[AfterMyNap]

For some crazy reason I fell into a long daydream today as old summer memories flooded my mind. 1972. About 10 of us neighborhood girls used to assemble on the same backyard beach every single day of summer. We always came equipped with the necessities, our AM transistor radios that we simul-tuned to WNIC and sang along to MacArthur Park —secretly wondering why anyone would leave a cake out in the rain.

What a time it was.

What was fun when your life was simpler?

[tamiloo]

1972 Summer...just graduated!! didn't know what I was going to do...did a lot of playing as well. Horse riding, fishing, a lot of fishing...just having fun!! Now this is the norm...

[SallyC]

My life was never simple...I had to fight tooth and nail for everything. My Bro was the one treated to the simple life...spoiled rotten.

Butttttttt, I did have some simple pleasures, such as memories similar to yours, Cindy. We didn't live near a beach but did have a favorite pool to hang. Lots of fun and dancing on the grass, getting burnt to a crisp and even a little swimming, when we got too hot. Never got our hair wet though.....Unless someone dunked us.

Fun Times...Thanks Cin..

[Koala77]

1972 ! Mmmm! The year before I got married and life as I knew it ceased to exist!

Until then I too spent most of the year on the beach with friends, playing music, and/or partying. I certainly do have some wonderful memories of those times.

[Risby]

Wow, I had to stop and think what I was doing!!
I was finishing my first year of nursing school. We went for 36 months.....no summers off for us!
Two weeks vacation each year.
So I was sweltering my days in class or in the hospital [which was NOT air-conditioned back then]
After class or clinical we ran to the pool which just had been installed and chilled there.

[Kitty]

Summer of '72.......I was 12 years old. I have such good memories of life as a child. I was truly blessed to have wonderful parents. I was the baby of three girls. My Dad thought I could do no wrong (well, he was WRONG but I didn't want to disappoint him so I let him believe this!!).

I remember a picnic table in our backyard. During the summer my Mom would buy a watermelon and cover the table with newspaper. We'd all sit out back and eat watermelon and talk and laugh and Mom would always get the "silly giggles" as she called it and she'd laugh at just about anything....she was SUCH a good Mom.

I would love to go back to that simpler way of life - I miss it so much. It seemed so much more relaxed back then. No cell phones, pagers, computers.....how on earth did we ever survive??

[Blessings2You]

1972 was not the simple life for me. By November, I had a beautiful new daughter and an almost three year old son. But the year itself was a nightmare. I had to quit my job because of morning sickness and migraines. We moved to a falling-down old house...across the street from my ex-husband's parents. (That's a whole 'nother story)

I didn't have a car, so I was stuck in the house alll day with my toddler, my morning sickness, the carpenter ants, bats and maggots. I nearly miscarried several times, and became aware that I was married to a man who didn't love me (duh, but I was 22).

I sat up in bed most of the night trying to keep the heartburn at bay, and having horrific nightmares when I did sleep. We seldom had hot water, the septic backed up, and it was so cold that the water in the cat dish would freeze overnight. The walls were insulated with old newspapers and bat guano.

I would say 1962 was my last "simple" year. I was twelve, and the world was my oyster. My friend Millie's mother would take us to Lake Sunapee in the summer where we could swim and giggle and daydream.

The next year I watched on television as the news unfolded that four little girls were murdered in a church bombing in Birmingham, and for the first time in my life I understood that there were people mean enough to hurt a young, innocent person for no reason other than meanness. I realized that someone could hurt ME!! After that, life wasn't simple anymore.

Sorry, Cindy. I'll do halcyon days when I'm in a better frame of mind.

[soxmom]

The summer of 72 I was 8 years old. It was my fathers last year
of internship and we lived on the Cape. We lived in a trailor on a large
lake and everyday we went to the ocean or to the lake. My father
had a sailboat and every weekend we went sailing and had big
barbeques with the Doc's family that my dad was working with. Ahhhh,
life was so uncomplicated(at least for me).

Sox

[AfterMyNap]

Thanks everybody, '72 was just the random year that got me thinking, when was your simple life, and what was it like? That year I was 9 and thought I was 19.

But! In '75 I got my first 10-speed and I was much older and wiser, simple things changed a lot that summer.

[hollym]

I don't remember a year in particular. I do remember walking to the park with my friend every day in the summer and spending all day swimming at the pool there. I was probably about 10, so it was around 1980.

Funny, but I can't imagine letting my 11 year old walk to the pool all by himself and go swimming all day and come home whenever he feels like it. Times have changed, huh? It was simpler (and safer) then in so many ways.