It never ceases to amaze people who know me that I can and do enjoy the simple things in life. Most all people that know me have said to me at one time or another, “It sure doesn’t take much to amuse (and or) excite you does it”? My answer is a resounding, No it doesn’t! I strongly suspect this comes from my childhood and the times we grew up in when we didn’t have all the snazzy things we have these days. So many things that started out as convenient, optional things seem to have evolved into “necessities” these days. For example, take cell phones. They started out as play things of the rich, these days have become must haves and ubiquitous, hanging on just about everyone’s belt or in their purses these days. (I used to have one myself when they were relatively new, but got rid of it shortly thereafter since I don’t always want to be contacted when I am in a “hermit/loner” mood). Heck, I don’t even wear a wristwatch and haven’t for the last several years. It’s especially appropriate since I’ve retired since I don’t care what time it is now or even what day of the week it is! One of the simple things we all did back in the 1950’s in grade school was to slide on ice. Along the east end of the old school was the best place for an ice sliding place. It even went downhill slightly so we could really build up speed! If the conditions were right, the sliding path might be 10 feet or longer! We would spend every recess sliding on the ice and a long line would form of all the guys. I don’t recall any girls sliding with us. Of course in those days all girls had “Cooties” and were not permitted to be around any of us boys, let alone sliding on the ice with us! (Hmmm, after being single for the last 20 years, I’m starting to wonder if girls maybe really do have Cooties!) Maybe we were really on to something in those days! We would all take our turn at getting a running start and sliding sideways. If one of us would fall at the end of the sliding rink, someone would yell, JAM PILE!”  Then all the guys would slide into the first guy lying on the ground and a gigantic pile of us would rapidly ensue! When “the bell rang” some of us were wet from rolling in the snow and we could sit on the heater blower vents to dry off during class. That was always neat and we purposefully got wet from the snow and ice just so we could sit on the heater in our classroom.  For some reason, if some “sissy” kid was wearing rubber buckle up boots, he wasn’t allowed to slide on the rink with us! I’m not sure of our rationale for this. The 2 theories I have is that in the first place since boots had “tread” on the soles that would have caused the ice to get rough and slow us down, or (more likely) only sissies wore boots at recess. If your shoes were worn out and had smooth leather soles, then you could really slide at a high rate of speed. When there was no ice or if on occasion the “Big kids” would take over our sliding rink and kick us off it, we would go on the slide and go down standing up! One secret we had to make the slide more slippery was to take empty Becker’s Potato Chip bags and rub them all up and down the slide. Since the bags were made out of waxed paper, this would put a nice coat of wax on the metal slide! Pretty ingenious of us wasn’t it! This is yet another testimony to the fact that indeed, the best things in life are free!