Sitting here, this freezing Friday night, I am thinking back to the days of my youth when Friday nights usually meant a sleepover at my buddy Dave's house, which was next door to mine. A quick jaunt out my front door, a turn to the right. and in a matter of seconds, I was at his front door. It was always fun, because his house was different than mine, and like most kids, I think there was always a jealousy that existed when you visited a friend's house and noticed how it was different than yours and had different features and rooms, and what kind of basement was there and what other things did they have that I didn't.
Dave's house had a central vacuum system, which was cool. I had never seen one of those. There was an upstairs, and a family room that was downstairs from the kitchen. The basement wasn't finished or anything, but was clean and had a pool table (which we also had) but it was smaller and we were able to hang blankets off the sides and make a fort. We would crawl underneath and hang football cards around the inside, and thinking of some of them now, we were probably taping a fortune up there, but back then, what kid thought about that? It was fun, safe, and our hanging place. There was a record player down there with a collection of old records filled with old songs. "Shoo Fly Pie" and "I Don't Want Her, You Can Have Her, She's Too Fat For Me" not really PC, but again, nobody thought about that and these were old songs. Just like the original Kenner Star Wars figures. Had them all. Dave and I would play with them and do all sorts of things. Back when imaginary play ruled the day, and video games were a far off dream. Unless Pong counts.
Then, we would settle upstairs on the pull out couch and get ready to stay up for Friday Fright Night on Channel 7. Could be "The Wolfman" or "The Mummy" and maybe "Dracula" or "Frankenstein." All the classic Universal monsters.
It just didn't get any better. Simple. Innocent fun.
There was occasional mischief, but nothing harmful. Just boy stuff. Now there's new types of "boy stuff" and technology has affected that. But memories exist in the hard drive that is our brain, the greatest processor we have. All I have to do is Google my memories. While my operating system still works.
