Ahhhh! Memories!

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Each year that I grow older, I find that my childhood memories become oddly clearer. Like they are bookmarked in my mind. My memories seem to sneak up and find me when I least expect them to show up. Last weekend while channel surfing I ran across a cartoon and began watching intently. Expecting it to be funny or at least humorous and very disappointed when it was serious and kind of boring. This sure wasn't a cartoon that I would have watched when I was a kid! Roadrunner or Pink Panther was what I had considered boring in my childhood days. You would only watch these cartoons if you were waiting for a good one to come on next. As I watched this cartoon, I could feel myself going through the bookmarked place in my brain that contained my cartoon watching days and I remember being 6 years old and waking up on a Saturday morning before anyone else was awake. I would sneak into the kitchen for a big bowl of sugary cereal that I had seen on TV the previous weekend, and had to have at the grocery store! Though my mom warned that it was unhealthy and would rot my teeth out of my head! I still HAD to have it, regardless of the risks that my mom would whisper while going down the cereal isle. frankly, I think she would have learned by that time... that you can't talk a 6 year old out of wanting something that they saw on Saturday morning TV! After getting my cereal, it was like MY Saturday Morning routine was under way as I would make my way into the living room.. to sit in my dad's favorite chair, where I would literally spend the rest of the morning watching Bugs Bunny, Chip 'n Dale, Porky and Elmer Fudd! A time before VCRs and DVDs.. these cartoons were only available at certain times and if you miss it.. You've missed it! I always dreamed of having a machine that would play only what I wanted, whenever I wanted it, but that kind of machine was only in your imagination! who would have thought that it would ever become reality? I imagine the inventor of the VCR was a person who had missed his or her Saturday morning TV and decided to do something about it! Saturday mornings was the treat at the end of the week, the thing that you looked forward to with great anticipation. A few hours of entertainment and great commercials of the latest toys and foods geared toward... [b]ME! [/b] In between the wonderful commercials, I would watch my favorite "funny" and "un-serious" cartoons and had a blast all by myself! It was like riding with auto pilot on! Nothing to think too hard on and still feel completely entertained! It truly was great! Nothing at all like today's cartoons where there is actually a plot, a violent scene or two, good verses evil, no one laughs, and you actually have to have an IQ to understand what's going on in these things that they call "cartoons"! I found myself feeling sorry for these kids that will never know the frivolously wonderful cartoons that filled my childhood. No thinking at all was required to understand what Tom and Jerry was all about.. They didn't have super powers, they didn't carry a high tech weapon but they out-smarted each other using common everyday items and a ounce of common sense.. or none at all (which made for some high quality entertainment there!). and in 30 minutes they were the worst enemies and the best of friends. never a continuation and always funny. Do you ever wonder what happened to those cartoons? Now they all live on DVD on some 1/2 price rack while these mini dramatic cartoons are the rage! I remember buying a copy of Bugs Bunny for my kids when they were small and my son looked at me and asked in a serious tone "where is his light saber?!" and "That Elmer guy will never catch a rabbit without a power blaster!".. "MOM! No one got killed, reincarnated or had a spell cast on them!" The way he acted, you would have thought I was trying to "dumb" him up! I sat down and explained that these were mommy's cartoons when she was little... and he looked at me as though I came from a distant planet filled with fools and life forms that didn't deserve to be seen! And he even asked "can we change the channel?" I couldn't believe that he thought this was boring! MY Saturday hero's consisted of Scooby Doo and Tweety, while HIS were some sexy woman with her boobies half exposed and some over dramatic dude in jump suit! MINE had no powers, HIS had powers that they got from a ball or magician or some freak of nature! MY cartoons were mindless entertainment, HIS were a mini dramas filled with villains and weaponry that would boggle the mind! And then it dawned on me.... MY Saturday morning hero's will never be back on the Saturday morning screen, but will forever live within my memories where they are bookmarked, and kept alive, only by my inner child who would still enjoy a few hours of mindless TV and big bowl of sugary cereal .. and... oh yeah! sitting my dad's favorite chair! What are your favorite childhood memories? ?