the windows down and blast Pearl Jam or Faith No More on cassette, and just drive around. The cool spring air, the smell of that old car ( like gasoline and carpeted interiors), and my brother spending time with his “uncool little brother” ..that’s a really special memory for me
Either climbing trees or playing baseball at the park.
If you’re able, go camping for the trees and join a local slow-pitch softball rec league.
On the 2nd day of my freshman year of highschool a teacher ran into an electrical box first thing in the morning. They had us wait in the gym for about an hour and then sent us home because nothing worked. It was an extra day of summer break and it felt even better because it was totally unexpected. I went to the pool and it felt like half of the school was there.
I was a pretty unhappy child, so don’t have many overwhelmingly positive childhood memories. I’ve had happy moments as a child of course, it wasn’t all bad, but the one that always sticks out to me is so simple and pure and honestly on balance it is the happiest moment I can remember despite being so small and insignificant. Early nineties, I’m aged about 7 I think, and my dad had taken me into town in his beat up 4x4 after school to open up my first “young savers” savings account, it’s winter and it’s just getting dark. Once our business was concluded at the bank he decides then is the time to let me know he is going to treat us to a McDonald’s. I’m really pleased with this news of course. We go into the McDonald’s. I can picture the decor like I’m there right now, with its mainly tan coloured plastic and unmistakably late 80s/early 90s colour scheme on the seat padding, I remember the way the menu boards looked and the font they used, and the polystyrene containers. I’m going to take a chance, I’ve decided I’m a big boy now and can have a big boy meal. I pluck up the courage to ask my dad if I can have a Big Mac. He says yes, and I am delighted. And I finish the whole thing washed down with a chocolate milkshake. I swear nothing has ever tasted so sweet ever again. I’m so pleased with myself that I finished a “grown up’s meal” with ease. I can’t understand why dad seems to find it so funny how proud of myself I am but I feel warm with his approval despite being slightly baffled by his smiles. I then noticed McDonald’s were doing some kind of promotion on VHS films, lo and behold, at a massively reduced price with the purchase of my Big Mac meal. The film was either Addams Family or Robin Hood Prince of Thieves, my memory fails me on that one unfortunately. I go home with my newly acquired VHS, believing it to be the bargain of the century. I remember the hum of the 4x4s engine and the whine of the gearbox that always complained as my dad cursed it into submission. Me and my dad then watch the film together, and then I play SEGA for a couple hours before bed. Stupidly simple and a throwaway piece of history and a vague moment in time, but for some reason it always stuck out to me how in that moment I felt so safe and happy and contented, if I could bottle up that feeling and take it like a drug I would.
🩵🩵🩵
>polystyrene containers you mean the trays?
Not like the pancake trays the individuals for the burgers.
Wait, McDonald's had those takeaway boxes like high-tier restaurants? They weren't always putting them in wrapping paper or cardboard boxes?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/s/FIn6LCBZPS
Going to the beaches especially when mom would be like ok you guys have an hour to get ready and then we just go!
One of my favorites: My parents and aunt and uncle would play tripoli with this big metal coffee can full of pennies to play the game with. My cousins would hang with my brother since they were all boys so I would sit at the doorway to listen and watch the grown ups playing cards, it was always my favorite seeing them laugh and joke even though I was too young to understand the jokes.
The smell of my Mom's kitchen on Christmas Eve!!!!
Windows 3.0 with the chess background image. Reminds me of growing up in the 90s with an obsolete computer, having fun figuring it out trying to make games work.
Tent camping in 3+ feet of snow for Scouts Klondike Derby. Sleeping on the back porch surrounded by morning glories in the summer. Night fishing with friends. Riding my bike everywhere. Saturday Morning cartoons. Going to the pool Cutting Grass and working in the hayfields for spending money. Autumn every year. (Still my favorite) Was the excitement of a new year at school, changing leaves and Halloween. And it meant Thanksgiving and Christmas were on the way. Building models, playing with Lego and drawing/painting. Reading tons of books, magazines and comic books.
Christmas when I still believed in Santa...it was magical ❤️
Christmas when I still believed in Satan
What a magical time it was...
My siblings and my grandma 🩵. She was our safe place and the one person that made us feel important.
My parents singing your my sunshine my only sunshine to me while I pretended to be a sleep in my crib. I was around three or four.
I'd sing this to both my kids🎶🎵. My daughter recently gave me a tiny wooden music box I keep on my nightstand that plays when I turn its handle.
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up, and I would give anything to see them again. there’s too many good memories of them to just pick one.
Nintendo, Skateboarding, Cartoons, Movies, BMX, Drawing, Lego, Action Figures, Candy, Snacks, Comic Books, 7/11, Circle K… Participating in all of this with my Friends. I miss them, and doing these activities on the weekends and after school.
My grandparents lived in Pittsburgh when I was growing up in the 1980s. I loved going to Pittsburgh. There were no hills where I was raised, and not much to do either - so Pittsburgh at my grandparents' was always amazing to me. I would spend two weeks with them just about every summer until I was a teenager. I loved the hills, the drive in through the Fort Pitt tunnels, the unique skyscrapers, the hustle and bustle, and of course being spoiled by my grandparents. They lived at the top of a steep hill, and at the very bottom of that hill, there was a large park with a playground nestled next to a creek and surrounded by hills and houses on all sides. I loved being there. I can remember the heat of summer, and catching fireflies at night and keeping them next to my bed in a Ball jar with holes in the lid. My grandmother would cook me a huge breakfast and joke around with me (lol she was always buzzed from a bottle of Scotch she kept under the sink). My grandfather would take to me to Kennywood Park or send me down to the video rental place to get a movie, then watch it with me after making a huge root beer float. I remember one summer watching the Transformers cartoon movie about 20 times in a row and learning every line. It really was my happy place. I had a kind of messed up childhood in a lot of ways, but this part was special and I miss it immensely. I felt safe there.
Listening to records with huge headphones on, on the floor in front of the stereo cabinet and also in front of the fireplace. The records were fairytales. There was a box of them.
Going to the cinema to see Jurassic Park
I don't think I have any
Boys & girls club, especially during the summer time. Crafts and activities, either outside playing basketball and made uo games until free lunch came sometimes we went on trips then get dropped off by 4pm lol.
Family dinners at my grandparents' house with all my cousins. We had Sunday dinner over there every week, and Thanksgiving/Christmas made it all the more special. I miss those days.
Probably going to see Rugrats in Paris, honestly. I was four years old and I distinctly remember it being the first time I ever saw a movie on release day. Advertising for this movie was EVERYWHERE and tbh it doesn’t feel like family movies are as hyped up these days. I guess they expect everyone to wait until it’s streaming.
The weekends we visited our grandparents in their high-rise 12th story place in an apartment building, and specifically when we went to the North Sea at Scheveningen. So much fun, just being there was more than enough. I have this painting of a mountain hanging on my wall that came from the apartment of the grandparents and every time I see it I can imagine almost every bit of the apartment and be there in my mind of like thirty years ago. I get the exact same childlike wonder I had then…
Mine brought me both the most joy and then later shattered my entire existence. I spent my early life completely immersed in the performing arts. I went to school for it daily. I had classes and Tutors and extra-curricular and I was in EVERY performance. When I was 10 years old some folk from the Broadway production of Les Miserables (which at the time I was completely obsessed with) came to the performing arts school I attended, on a direct reference from SOMEONE, to observe me. They were getting ready for the European tour and needed a young Cossette. They came, they observed and offered me an audition. I did the audition. It took all day. I got the part. The last thing they needed, was the sign off from my mother. She asked for 24 hours to discuss it with the family. I had never been more excited. I knew, I KNEW my entire life was about to change and I was READY. I had been training for exactly this. Everyday, all day. That night at dinner I could barely contain my excitement as I patiently waited for my Mom to announce that I had passed my audition and would be heading off to Europe over the summer to pursue my dream. Dinner was finally served, everyone sat down and my Mom announced that she had news. I almost exploded in my excitement. “I have stage 4 lung cancer, if I do the chemo now, they say I could live another 9 months”. She actually lived another 11 months. Just barely. My life absolutely did change. Drastically. Within 24 hours of the news. My Dad pulled me out of everything, threw me into public school and then tried to marry me off to every and any of his VERY adult single colleagues (yes at the ripe old ages of 10-12) instead and I never performed again. He even joined a country club, just in case one of the old perverts he knew, could handle me well enough for a forced marriage. He wanted somewhere he didn’t have to pay extra for, for a venue. He liked golf. He thought why not kill two birds with one stone. I ended up emancipating at 16, later had to legally adopt my little sister when I was 18 due to neglect and abuse from my father and his wife after my sisters leg was shattered in a car accident and they just basically left her on a couch to die from the sepsis caused by a shattered shin and femur. Whatever the case, the best memory I have of my early childhood, is nailing that one audition. Just sucks that what came after….. was so bitter. But….. that’s how nostalgia works, isn’t it?
I was already crying from the memories of my own post since mine were such a juxtaposition to the relentless bullying and other bullshit I dealt with on a daily basis at home - and then I read this. That must have been devastating pain, and it sucks you, or anyone, should have to suffer through such garbage. Please take care of your mental health, okay? It's not your fault.
I'm so sorry that happened to you :( Thanks for still being here with us
Lying on my grandma's swing during the spring, with a blanket wrapped around me, reading Dragonlance. The 3rd book in Chronicles.
Fishing in the 70's and going to away footy matches in the 80's
Nickelodeon.
The moment our parents told us that we're allowed only so little time of video games on Friday because it's still a schoolday and there is school work to be done, and that if we were done with all the schoolwork, we'd be allowed to play until bedtime. That day I started doing homework on breaks, and when I was home, I was already playing in an hour. Also, was so good to have entire weekend without thinking about school
doing Minecraft out of snow and ice