When We Were Kids...

My last blog, Remembering the summers, prompted me to look back a bit and review all the things that we used to do in the 70s and 80s that would be deemed absolutely unacceptable or at least frowned upon by today’s parents (meaning us). Here’s what I came up with and I’m sure there’s more that I just can’t remember yet:

• Having a teenage mom, who I love very much and thank her for deciding to keep me. Love you mom (and dad, of course)



Family Picture; from left to right: My sister, mom, dad, me, and my brother!

• Doctors pulling me out with super-sized 1970 style forceps, which nearly blinded me and caused brain damage (albeit the latter may still hold true J); rumour has it that I was a 12-pounder kid... I think it's just a rumour!!!
• Deciding that at age 5 I was old enough to go grocery shopping on my own; this didn’t go too well as it caused a serious panic in the neighbourhood
• Walking, running and jumping off 10-feet tall neighbourhood walls
• Riding bikes without helmets
• Never mind airbags in cars; seat-belts were optional at the time of purchase J
• Sitting, standing and occasionally rolling around in the back seat of cars; and if we were lucky and behaved well, we would be awarded a chance to sit in the trunk of the station wagon… oh, good times.
• Jumping into a shallow home-made pond, only to break my nose by hitting the bottom of the “pool”
• Never mind smoking 6 meters away from entry points; people used to smoke in the room, in the car, in restaurants, beaches; really, there wasn’t a place that you could not light one up
• Playing with the mercury that came inside the thermometers… funny, how that little swirling silver-colour ball can cause mercury-poisoning, eh? Who knew?
• Playing with lead- painted toys… forget that, we played with lead itself if we could get our hands on it J
• Bullies? We weren’t afraid of bullies because we all had a friend in the neighbourhood that would take care of that problem; albeit we had to pay “our friend” to stand up for us. If the neighbourhood bully wasn’t around to protect you, you could ask your dad to find the “mean” kid and give him a good spanking
• Grabbing a cab and going to school at the age of 10… and then walking back home in the afternoons, all by myself
• And the list goes on and on…

I would love to hear your stories and I hope you’ll add your piece to this.

Thanks for reading,

Armin

Remembering the summers...



Picture Courtesy of Google Image: Unknown Photographer!



There’s something about the warmth of a late-spring sun that takes me to my childhood years during the elementary and junior high schools.

The end of school year; final exams, which was then followed by report cards; playing football (soccer) in the back alleys with a little and usually deflated plastic ball; bottle of Coca Cola (or Canada Dry Orange) and muffin as a substitute for breakfast, lunch and dinner; riding our bikes, without a helmet, freely all over the streets in “our” neighbourhood; late wake-up calls and even later bed-times; unlimited black-and-white TV shows on our little red-tube television set with a rabbit antenna; hours of Cowboys & Indians or Cops & Robbers street play-time, which was usually followed by hours of reading or re-readings of my favourite books and comics, which included Adventures of Tintin (I had all of the hard-cover books in the series); helping my dad with the set-up of the “Cooler” (an old fashioned air-conditioning mechanical system that simply worked by splashing water on a straw filter while forcing wind through it… it worked great).

But most importantly, I miss the sound of untamed laughter of my childhood friends as it echoed through the streets and alleys of Tehran.  I’m sorry that I only got to experience it for the first 10 years of my life before it was stolen from us.

Thanks for reading and may your life be full of untamed laughter,

Armin

Drum Rolls Please...

And so my second blog is now ready and published: My Journey: The Second Half. I hope you'll enjoy it. However, My Journey: The First 40 Years will continue telling stories of my past so please check back in often as it will be updated as it did before.

Thanks for all the love,
Armin