There is a good deal of humor going around related to the virus crisis. One of the lists that applies to the situation has one comment in particular that seems to fit The Villages well. The comment is related to the fact that the world is turning upside down. It noted that old folks are sneaking out of the house and their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors! I don’t know for sure about yours, but ours are making every effort to see that we follow the guidelines. Luckily, there is nothing against taking golf cart rides in the evening or I guess in the morning either.
Who would have thought that the little rascals that we used to holler at to get indoors for dinner or whatever would turn the tables on us? Actually, we did not holler for them to come in. The Blonde in the House had a bell that she would ring. It reverberated through out the neighborhood, and the kids knew that they better get home. We had that bell for a long time after the kids left. The Blonde would try to get me off the softball fields by ringing it. Luckily, the fields were too far away, so I was safe. Since we have downsized a couple of times since moving to The Villages, the bell is no longer with us.
Now when I was a kid many many years ago, my mother hardly ever called me – perhaps she was glad I wasn’t messing up the house with my comic books. I knew what time we ate, and I would stroll in on time. In those days, parents didn’t worry about your being out. I went many places that would not be considered safe by today’s standards. For example, when I was six, I would cross Rt 19 outside of Pittsburgh on my bike. Today, you would be lucky, if you could take a step off the curb. We would stay out long after dark running around the neighborhood playing “hide and seek” or some other activity that existed before computers and related items.
The only screens that we saw were at the movies theater assuming that we had a dime to get in. It was even better if we had another dime to buy popcorn, potato chips or a big bag of pretzels at ISALYS – which was also a great ice cream store. In fact, that is where Klondike’s got started, but they only had one flavor then – chocolate over vanilla ice cream. ISALYS also had ice cream that was shaped like a pine tree when it was plopped into a cone. No, the ice cream was not green although they had many flavors, it was the shape of the scoop that did it.
Since I am reminiscing about my days near Pittsburgh, I will have to mention for the other people from there, the chipped ham that we bought at ISALYS. There has never been any as tasty since the stores closed. The other secret about ISALYS was that when you bought your girl friend a cone, you would mention that ISALYS stood for I Shall Always Love You Sweetheart! In my town there I have always wondered what happened to the married couples once ISALYS went out of business. There might be some tragic tales there!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com