We watched The Wilburn Brothers, Porter Wagner, Flatt & Scruggs on Saturday evening on a black and white TV. A Coke was .06 in a 6 oz. bottle. Chips were .10. Cigarettes were .23 a pack at San Ann Service Stations. Gas was .20 a gallon and the Ford Falcon would go a long way on a "dollars worth". The saddest day was when JFK was assassinated. My Dad built a fallout shelter in fear of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Elementary teachers made us learn a Bible verse each week and devotional readings and prayer were on the P.A. system each morning. School lunches were .25 and were actually very good. Milk came in a bottle with a foil cap. Mom was at home while Dad worked to make a living. Dad smoked a pipe with Sir Walter Raleigh pipe tobacco in it and the aroma of that smoke smelled good. We didn't know it would kill you. We never had Red Man. We had Bloodhound and Black Moriah chewing tobacco. Red Seal or Bruton was the snuff of choice. Who could forget Dizzy Dean and the Saturday baseball games that he called that were sponsored by Falstaff. Times were different sure enough. I am not saying that all those things were right, Bible reading and prayer excepted. It was just the way it was. Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley were the news anchors. Country Boy Eddie was on every morning while we stood in front of the heater dressing for school. Biscuits came out of Mom's oven instead of Hardees. The only deer around was at Borden Springs or Chocollocco. Quail were on almost every fence row around cotton fields and corn fields on Sand Mountain. Pinto beans and potatoes were the main staple in our diet because they saved your parents lives during the depression. I could go on and on. Ah, the good old days. Dad is now gone and Mom is losing her memory, but I will never forget those times as a child. My grandchildren will never know the country that I grew up in. We never played anything that remotely resembled a video game. We played "kick the can" and "hide and go seek". You didn't have to worry about the neighbors fooling with the kids because you actually knew who your neighbors were. Bream were caught on a cane pole with Catawba worms and there was no such thing as a spinning reel or mono-filament fishing line. The fastest thing on the lake was a 10 h.p Johnson or Evinrude until the 20 h.p. Merc came along. If you couldn't reach the bottom with the paddle, it was deep. Summer days were long and hot, but the Blue Hole was always a good place to cool off. The windows were raised at night and the sound of a box fan and crickets would put you to sleep real quick. The greatest treat of your life was a .15 hamburger followed by a .05 ice cream cone at the local mom and pop hamburger joint on a Friday evening. That was pay-day. Mom always carried Dad his lunch on Friday and picked up his check to go shopping at the A&P. Green stamps were saved for redemption for some of the coolest things, like a set of matching tea glasses. Well that is enough. Don't make fun of me now.