Pramrider
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Please bear with me....feeling a bit nostalgic this evening. What do I miss from my early childhood? For one, I miss going shopping with my mother in the big downtown department stores. I can still remember her and I getting on a streetcar (we lived along one of the last few lines operating in Baltimore) and riding downtown. The department stores seemed bigger than life to a pre-schooler. This Youtube video from Japan reminds me so much of the stores we would go in, with women who worked as operators and elevator announcer/coordinators back before the days of automated elevators. Only difference is they didn't do any bowing over here.
YouTube - Crazy Japanese Jobs
I also miss the toys I had as a young child - tonka toys, tricycle, wagon, along with other toys. I've bought replacements on ebay for a couple of them like my wagon and toy accordian, and have constantly looked for other replacements as well. I always took very good care of my toys, keeping them in near mint condition. I plan on restoring the toys I've replaced them with to near new condition - just the way mine would still have been if I still had them.
Too, I miss neighborhood grocery shopping with my mom, riding up the street in my stroller (still have vague memories of it) and enjoying the rhymic bump-bump sound of the wheels over the sidewalk joints and cracks. The old A&P grocery store down the street was housed in the basement of two adjoining buildings. Up the other way on our street was an Acme supermarket. Nice thing about the Acme trip was where the street crossed over the Western Maryland RR and I'd always hoped we'd see a train going underneath.
Finally, I miss settling down in bed in the front bedroom of our house, being lulled to sleep by the singing wires as the streetcars rumbled by in the night, with light shadows from the windows moving around the room from the head lights. As I mentioned in the "Would You Like To Be a Baby Again" thread, I would love to relive a few of those pre-school age days all over again.
Unfortunately, my early home went down hill, becoming one of the most crime and drug infested neighborhoods on the westside of town. Last time I rode through there on company business (1983) it was hardly recognizable. Stores where we shopped had their windows all bricked up with little peep holes for windows now, or else they were boarded up completely. The houses where we lived were falling apart, looking nothing like the way they do in old photos we have. It was very depressing for me to see my early childhood home all but destroyed. Even the streetcars that I rode and fell asleep by were long gone, being replaced by busses in late 1963. :frown: Depressing indeed.
Then I see streetcar videos, like this one from Philadelphia, and it brings back such a flood of tram riding memories since we had these same PCC trolleys in Baltimore, though a slightly different version.
YouTube - Septa PCC II's
Yeah, I have a problem living in the past sometimes.:frown: Is there anything you really miss about your early childhood you'd like to share?
~Pramrider
YouTube - Crazy Japanese Jobs
I also miss the toys I had as a young child - tonka toys, tricycle, wagon, along with other toys. I've bought replacements on ebay for a couple of them like my wagon and toy accordian, and have constantly looked for other replacements as well. I always took very good care of my toys, keeping them in near mint condition. I plan on restoring the toys I've replaced them with to near new condition - just the way mine would still have been if I still had them.
Too, I miss neighborhood grocery shopping with my mom, riding up the street in my stroller (still have vague memories of it) and enjoying the rhymic bump-bump sound of the wheels over the sidewalk joints and cracks. The old A&P grocery store down the street was housed in the basement of two adjoining buildings. Up the other way on our street was an Acme supermarket. Nice thing about the Acme trip was where the street crossed over the Western Maryland RR and I'd always hoped we'd see a train going underneath.
Finally, I miss settling down in bed in the front bedroom of our house, being lulled to sleep by the singing wires as the streetcars rumbled by in the night, with light shadows from the windows moving around the room from the head lights. As I mentioned in the "Would You Like To Be a Baby Again" thread, I would love to relive a few of those pre-school age days all over again.
Unfortunately, my early home went down hill, becoming one of the most crime and drug infested neighborhoods on the westside of town. Last time I rode through there on company business (1983) it was hardly recognizable. Stores where we shopped had their windows all bricked up with little peep holes for windows now, or else they were boarded up completely. The houses where we lived were falling apart, looking nothing like the way they do in old photos we have. It was very depressing for me to see my early childhood home all but destroyed. Even the streetcars that I rode and fell asleep by were long gone, being replaced by busses in late 1963. :frown: Depressing indeed.
Then I see streetcar videos, like this one from Philadelphia, and it brings back such a flood of tram riding memories since we had these same PCC trolleys in Baltimore, though a slightly different version.
YouTube - Septa PCC II's
Yeah, I have a problem living in the past sometimes.:frown: Is there anything you really miss about your early childhood you'd like to share?
~Pramrider
