Things I Miss from my Childhood

Image is a screencap from the computer game The Oregon Trail

As I get older, the more I'm reminded of the things I enjoyed in my youth that are no longer around...especially when I'm in an antique shop. These things may seem trivial now, but looking back, they helped shape who I am or at least entertained me for hours at end in some way.

1. Panini sticker books: I remember as a little kid, paying something close to a quarter for a pack of baseball stickers to stick on my sticker book. Similar to baseball cards, you would buy a blank album with spots on each page that were numbered. You would then buy the sticker packs and place the stickers in the correct numbered spot in your sticker book. Sort of like a sticker version of a baseball card set. What Panini did that was awesome was that they allowed you to mail in your doubles and they would randomly mail you out more stickers. I collected baseball, basketball, and football albums. I would have collected hockey if my local grocery stores offered them. Along with baseball cards, I would memorize the stats of every player I collected. What shocked me even more while writing this blog...Panini is still in business and they still make sports-related albums.

2. Blockbuster Video: In the 1990's, this was the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night. Picking a movie or two to watch on your night off was a lot different than it is today. You physically had to get off your butt, go to a store, and look at multiple shelves filled with potential movies you may want to watch. On occasion, the movie you wanted to watch was rented out, but you had so many options that you usually could find something else to watch. Today, you simply click away on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or some other streaming site of your choice. The act of "searching" is no longer something that today's youth will ever get to enjoy.

3. The Oregon Trail: At a time when kids were transitioning from having to find ways to entertain themselves to playing video games, The Oregon Trail was one of the first video games that kids in my generation played. Schools would have this game installed in their DOS based computers to teach children about history, computers, and budgeting, all at the same time. That black screen, green graphic, horrible graphics game was something you looked forward to every week. It would be the day of the week that you would try your hardest not to be sick on. There are versions of this game still around, but nothing will beat the 1980's version. If you want to relive your childhood through The Oregon Trail, there are still emulators out there online that allow you to play it. On a side note, no kid will ever understand the disappointing phrase of "You have died of dysentery" like kids in the 1980's did.

4. Scholastic Book Order Forms: Kids attending public schools in the 1980's would get these mini catalogs passed out once every month to two months that would feature books that you could buy cheaply. It may have been because of this child's version of the book of the month club that I learned to enjoy reading. It was also because of this program that I learned to love and now miss the next item on this list.

5. Choose Your Own Adventure books: A series of books created by the publisher Bantam Books, a kid could read these books and have a different ending every time depending on the choices they made during the story. Big in the 1980's and 1990's, these books came in multiple genres including science-fiction, mystery, and more. I would look forward to the newest Scholastic Book Order Form to be handed out at school so I could beg for my parents to allow me to get the newest addition to the Bantam Books collection.

6. Scented Markers: Originally created to encourage you to draw more and also created during a time period where kids were presented with a vast amount of products that appealed to their ole factory senses (i.e. scratch'n'sniff stickers), these markers carried a scent that would go along with the color. A blueberry scent may have come from the blue marker. An apple scent may have come from the red marker. It's possible these markers could be the reason for so many junkies later on in life. Who knows if the chemicals that created the scent that you enjoyed sniffing were hazardous to your health. Either way, you liked drawing with these markers as a kid.

7. Elvira's Movie Macabre: No, the movies weren't A-list movies, but Elvira would introduce her audience to old horror movies from years before. The movies were often campy, but Elvira had a way of keeping them fun and giving new life to movies that would have otherwise been forgotten with time.

8. Cinnamon Toothpicks: Yes, this was a thing, at least in the early 1990's for Anaheim kids. They were toothpicks flavored like cinnamon and you would just pop them in your mouth and drain the flavor away until the toothpick became mushy. This was an actual candy for kids my age.

9. Pencil Wars: Public schools used to have small vending machines that would sell pencils that were covered in various designs. This ended up leading to a craze that would be a form of gambling. One kid would hold a pencil horizontally while the other kid took a turn and flicked this pencil with one of his own. The point was to break the pencil being held horizontally. If you did, that kid would owe you a pencil. Simple, but this was a trend in early 1990's.