DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN  BACK IN  1957...? All the girls had ugly gym uniforms? It took five minutes for the TV warm up? Nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids got home from school? Nobody owned a purebred dog? When a quarter was a decent allowance? You'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces? All your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done every day and wore high heels?                         You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking, all for free, every time? And you didn't pay for air? And, you got trading stamps to boot? Laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box so did oatmeal  boxes had "green dishes" in them? It was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents? They threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed. . . and they did? When a 57 Chevy was everyone's dream car...to cruise, peel out, lay rubber or watch submarine races, and people went steady? No one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the doors were never locked in your cars or your home ? Lying on your back in the grass with your friends and saying things like, "That cloud looks like a " and playing baseball with no adults to help kids with the rules of the game? Stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger? And with all our progress, don't you just wish, just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace, and share it with our children of today? When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home? Basically we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was greater than the threat. Send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Doody and the Peanut Gallery, the Lone Ranger, The Shadow Knows, As well as summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, Hula Hoops, bowling and visits to the pool, and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar, finding money in little red round cylinders of salted peanuts. Did you ever put peanuts in your Coke a Cola? Didn't that feel good, just to go back and say, "Yeah, I remember that"? I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a double dog dare to pass it on. To remember what a double dog dare is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and too young to care. How many of these do you remember? Candy cigarettes Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes Blackjack, Clove ,Chum gum and Teaberry chewing gum Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stopper or  did the iceman delivery you blocks of ice to the door? Newsreels before the movie P.F. Fliers Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(WO land 4-601). 8~ Party lines Peashooters Howdy Doody 45 and 78 RPM records Green  and Gunn Bro. Stamps Hi-Fi's  and sock hops and ducktail haircuts and pink poodle skirts and can can slips Metal ice cubes trays with levers Mimeograph paper Beanie and Cecil Roller-skate keys Cork pop guns Drive-ins for food and movie (one night a week you could get into see the double feature movie at the drive-ins for $!.00 a carload,) as many as you could pack in  even in the trunk. Studebaker and Edsels and cool cars had sunvisors and fender skirts Washtub wringers The door to door Fuller brush ,Rayleigh, Jewel-T men tape recorders Tinker    Toys Erector Sets The Fort Apache Play Set Lincoln Logs 15 cent McDonald hamburger ,10 cent soda  pops , movies were just 25 cents Penny candy and gum  35 cent a gallon gasoline Jiffy Pop popcorn Do you remember a time when... Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"? Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"? "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?     Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening? It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"? The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"? Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot? A foot of snow was a dream come true? Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures? "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense? Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles? The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team? War was a card game? Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle? Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin? Water balloons were the ultimate weapon? If you can remember most or all of these, then you have lived!!!!!!! Pass this on to anyone who may need a break from their "grown-up" life.  I double-dog-dare you!