I was traveling down the highway today on my way to worship service, when I began thinking about some of my fondest childhood memories. The nostalgia flooded my mind, and I couldn’t help but make a list. Check out this list and see if you can identify:

1. Childhood games – Hide and Seek (we called it hide and go seek), Catch a girl kiss a girl, Mr. Freeze, Mother May I, Running Bases, Piggy,

2. Sitting on the porch getting my hair braided (I know you all will find this hard to believe, but I got proof)

3. Block parties during “clean up” week

4. Playing spades and straight and bid whist (ran a couple Bostons, with no signals)

5. Staying outside after the street lights came on

6. House parties and school dances

7. Home Run Inn Pizza, Lake Shore Drive, and Rush Street on Friday nights

8. Rehearsing for Black History plays at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church until 1 or 2 in the morning

9. Friday night choir rehearsal and youth church

10. Watching Creature Feature and Rod Serling’s Night Gallery under the covers

11. Watching Saturday morning cartoons with a cake bowl full of Fruit Loops, Trix, Super Sugar Crisp, Rice and Cocoa Krispies, Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, or Honey Combs. You just couldn’t watch cartoons eating Wheaties or Corn Flakes.

12. Going to the McVickers or Oriental on Saturday morning (You couldn’t go to those theaters without your shoes sticking to the floor and somebody yelling “RAT!”

13.  Kiddie Land, Adventure Land, Fun Town (Sing it with me: Fun Town Fun Town for the kids and you, 95th and Stoney Island Avenue – Fun Town), Great America

14. Big Wheels and Schwinn Bicycles

15. Kangols, name buckle belts, Augie Silk Shirts, and blowout kits

16. LPs and 45s

17. Unlimited barbeque ribs and chicken at family reunions

18. Playing practical jokes on drunk uncles at that same reunion

19. Seeing who could stay up the longest (There’s nothing new under the sun. My sons and their friends do this when they have sleepovers)

20. Baseball games and Cub Scout camping trips

21. Red Legs Baseball and neighborhood football in the snow

I know there are more memories, but these are the thoughts that were prominent in my mind today. Associated with these memories are many people that God used to shape me into the person that I am today.

What are some of your fondest childhood memories? With which memories on my list can you identify? How have these memories shaped you into the person you are today?

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