‘… and now, a few memories from back in the day’

When I was 16 …

• I knew a lot, but thought I knew a lot more.
• I was having trouble mastering the stick shift, parallel parking and traffic in general.
• Dogs on my block often ran free, played with each other and rarely caused trouble.
• I preferred bowling to baseball, football and just about any other sport you could name.
• I thought President Kennedy was cool. So was his wife.
• Only boys could play on school-sponsored teams.
• I went to school with a Froggy, Frada, Maedi, Mouse and Smyzer but not a single Jamaal.
• I liked trigonometry and physics more than English and history.
• I had not yet heard of The Beatles, Vietnam, Watergate or Soupy Sales.
• I thought Marguerite Burke’s chicken noodle casserole was the best food ever. I thought her niece was pretty hot, too.
• I couldn’t understand why someone would pay $1 more just to get a record in stereo.
• I was shocked when a co-worker told me he’d had sex on a desk with the wife of a man standing no more than 10 feet from us. I was shocked again when a court case showed he wasn’t lying.
• Most of the people I knew preferred taking the train to flying.
• I still enjoyed an occasional game of APBA baseball and didn’t understand why some people preferred Big League Manager.
• I had yet to miss a day of high school, excused or otherwise.
• Mail was delivered twice a day around Christmas because of the heavy volume.
• Talk of the future rarely went beyond plans for the next weekend.
• If someone asked what I wanted to do when I grow up, I’d make something up.

Today, I’m still making it up. What about you?

Writing prompt of the day: Write about the first time you drove a car.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Photo: A few members of the Council Bluffs, Iowa, Thomas Jefferson High School sophomore basketball team in 1961.