Summertime Memories: Xennial Reflections

Were your favorite summer shoes as a kid plastic and glittery? Was your childhood curfew determined by the time the street lights came on at night?

If your idea of hydration as an 80's or 90's kid was drinking from your family's hose, you might be a Xennial. And we are too.

Join Dani and Katie as they take a trip down memory lane and talk about some of their favorite summer memories as kids and teens.

This episode was made possible with the following sources:

Slip N' Slide (Wikipedia)

Jelly Shoes (Wikipedia)

Kool-Aid history

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Transcript

Dani Combs: 0:00

Hey, listeners, it's Katie. We had a few little Gremlins in the studio with us when we recorded this episode, so enjoy a little bit of background sound and some other funky things happening, and we will try to get all of them exercised before our next recording session. Thanks for your patience. Love you guys. Happy listening. Have you ever sat down to write an intro for your podcast and suffered extreme writer's block? Yes, yes. Have you ever had like this thought like, Okay, we're gonna talk about summertime. So something about hot girl summer in the intro and then literally gone nowhere with it nowhere. Well, if any of these things have ever happened to you, they're very specific, so probably not. So you might be us. You might be Danny and Katie and the hosts of generation in between the xennial podcast. And today, we are bringing you something not scripted and not really researched. I guess we did end up at No I did research. There is some research in here. The original idea was not researched, though, and this is xennial suburban summertime memories. Welcome. So Danny, tell the listeners like how we came upon this as a topic. I don't remember I did. I think we were just talking about, like, random things from our childhood summers. And we were like, oh, we need to do an episode on that. And so today, we would, like, kind of just had this shared document where we just wrote down random memories. Some stuff is, like, actual objects or places, and some is just random items. Yeah, it'll be fun. We're gonna have some pictures on our socials too. I found some really funny ones. Yay, like, legit 1980s in the street with bikes and so I will neighbors from when I was a kid. So we're just gonna kind of revisit what it was like to be a kid back in the 80s, and how that looks a little different than now, and how some of it kind of is still a thing. Yeah, I was just thinking about one. I don't think we have on here, like, because it was just the Fourth of July, bomb pops, Oh, yeah. I love those as a kid. And my kids will still be like, You got the bomb pops, right for the Fourth of July. And I'm like, Yeah, sure. You know what? They cost so much from, like, the ice cream man, now they do. They're like, $8 or something dumb for a bomb pop, yeah. We have this ice cream truck that goes around our neighborhood. And I was just feeling nice one day, and I had some cash. I had some cash from, like, a voice lesson. So literally, the cash is in my pocket and I'm in the driveway and I hear it coming, and so I'm like, Come on, let's go. I think at $30 in my pocket, it was $38 crazy, and it wasn't even all my kids. It was like, three or four, yeah. And I was like, oh. And they're like, we take Apple Pay. I'm like, All right, well, I guess I'll just keep this $30 in my pocket. It was so expensive. And so I told my kids I was like, Never again, never again, never. But anyway, cool. So do we have any circle backs or shout outs? We're just gonna circle back to how hot it is, because it is miserable out there. It is miserable. Yeah, it's like, even if you go out, my husband and I have been walking before the sun comes up, and it doesn't matter, no, 100% I have some early morning clients, right? So I leave my house at like, six. Doesn't matter if you feel like you're walking into a sauna and it's stays like that all day. But, you know, I will say, I'm gonna shout out all the people who listen that work at theme parks. Oh, man, or have any kind of outdoor job in Florida at this time of year, because bless you. Holy cannolis. Yeah, drink your Gatorade and water people stay hydrated. Seriously. And like theme parks, but also like performers, if you're moving in that or if you're in a costume, right? Oh my gosh, I know they have, like, what is it? Disney has, like, the technology in their costumes, like to supposedly cool them, but still, it's friggin hot. Yeah, it's so hot. So anyway, okay, well, show a shout out to summer. No. Great intro. We don't know how he came upon this topic. This is weird. I don't know it's gonna get upset. I promise we're gonna, just gonna be curious. Jump right in. Yes, we should. Okay. So the very first thing I thought of when I thought of 1980s childhood summertime memories, was slip and slide, which is still going strong. I mean, my kids have had multiple slip and slide action in our house. This one, I did do research just on, like, how it was discovered. Would you like to know? I would. I'm interested. So the original flip and slide was invented by a man named Robert carrier and manufactured by wham O yes, it was first sold in 1961 and the main form is basically just a plastic sheet and some kind of method of. It. And so when the surface is wet, it becomes slippery, and you can slide along it. Okay, that's the basic premise, as we know. So the creator was inspired to make this slip and slide. This is this made me laugh, because his young son and their friends were hosing down and sliding on wet, painted concrete. Oh, yeah, because, you know, when it's painted, it has like a slippery Yeah. So obviously he wanted them to stop doing that. So no, he was an upholsterer. That was his job. And so through his job, he got this long strip of Naga hide. He sewed a tube onto it, to pass a hose into onto the piece of material, and then he punctured the tube sporadically to kind of allow water to spread out along the way. So that was the original slip and slide. So he sold his invention to whammo, where they obviously replaced the Naugahyde with plastic to reduce production costs. And voila, slip and slide has been a family favorite and caused multiple injuries since. I was not gonna say what all I remember about myself using the slip and slide is it always hurt, always, always, it doesn't matter where you put it. And you know, you would try so hard, you know, like, before you put it down, you like, feel the ground, make sure there's no rocks or, like, didn't matter. Always hurts, always, whether you're in the grass. And then I grew up, like on Lake Michigan, and I remember doing it even in, like, sand, oh, but done it in sand, but even soft, quote, unquote, soft sand, when you land on it like that, it hurts, and then it would quickly get wet anyway, and, like, pack and be hard. Let's remember it hurting. And my kids too, like they want to do it so bad, and then they're like, ah, always tears, always tears, always, and some kind of blood involved with flipping slides. Now here's a question for you that I don't know if you I have no idea you're gonna say this. So have you ever done like a DIY, ginormous slip and slide? No, okay, so you do that? Oh my gosh. So some of my fond college memories were at frat houses in the summer, yes, because they would get these giant tarps, huge and a lot of them. There was a few frat houses that were up on big hills, right? And they would put like these giant tarps down and use like Dawn dish soap. And they would even sometimes create like these big pits of water at the end. This is sounds awful. It's our 19 This is really fun, kind of gross, but it was so fun because, you know, a little tiny slip and slide cannot fit a bajillion people at a frat house party at two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and it would break, like, instantly, oh yeah, it would rip. So there was, like, some very like, well done engineering to make this our slimming slide, we might be able to find a picture, because I know my husband participated in these as well. He was probably one of the people who helped make them at his frat house. So I'm going to see if we can find a picture. And I know some of our listeners out there have done these DIY I know, I know they have, but words of the wise, you will hurt yourself. Even worse, I was gonna say, is the tarp, like, thicker? Is it better? Yeah, it's like the, you know, like a tarp, you think of, like a tarp that you like, cover up, like something with. Yeah, that's what they would use. Or I do remember they would sometimes use it almost looked like trash bag material, like, where it was, like, in a big, giant roll. So I don't know what that is, like, a vinyl something, yeah, okay, I don't know it's like, used for construction, too, I think, yeah, more giant slip and slides, construction, demolition, yes. Giant slip and slides. I love it. That's very fun. Okay, slip and slide. I bet a lot of our listeners have some very, I don't know fond is the right word. I know memory, memory, and maybe real day memories. Well, my first one on here, and I'm interested to talk to you about this, because I know you're from the south, yes, and I'm from the Midwest. So I don't know if they even have these in Louisiana, because they don't have them in Florida, but in Northwest Indiana, where I'm from, in the Midwest, during the summer, every night, during twilight, and as it would get dark, there were fireflies. Yes, you did have them. You have them. They do have them. Here they do. I've never seen them. Whoa. Well, maybe I'm getting my locations confused, but we did have them growing up, because I can remember seeing them. Okay, yeah, cool. And I wonder if there's like, different species, depending where you are, too. So Haven't you seen Princess on the frog? There's a firefly, you're right, and that's in New Orleans. Ah, bringing it back to our Disney knowledge. My favorite part of that with the Firefly, I can't remember. Name now. Now our Princess and the Frog fans are going to be upset is when they're like, somebody's like, Oh, he's from far away, and the Firefly goes, Oh, you're from Shreveport. Oh, my gosh, yes. How could I forget the most famous Louisiana Firefly of all time? So did you ever try to catch them. Oh, yeah, okay, they're hard to catch. They're really hard to catch, yeah, but we would catch them, and we would put them in these, like, jars, yes, like mason jars, and then we would be, like, confused when they would die, even, like, puncturing little holes in what, like the aluminum lid or whatever, yeah, still by like, the morning they would die. So I never actually knew what makes fireflies, quote, unquote, light up. So I did a little bit of research. Oh, I never know this either. Yeah. So here's what I found. Fireflies produce light in their special organs, in their abdomens. Oh, I thought it was in their butt. I guess it's their abdomens. Okay? It does look like their butts, though, by combining a chemical called lucif luciferin. So like Lucifer in, I guess, because of the light and the fire, maybe enzymes called luciferase, oxygen and the fuel for cellular work. So entomologists think they control their flashing by regulating how much oxygen goes into their body. So it's like a combo of these special organs and the enzymes in them, and then, like, how they're breathing, huh? Yeah, which is pretty cool science on generation in between. Yeah, look at us. I can't say any of them, but those things, yeah, those are the things. And of course, they're used for lighting their way, staying together, kind of as groups, and then also protection, warning signs to each other. They send each other signals for different things that'd be crazy for our butts lit up, I guess that's not their butts. It's our abdomen. All right, morning, morning. But here's my thing, and this is what I don't understand about science. If they're doing that, yeah, aren't like all the other animals or the things they're warning against also seeing it right? Like, if my stomach just started lighting up and I was trying to warn you of something, wouldn't the other humans or beings around us be like, what's happening, she's more noticeable right now. Run away. Run away now. Or maybe I'd scare them, I don't know, but Well, I've never seen them here in Florida. That doesn't mean they're not here, and we have a lot of local friends. Maybe they can tell us I'm also, like, beachside. So I know sometimes, like, we don't get as many, like, mosquitoes over there and stuff because of the breeze. So maybe they're just not by my house, but there are other places in Florida. But when we went up north a few summers ago, my kids were like, going nuts, trying to catch them all and just follow them around. They're magical. They really are like, I remember so my dad's family, I mentioned them on the Reeve episode. They all live in North Carolina, and they have this big farm, and a lot of the people live around the area, and I can remember we would go. They would have a family reunion every summer. We wouldn't go all the time, because my dad's family is, like, huge, and we would go, and that was one of the coolest things, was seeing all the fireflies, because they have so much land, right? And I remember like and then one year when my kid where Cooper was a baby, this has been a while, my family and my sister, we went up to the ring because we hadn't been a long time. And my kids got to do that. And that was really cool, because they had never seen flyer fries like that. Like we had them in Missouri. We had them in Virginia, but to see, I'm on that big open yeah land, it's, it's magical, right? And it's really special. Summertime, like, beautiful, yeah? And it's like, you, when you think of, like, the image of that, yeah, just a single Firefly, you can feel, yeah, like the Twilight and like the air around you. And it's been a hot day, but maybe now it's finally cooling down, unless you live in Florida. But you know, we're cool, man, it never does. But, yeah, I don't know that was fun one. All right, what else you got? Well, this one kind of went on goes along with slip and slide our prize. Did you ever play in your front yard sprinklers? Oh, yes, oh my gosh, the vest. And this was before people had, like, the automatic sprinklers. Like, I don't even think they were a thing yet. I didn't know anybody but suburban America from like the 50s on, had front yard sprinklers to water your grass, especially in hot places, like I live in Louisiana, we had those sprinklers going all the time. But the best kind of front yard sprinkler was the kind that was, like, the long one, and it would rotate back and forth. Did you like, jump through it? Oh, yeah. And you would like time it, you know, to be like, jumping through it at just the right, just the right time. Or you play the opposite game, where you would try not to get wet, yes. And you like, stand there as long as you could, and then, like, at the last second, like, move out of the way of the water. Yeah. We had all sorts. The games, and now you can get, I don't know, like toy version, I know. And it's not the same. It's not they're cool, like, I've purchased some of those, me too, for my kids. You know, the octopus one with the arms? Yeah? But it was not this as the same. I think that's what is so nostalgic for us, like thinking back as being a kid in the 80s, because it was kind of like the last time where you just, you had to use your imagination for a lot of things. It's like, literally, a plastic strip with water coming out of it. It does one thing. It goes back and forth, yeah? But all these elaborate creations came from that, right? And like the games I just mentioned, you know? Oh, now we'll do it this way. Oh, we're gonna do it this way, as opposed to, like, oh, it's an octopus fun. Not that there's anything wrong with that. And there's probably games that kids build around that, I'm sure mine did, but like, having to sort of be that innovative for, like, a thing that's a utility, not a toy, correct? It was to water your grass, yeah, and we turned it into and I remember my dad would get mad because we would, like, move would, like, move it because, you know, you have to do, like, sprinklers, like, in a certain spot, so you get the yard plants and stuff, and we would move it around, or leave it in one spot too long, and then it would make a puddle in the grass, yep, like a whole mess, yeah, yep, ours too. I loved front yard sprinklers or side yard, backyard, whatever. Yeah. All right, what else you got? I mean, well, speaking of, okay, so we're gonna talk about, I mean, I grew up in like, a suburban area. You did too. You did too, yeah. So something that I don't think my kids will ever understand, except they did for a short period of time. We lived on an Air Force Base. It was kind of the same, because you were allowed a little more freedom than you can in regular neighborhood because it was very secluded, which there's pros and cons to that. But, of course, yeah. But anyway, so one of my fondest memories of summer, which I thought I have a picture of, is me and my buddies, because I grew up in the same house from the time I was like almost two until I left for college, me and my buddies would ride our bikes in the neighborhood all day long. Parents had no clue where we were, no idea, literally, no but we knew when those street lights came on, we had to be home. But I have a funny Louisiana add on to that. So bugs are a big deal in the south everybody. Just so you, if you don't know this, it was before anything was trying to be environmentally friendly. So we would have these giant ass mosquito trucks, that's what we call them, that would come through the neighborhood at dusk, because that's when mosquitoes are the absolute worst. They would come through at dusk and spray pesticides like they would come down on the streets and you can hear them. So that's how we knew it was right when the mosquito trucks would come through. But you know we would do. We would literally ride our bikes and run behind the tape of mosquito. Oh, my God, maybe that's why I'm so short the pesticides just spraying out. You're like, You're not kidding. I can still remember how it's, oh my gosh, guys, I literally did, yeah, like, wow. A lot of the a lot of, like, light bulbs are going off. Like, we would chase, we would chase. I mean, it was deep. I'm sure that's what it was. There was spraying in the air, I don't know something, yeah, but that's so when the street lights came on and came came a truck in, you better get your butt home. Yep, yeah, I remember riding. I loved riding my bike. Oh, my god, me too. And yes, I did have friends in the neighborhood I would ride with, but I had friends I would probably have to go back to where I grew up and like, map it to her house, but she was at least a mile and a half away, and so, like, I would have to get to her. But again, like, no cell phones, whatever, so we'd just be, like, on the regular phone. They were like, we saw each other the day before. Let's all ride to your house at 10am or let's meet up there was a park maybe about a mile away, and I would just get on my bike by myself. Yeah. No helmet. No. Oh, God, no. Nobody wore home. No ride, no phone, nothing. Probably eight, nine years old. Yeah, ride over to my friends and wait for her or not, wait for her. And then there were times that like I just felt like going for a bike ride, and I would just go by myself. And I remember riding her home one day, and she was leaving, so I hung out with her and her family for a little bit, and then they all left. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna ride my bike home. But I decided I'd like ride a little further first or something, and I fell off my bike. Oh no. Bad. Like, oh, hit a rock. Went over the front, like, bleeding from my elbows, my knees, like I hit like, the side of my face. Awful. But like, yeah, my friend was gone, and I was probably two miles from home, and I think the chain was off my bike, so I'm trying to fix that. And so I just, like, walked home, yeah, bleeding. And no bike. And I'm like, Okay, we're here. And my parents are like, What happened to you? Yeah, and I was like, I fell off my bike. They're like, okay. But I was like. Okay, I'll look at your chain later, you know. And thankfully, it was, like, daytime, but I think about that now, and I mean, I was obviously fine, and I had to, in that moment, really be independent and be like, Okay, well, I gotta get home and figure all this out, yeah, but like, the idea of, like, my nine year old that happening, and, no, like, it makes me panic. It's terrifying, isn't it? It makes me panic, I know, but you know, that's what we did. That's totally what we did. And I don't know about the streetlights, but I do remember probably around that age, I my parents got me a watch, and I did have to, like, tell them when I you know when I was going to be home, and I was my responsibility. Look at my watch, and if I was late, I was in trouble. And I don't know if it was like street lights, but sometimes it was as simple as, like, you have to be back at one because we're going to whatever. And so, you know, that was on me, yeah? And I was never late. No, I was always there when I was supposed to be, yeah. But now, you know, just text my kids. It looks like you're at McDonald's. Please come well, the funniest is my kids track my phone now. So one day, so funny. One day I was in the Starbucks, like I was, they're like, Oh, I get a text from Erin, and it's like, what are you getting at Starbucks? And I'm like, looking around like, Hello. She just, she just wondered where I was and saw that I was literally sitting in the drive through at that moment. Oh my gosh. Is really funny. But anyway, effect, yeah, I mean, that was, that was, I think about now how, like, I freak out, you know about the my youngest going around, just playing in our neighborhood, yeah? And I'm like, Oh my God. I, like, literally nobody knew where I was. Like, I keep playing in ditches. And like, oh yeah, junk and like, who knows what I was doing? And they didn't either, especially because my, you know, I both my parents worked full time when I was I can't remember what grade I was in. My grandma, my mom's mom, retired and moved down to Louisiana. It was right around when my parents were separated. I remember that so she would be at my house during the day sometimes, because I was younger than my sister, you know, whatever. And I don't I'm like, what did she do all the time? Like, she had to be there for an adult presence. But, like, but like, other than that, I She must have just been watching her soaps, right? She loved romance novels, and I should always bring over her book, but like I was gone, like I was just doing whatever I wanted. Like she was just like, Okay, I remember it like they were woodspire house. Yes, we would go in there. Oh yeah, usually I would go through and I personally was scared to go in there by myself, because of, like animals or whatever, I don't know, like, I just got an uneasy feeling. So I usually wouldn't I would go with, like, friends or whatever. But even then, and I remember, this is totally random, but I would sell Girl Scout Cookies alone, oh yeah. Like, my parents would be like, I don't know, go ask a few neighbors. To be fair. We knew most of them, but I remember there was this, like, younger couple that had moved, like, across the street in a couple of houses down from us, and I went and knocked on the door with my little form because you didn't have the cookie, yeah, and they need to wait forever. And the man, so thinking about it now, he's probably in his mid 20s, but to me, he was like, really old. Yeah, dance was doing his underwear, shut up. I swear to God. He's like, remember this, yes? Well, yes, I do. I was totally like, oh, obviously, what the what? And he was just like, yes. And I was like, why would you answer the door there? Well, that's a really good question. Yes, now that I think about it, probably not the best. And he was just like, oh, yeah, I don't know. Let me see. And I was like, You know what? I'm just gonna come back or whatever, in my little voice, and I don't even think I told my parents, I was like, so embarrassed. That's so really weird. And they didn't live there that long, like it was like a rental or something. And I remember, I remember being like, happy when they moved weirdo. So weird. Okay, moving on that. But Okay, let's move on to garden hoses. Okay, so listen, the thing you have to know about the 80s is once you were playing outside, something that 80s parents told you all the time was once you do not come in and out like I am not air conditioning the entire neighborhood, okay, especially when you're in the South. Because I know you didn't grow up in the South, but you live here now, open doors is just you can hear the money just raking up and up and up. So once you were outside, you better stay out there for a long time, and once you come back in, you better stay because I don't not. My grandma used to say, we not live in a barn. So what you would do, you'd be playing, playing, by the way, you hardly ever hydrated yourself when you were a kid, right? Like, I don't ever remember, like, just care. Like, we carry water around kids these days, and we tell our kids, bring your water, like, and then have to have spots for them to fill it up. I don't remember. I remember having my first baby and them giving me, like, one of those giant things with a straw. And I did because, like, I was. Breastfeeding. So I was like, so I was literally thirsty, and then that was, like, when I established drinking water as a habit, right? Because, like, then I wasn't as thirsty anymore. But I was like, oh, like, that's a good idea, Mart. I'm 25 I should consciously drink water, you know? Like, it was so wild. But, yeah, kids, kids, okay, so hydrated. So anyways, the reason I say all that is because one is something I remember using when I was outside, was you would get thirsty. Obviously, it's biology, and you didn't want to run inside. Because first of all, you probably don't want to stop what you were doing. Number one, like you're in the middle of a very important game, or like you're writing you just want to hurry up and get so we would drink out of the garden hose, right? Sure, all the time, like, just and then you can, like, your friend would be like, Oh, it's um, and just gulping out of the Off you go. You don't get in trouble for coming in and out your hydration. Yeah, five hours, because you probably won't drink anymore. So I actually have another funny side story, because, as we know, I had a very weird I just have very weird stories associated with my childhood. So my house, we did have a pool in our backyard, which we couldn't use all the time, because there had to be an adult there. My grandma couldn't swim, so we had to have an adult obviously, that could swim in case we drowned. So we actually didn't get to use it as much as I we really wanted to when we were kids. But anyways, on the days we could in my house, you know, you would swim all day, swim, swim, swim, swim, and then you get out and you'd be like, Oh yeah, I don't have to take a bath or a shower because I swim all day, right? That's a lot of people's logic, but you would have to wash your hair if your hair. My sister was is a platinum blonde naturally, so hers hair would turn colors and all the things. So we would even use the hose to wash our hair in the backyard, right? My mom would put the shampoo out for us. We would wash our hair in the backyard, so then we didn't have to take a bath or a shower, and our hair was clean. I mean, I'm thinking, how can I do this for mine? Right? Because they all come in at night and they're like, I need a shower, and I need a shower and I need a shower, and then the whole house is, like, covered in a zillion towels, and, yeah. And also, I mean, I hated washing my hair when I was a kid, because I have super tangly hair and, like, I hated it and so, but outside was fun, yeah, and you're, you're bathing suit, and you're washing your hair, that's like, I mean, this is crazy. Our neighbors, so, so this is middle age, what middle age jealousy looks like. Oh, our neighbors recently, I guess not that recently. It may have been when covid first started. So a couple years ago, built an outdoor shower, especially beachside. I've like, and then they, like, did this thing where they have, like, the lattice, and so now it's got, like, I don't know, like, vines and stuff growing over it, and I can just kind of like, see it over the top of my fence. I mean, they're friends of ours too. I've been in their backyard recently, but I'm always just like, oh, we need to do that. So that's like, my dream. Now, in the past five years, we've put in a pool, added a bathroom, like, done all these things, yeah, literally, all of that. That was, like, our home improvement. So I'm kind of like, Okay, we're gonna take a little break, break for some all this, any the headache be like, crazy expensive. But I'm like, okay, when we go to the next round outdoor shower, outdoor shower coming our way, because, yeah, set up a little little, make your own shower out there are you needs a garden. I mean, I'm feeling inspired, kind of something to block. You know, what I should do is have Teagan figure that out. She would innovated that 100% and it would probably work. I know. Yeah, all right. Anyway, there should be recyclables involved. It would be a whole thing, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, we'll see. So I have a question for you then as we move on to our next little memory that we had written down so everybody remembers, you know, whether you had a pool or not going to the pool, going to a hotel that had a pool, going to a friend's house that had pool. All the fun pool games, yes, speaking of imagination, which we talked about, the sprinkler, I have to know, tell me some of the pool games that you played as an 80s kid. I feel like, maybe not mainstream ones. I remember playing. I remember playing just like, I don't know, like, like pretending we were on vacation and like, in, like, different oceans and like different people were, like a mermaid, like the mermaid would help you on your journey. I remember doing a bunch of stuff like that, but I was also deathly afraid of sharks in pools. I know me too. What was that about? I don't know, and people blame it on Jaws, but I swear I had not seen Jaws this fear. But he wasn't in a pool. He wasn't so that wouldn't even make sense, except he was scary. I've always felt like they were gonna come out a little Great. Yes, I. So my pool, growing up, we had it. We had like a deep end and a shallow end. It was like, like a jelly bean shaped pool, if that makes Okay, yeah. So it's pretty deep because we have diving board, oh, like 10 feet because we didn't build this pool. It came with the house, but it was like 10 feet deep. So at the bottom, you know, was like a whatever. And there we only had one light in the whole pool. So if you went swimming at night, the light was underneath, like where the diving board was, but then there so cascade out, yeah? Like, dark. That's what I was always scared of. Swimming at night with that I would not go in the deep end, yeah, because I was so scared some shark was gonna come out of somewhere. So out of somewhere. And that's the thing, like, we didn't have a pool, like, where I'm from, in Indiana, was, like, not still common. If you had a pool, is kind of rare, because you could only have it open, like, like, a month a month. And there were people like, my boyfriend High School had one. We swim there, and a good friend of mine put one in recently, and she lives up there, and it's beautiful. But, like, it was not very common. But I remember being just like, at the YMCA, yeah, and swimming lots for my swimming lesson, and being like, oh my god, a shark is going to get me, and it's got to be other kids who felt like that. It can't just be. And I used to think it was just me, but they said the same for you. And I was like, and then I saw this meme recently that was like, I forget exactly what it said, but it was like a person swimming and then like a shark. And it was like my most irrational childhood fear. And I was like, Oh, my God, it's like a whole thing that nobody talks about. I guess every time I feel like lately, I've finally spoken of it, people like me too. And here's a meme, and here's a whatever. And I was just like, This is so crazy. But what about what pool games did you play? Well, you know, I talked about, we did, made up games, you know? I talked about the Little Mermaid. I used to do the whole thing in our Disney was it the Disney Renaissance? I think that's what it was, yeah. But we, of course, always played Marco Polo. There's always that one person who would cheat and get out, which was me, like, Nope, I like getting on now, because I'm not a great swimmer. I've never been a great swimmer. So, like, that game sucks if you suck at swimming, yes. And so I would just get out and walk, and my sister would always catch me, like, David, you're out of the pool. Okay. Like, yeah. But we would do Sharks and Minnows, right? And do you remember doing like, a bunch of diving games? Okay? You jump in and get stuff like, yes. So we had these. This was, like, the funnest pool toy. I remember it even like, now we had these fake eggs, okay, so it was like, in a plastic egg carton, okay? And there was all these different eggs. The top of the shell was white, the bottom was a different color. You could open it, and every egg was worth different amount of points. So you throw them in the pool all these different places, and you'd go and you'd get as many eggs as you could, and then whoever had the most points, that's fun. Yeah, wasn't that fun? I love that now. And you didn't have to be a super fast swimmer, you just had to have a good eye, because you, you know, you have to turn around, close your eyes, and then somebody throw them in, and then you don't race to don't race together. We loved those. Like fun. We loved we played with those all the time. They're super fun. But oh my gosh, like I think about just staying and again, I feel like kids nowadays have more stuff to do in pools than we did. Yeah, yeah, because we both have pools. We live in Florida. Almost everybody that lives here has a pool. I will say one thing my two youngest daughters do, speaking of, like, made up games and stuff, they will go out. And I remember doing this with my friends. In fact, I said to my husband the other day, I was like, take a look at what I was like when I was 12. We're watching it right now as we're watching the two of them. And he had a good laugh, because he's like, Yeah, I could see it. We would, like, choreograph stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah. So either with music or without, or we'd sing our own music. But my daughters will do that, like, choreograph a whole thing, theater kid. And then they'll be like, come on out and watch our watch our show. Yeah. Like, most of it's in the water, but then, like, all of a sudden they get out, and they're doing like, some crazy Tiktok move, and then someone does a cartwheel into the pool, and then someone follows them. And it's just watching it. I'm like, oh my god, I remember doing that. Just being like, okay, it's my turn to choreograph. Okay, we gotta do my dance. Okay, now it's your turn, you know? Yeah. And that was always so fun. And it's kind of fun to see, like you said, they have so many things to do, but sometimes they're just like, let's just make up a dance, you know, or whatever. And it's, it's so cute. So several years ago, my daughter Tegan, it was her birthday, and something happened with my in laws, like health or their dog was sick or something. Anyway, they didn't come up for tegans birthday, and they never gave her a gift, but they kind of like forgot, because her birthday is not too far from Christina and but she didn't forget, of course, but didn't say anything to them. So months later, we're FaceTiming them because they're somewhere, and she says to my mother in law, i. You know, you never got me a birthday gift. Now, her birthday is in November, and this is like, March, and my mother in law's like, what like in the background, like, shaking my head. And my mother in law's like, mortified. She's like, I'm so sorry. Tegan. So anyway, long story short, Tegan decided she wanted these My Little Pony mer ponies, oh my God, for the pool. So they're like the normal, like plastic with the mains, but they have mermaid too. So lo and behold, a couple days later from Amazon, here comes this full set. And when I tell you the amount of hours that were spent playing with those things in the pool, and the neighbor girls come over and then, like, her older sisters are, like, all jealous, because, like, they want them, even, like, the ones that were, like, maybe outgrown of that age, because those are cool. I want them. They were so cute, and all the different games you could play, like the imagination stuff. She loved those things. But I was just like, Wow. She's Wow. I remember when you didn't give me a birthday, grandma and my mother in law's texting me, is that true? Did we really not? And I was like, you didn't, but it's okay, because of, you know, we didn't tell her to say that. No, yeah, yeah. Like, it's okay. Well, you know what? That makes me think of another memory that we didn't put in our notes. Like, the stuff I brought into the pool to play with that didn't belong there. Yeah, right. Like my Barbies were all up in our pool. Oh yeah. And I had plastic Care Bears, like the little plastic guy. They would end up in the pool all the time. My Little Ponies, too, and they weren't made, because then you'd have the toys like that that weren't made to go on water, and they'd get full of water, and then you would mold, yes, oh yes. Remember that just have to toss up, and you just have to throw away, because you can see the mold like the toy, yeah? Because it wasn't meant for that. I mean, it's the same with the bath, shaking stuff in the bath that like did not belong in the bath, and eventually you got to throw it out, because there's no way to get the water out of all the little plastic crevices, you know. Yeah, yikes. Okay, what else we got on this list? We got, I don't know, I lost my Oh, I see laying out in your yard, yes. So what do you got? What do you got on that side and all the things, yeah. So laying out for those of you who are not of our generation and actually protect your skin and your younger years, we do now, yeah, we would like laying out was, like a whole thing. It was like it wasn't a wedding. Maybe it still is for some people, but it shouldn't be anyways. I mean, so the list of things you had to have when you went to, like, layout in your backyard, right? Was sun in for that nice orange hue for brunettes, you would always help with term blonde, right? I have a lot of pictures of the Sun in hair. Yes, I do, wow. Hawaiian Tropic tanning oil and the spray bottle, because there was nothing better than that. Hawaiian Tropic, I can still smell it. Yeah, me too. You had to have your little boombox, yeah, either for a cassette tape or a radio we used to put it on our favorite radio station, and then, of course, a towel. You probably don't even have a chair like you probably know, literally on the ground, laying on the ground, yeah? Well, and I put in the notes here, like I grew up near Lake Michigan, so yeah, even though it's not like the ocean or whatever. But in the summer, we would go, Oh yeah, down to the beach. You know, there's public access, and we would go to lay out, and I remember just not even getting in the water. No, just had our towels and our literally batteries in our boom box or whatever, spraying ourselves, maybe covering my face eventually, because it felt like it was on fire. But like, other than that, just and being just like a tan banana and banana, banana. I also worked at the beach as a high schooler and a college student. No, I was not a lifeguard. That would have been super cool. No, literally, it's kind of lame our beach that's kind of similar to what some of them in Florida do now, but even back then, we residents could get a sticker and get in for free. But if you were from out of town, you had to pay to park okay, because we would get a lot of people from like Chicago area and stuff. And anyway, it helped pay for our beaches and all that, all that good stuff. So they had back then, because there weren't kiosks and all these prepay things. People that literal humans that would stand there and charge people to park. That's what I did. I was not a lifeguard. I should just start saying, Yes, are you a lifeguard? Yes, yeah, no. Literally, I stood there with a little color of parking in my seat a parking attendant, but I didn't even help you park. Literally, took your money, went go ahead and so, like little teenage me stopping these, like, gigantic Escalades full of people. Hi, I need your $2 please. And then, like, we would have aprons, these little, like aprons just full of cash, because we couldn't even take cards. It was Castle cash only, right, of course, because that wasn't a thing. Then we did have supervisors that were, like, come by and like, so like, when one book was. Gone. You knew how much, like you owed for that, but this was the job I've talked about before, where I would go at like, six in the morning, and I just have like, $100 of cash and be by myself in this little hut, like, charging people as they came in. Like, hello, I know, but, um, but I would get really tan for that job too, yeah, because we were literally just standing in the sign. And if it was like, fireworks or some big park event, they would spread us out across, you know, to help with things. And I just remember getting off work and just my skin would just be, like, radiating, yeah, like, I couldn't even get cool in front of a fan or anything, because I'd been seriously in the sun, yeah, for 10 hours or whatever. Yeah, it's crazy now that I think about, like, how we just never protected our skin, and I'm like, Oh, no wonder we're all premature aging, because you're right, like, it does catch up to and I mean, I've had moles removed. I've had stuff taken off, like, but, oh, my god, that was, like, a whole thing laying out. I'm sure I have pictures somewhere me laying out in the back. Yeah, I gotta go. Oh, I know. I do. I gotta go back through my pictures and see what I can find. I went through and found some, but now I'm like, Oh, wait, there's got to be more. Gotta be more. So let's talk about now we are gonna go into a summer fashion of, oh yes. And I did do some research on this one, because it's very interesting, because I was just curious how these even, like, got invented. So we're going to talk about some high end footwear called jellies. Yes, jellies, which have made several comebacks, oh yeah, over the years, oh yeah. And do you know any of the history about jellies? I know nothing. Oh, I'm so excited to tell you. I remember loving them as a kid, and I think my mom would get them for me, like, even as a small Oh yeah. Like preschool, kindergarten, or wearing them absolute worst shoe to wear in the summer, terrible. Your feet sweat and you just slide all around. But they're cute. They're really cute, and they weren't easy to clean. I will, oh yeah, because they're just plastic. But they also get hot. I remember trying to put them on wet well, I remember even like you would take them off for Yeah, at the beach, and then you go to put them on, and it would like burn your feet, because it's literally been plastic. So we would like cover up our shoes, Jelly towels, you know, because you couldn't wear them otherwise. I love jellies. I remember wearing these all the time as a kid, and then they made a comeback when we were in high school. I don't know if you remember that. I do. And like the 90s, the 90s. Anyways, so here I'm going to tell you. So for those of you that don't know, jellies are a type of shoe made of PVC plastic. Okay? They came in a large variety of brands and colors, and the material is often infused with glitter, yes, so its name comes from the French company called Jelly shoes. Very good, founded by two men named Tony Alano and Nicholas Guillaume, I think Guillon. How do you think you say that it might be Guillain? Okay, that's probably it. Maybe in 1980 in Paris. So let me tell you a little bit about how they got the idea for these shoes. So there was a French company named cerazine. We're gonna go with that cerazine. And they actually created, kind of the first shoe made of PVC in the 50s. And those shoes were used by fishermen, okay, for their low price and the ease of cleaning. So they would, they would, they were just transparent. They don't have colors all the stuff. And stuff, and they were sold in like, these big, large baskets at like, wars and stuff like, for fishermen to use. Well, in 1980 Tony Alana, who was Brazilian, and Nicholas, how did you say it Guillaume? Okay, he's a Frenchman, so that's probably correct. They were living in Paris, and they went on holiday to Spain, okay? And they had an idea to transform those fishermen shoes into fun, colorful, urban and fashionable shoes. Okay, so they got a loan from Nicholas's mom. Yes, they bought 200 of those Sarah zines fisherman shoes. So they got Tony's brother, who was a chemist, to help him out, and they created, like this, special dye to dye the plastic. And Tony and Nicholas dyed the shoes in their kitchen. They dried them in their bathroom and then packaged them in their living room. Wow. Little factory set up, and because they were handmade, the shoes had like this diverse color palette because of how, like, the dye took in different ways that and it had a lot of colors that weren't yet seen in modern footwear. Okay? So 1980 the beginning of like, the bright colors, right? So they sold the shoes at a Parisian boutique for prices between 60 and 140 francs, which I don't know what that is, in US dollars, but it was around five to 10 times more than they paid for them. Wow. So basically, they, like had a glow up for these fishermen shoes. Yeah, okay, yeah. So that story does not end there. Oh, no. So the jelly shoes in 1981 In, and the cerazine was their supplier. So the fisherman shoe got people's that was their supplier. They had a dispute. Oh, okay, because cerazine broke their exclusivity contract. Oh, and they were selling the jelly shoe model to other clients, so they could have competitors. So jelly shoes then made a deal with a Brazilian manufacturer named grinding, I think, in 1982 and a year later is when they exploded in popularity. Ah, that sounds about right. Saying like preschool I would have been Yeah. So their jelly shoes, early summer models were bright. They were colorful again, most of the time had glitter. They had 12 different colors. Their first round of shoes, and they were infused with a vanilla or lemon perfume. Which do you remember the smell? Yes, that explains the smell. I just thought, you know how we've talked about how Cabbage Patch dolls have a solid Yeah, because of the plastic or whatever, but this is an actual, yeah. I love that. So that is just how jelly shoes came to be. That's so cool, right? I like, I really wouldn't mind getting another pair of jelly shoes just now. I want some. Yeah, are they back in I don't know. I would imagine you can get them. We're not really up on trends. No, we don't know. Tell us someone send us a text message, not a snap, because we don't have Snapchat. We do not and we just like what we like. That's my best things about middle age is that you just say I like what I like, and I really don't care if it's cool, I totally agree. I just like what I like, and I just don't care. Yeah, totally I'm gonna wear it, I'm gonna eat it. Yeah, I'm gonna go to that place or do something a certain way. I don't care. Don't care. Yeah, we want jelly shoes. We want jelly shoes. Send jelly glitter with glitter. They must have glitter. That's really awesome. Well, I never knew all that. But I like it. I mean, it's innovative, and I like that they obviously eventually had to do it at scale. But like how it started as, like, in their kitchen, in their bathroom, yeah, you know, selling it, however. And I love the whole like idea of taking a product, even though it's not yours, but taking a product and thinking of a new way to have it, right? Like they saw these shoes that were used for just a basic functioning for somebody's job, you know, fishing, and they were like, but we could make that something totally different, right? Yeah, that. I really like that too. Okay, that was fun. Moving on. Tell us about what we have thought about next. Oh, yes, make your own popsicle. And, I mean, obviously you can still do this. People do still do this. It's like a whole, the whole thing, social media trend too. Like people making different days. Oh, yeah. Like, I saw one that was just like, Okay, so first of all, it's so elaborate. My daughter, Aaron, I think, showed it to me, and it's like, they pureed this watermelon. So this was, this was not what we were doing the 80s. And this little aside, and it was, like this whole presentation, and the watermelon, and then they have, like, something green, maybe it was kiwi, I don't know, and that. And then it was, like layered, and then it was frozen. And, girl, they gave it to a dog. Oh, my video about making this dog friendly popsicle. And I was like, That's too many steps for a human right. Like, what is happening? I love dogs. But I was like, I mean, and it was very cute. It was like a Siberian Husky, just like, chomping down on this homemade popsicle. Oh, my, give him an ice cube. He don't know. Yeah, no. My dogs love ice cream, thank God, but, but back then we did, and so I remember, so first of all, Tupperware. Yeah, that's the whole thing. That's a whole thing. My mom had tons of it that probably went to lots of parties. We I think I still have some in my house. I know my parents still have some at their house. And there was a Tupperware version that was, like, the pre made, and you can buy similar ones now at like, Target, yeah, like a plastic mold, a mold, yeah, and you could put whatever in there. And I remember doing it with, like, lemonade and whatever. But I remember doing it with yogurt, oh, we would take, like, like, you know, the bigger tub of yogurt, like strawberry yogurt, and you would pour it in there and just freeze it. Just eat, like, frozen yogurt. I remember doing that. We did stuff like, stuff like Kool Aid, or, yeah, that was, like, super fancy. I've never tried that. I remember something happened with the carbonation. It was not the best idea, okay, okay. But we also would make our own, like, before we had one of those molds, or we lost it, or I don't know it broke, or I don't know we would use an ice cube tray, yeah? And I actually saw this idea in the back of a highlights magazine when I was a kid. Yeah, that magazine, yes, I loved highlights. Okay? And so you could make your own, like, individual, teeny, tiny popsicles, and what you would do was. You had the ice tray, you'd put plastic you fill the thing with liquid, you put plastic wrap, like cling wrap, on top, and then you'd stick toothpicks, yep, in there, and then you freeze it, and then you could take the toothpick but it was really hard to have the toothpicks not wobble around, yeah, because you had to do the plastic wrap very tight. And as you know, plastic wrap doesn't always cling like it's supposed to. And so as, like, You're, like, eight years old, right? Like, you're I get this. So my toothpicks would always be, like, all wonky shades and like, I'd be holding it, like, all crooked, like, yes, how is it? Yeah. And that's the other thing, like, because ice is heavy, Oh, yeah. So you'd be trying to pull them out, and they would break up, and they'd break off. Or, you know, you do, like the thing where you like, break the ice tray, but then, like you said, they'd be all, like, wonky directions, and then you'd be like, eating, like a sideways and then the pop, then the toothpick would just come out. And then, you know, then, then it's like, it's hard, because what you have, like, a whole ice cube in your mouth. Now, I don't know, like weird. It was weird. They probably tasted great. And we're super refreshing. The buzz idea, though, were way better. Well, you were just talking about, like, Kool Aid. So that brings us to our next I know, and I did research. I see it. I'm excited about this memory. I had a summer in the 80s always involved some kind of Kool Aid in a picture, or Tang, yep. So there was endless packets of Kool Aid in my house as well as containers of Tang. So I was like, Okay, well, let me see where this even started. I don't know the origins, so I'm going to tell you the origins of both. Are you ready? Okay, excited. Yes. So Edwin Perkins, who is a chemist from Hendley, Nebraska. Have you noticed that a lot of people the Midwest have created a lot of things? Yeah, we talked about, like a lot of people from Michigan, I know Nebraska, Wisconsin, yeah, all over. Very Midwesterners. All right. He invented Kool Aid in 1927 Wow, yeah, while experimenting in his mother's kitchen. Okay. So the powdered drink mix was originally called fruit smack, and it was a liquid concentrate at first that came in six flavors. But Mr. Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from fruit smack to reduce shipping costs, and that created a powder, and he named it Kool Aid. That's really cool. Yeah. So around 1927 ish is when it was called Kool Aid. Yeah, whoa. So there you go. That's the beginning of Kool Aid. Now, Tang has a, has a pretty interesting story, with some urban legends mixed in All right, so this is where it gets a little Yay. So 1957 is the year there was a food scientist named William Mitchell. He worked for General Foods Corporation. He came up with, he called Tang flavor crystals. Okay, okay, so Mitchell was the company's top food scientist, who was also the creator of other mid century food innovations, such as Pop Rocks, ooh, Quick Set jello and Cool Whip. Wow. He's got a lot of things under his belt, right? Mitchell, I know, right? So he researched for two years. So it was two years of research and development. Tang was put on grocery shelves in the US and Venezuela and West Germany, actually, at the same time, okay, I know, in the fall of 1959 Okay, so, yep, you're gonna Yeah. So it was actually marketed as a breakfast drink packed with vitamin C that quote, you don't squeeze, unfreeze or refrigerate, sounds nice. Sounds delicious, convenient. So around 1960 so this has been out for about a year, someone at NASA realized that the consumer grade drink powder was exactly what the astronauts needed in space to add to their life support system, water, which tasted super nasty because of this non toxic chemical reaction that they would have to use in the water up there. So somebody was like, Oh, well, they need Tang. That'd be great. And it's super easy to ship or whatever. So government made a deal with General Foods to buy the powder in bulk. So here is the urban legend that NASA invented Tang false. I have heard that before. They did not invent it. But the reason people thought that is because what we're about to talk about. So once that happened, once that deal was made, General Foods began marketing the powder as a space age drink. So this is when all the rooms started. Yeah, so Tang actually accompanied astronauts for the next decade, and General Foods, of course, gushed proudly in print and TV ads that it was chosen by the Gemini astronauts because it was packed with vitamins, easy to make and tasted great. Okay, yeah, so in 1968 Tang even sponsored ABCs coverage of Apollo eight. So, so their name was all over all the space stuff, yeah, and which was America's first man flight around the moon? Yeah? I mean, it's not a terrible marketing idea, right? If you know they wanted to space, especially back then, right? There were. So much, like nowadays, so much stuff goes up and stuff, meaning cargo on things. But also there's so many launches, right? Because we've got the commercialization now of space, but back then, this was a very narrow amount of things that were going and very few people going up and vehicles going up. So like, if you could be kind of the face of something. Now, let me ask you, do you like Tang? I haven't drink Tang since I was a kid, but I loved it. We drank it all the time. I didn't like it. You didn't. I mean, I can still kind of remember the essence of the taste. Yes, we're talking to like, hey, remember this flavor, and they still make it. And is it true? Is it healthy? I'm confused. I thought it was just kind of like, I think it's like, Sunny D, like, Sunny D, yeah, or even not necessarily, like the level of a kool aid, but that sort of thing. So we need to do a taste test beverage, and we can get aid, yeah, we can do Tang, they still make tab, I don't know, probably they might. And then you who do they still make that? Yeah, you can get you who? Yeah, it's just literally on shelves. That's like, that's not milk. It's literally on a shelf. I saw it, like, not too long ago, and I was like, huh, and, and I've had one recently, just because my own nostalgic self, but clearly, Canadians, oh, girl. I bought one. I bought two of those amazing, delicious, so good, so refreshing. I missed out. Because what made me think to get one was I was at Costco and they had them, like, in bulk. Oh, my God, okay, well, I don't remember if I like those enough to buy them in bulk, right? So I didn't buy them. But then I was at Walmart one day, and they had individual ones on myself, right? So I was like, Well, let me buy a couple. So then I was mad. So I was like, well, crud, next time I go to Costco, I'm gonna get them, and then they're gone. Maybe they'll come back so sad, yeah, I missed my opportunity, yeah. And Cooper was like, I only bought two. I only bought two, right? And so those were for me and myself, and that's it. And Cooper was like, oh, I want one of those. I was like, No, these are for me. Next time I buy some, you can have some. But this is my trip, not this time. This is my little trip back in the memory machine, yeah, I put one on here too. That kind of reminded me of when you were talking about these drinks, and then I see your comment, yeah, my mom would make the iced tea outside. Yes, it was called sun tea. Yeah, my mom made the same thing. It was, like, at a special picture, and you just sit it in the baking sun Yeah, and it had glass. Oh, it was glass. You're right, you're right. It was glass. But it could have been a glass picture, which was good now that I think about it, because baking and plastic was probably not been good. And, yeah, you would put the literal tea bags in there and the whatever. And it would make the tea for you, bake it in the sun, and then you just get a nice big glass of ice, yeah. And then you'd either drink it just straight up, or you could add mine, or you could put sugar in it, or whatever. And I remember, like, every summer, doing that my mom would do on weekends, because she was a nurse, so she worked during the day. But I remember, and it was, it had to sit out for like, a long time, right? Yeah, it was seriously, like, every, every sunny hour of the day, I'd be like, Mom, can you go? Is it time to get that tea? And she'd be like, not yet. It's gonna be real good on the front board, but not yet. But you Okay? So let me ask you this about tea. Since you're from not the South. Did y'all drink sweet tea or no, we Okay. Interestingly enough, even though I grew up in the South, we did not drink so, yeah, my mom was not from, like, she grew up in the military, so she moved around a lot, and so she never grew up drinking sweet tea. So in our house, we didn't we had, we would have, like, I remember, we would have, like, this liquid non sugar. It was like, sugar substitute sweetener, yeah, so 80s that we would add to stuff, and I would put that in my tea sometimes, but generally I drank unsweet tea, yeah, which is weird, because southern people go cray, cray for their sweet tea. Oh, yeah. Like, yeah. I didn't even really know what sweet tea that that there was, like, I mean, obviously, knew you could sweeten, right? But like, I didn't know there was, like, like, pre made or whatever, until after I graduated college and I moved to Florida, and I worked at an Outback Steakhouse in Kissimmee, and we have the two big pictures back where we would get people drinks, and if they ordered iced tea, you had to ask them which one. And there was an unsweet and a sweet and it was a whole thing. But I don't know why we had unsweet, because literally, everyone would get sweet tea. We I remember growing up, restaurants didn't have, like in the south, there was just, if you ordered tea, it was sweet. There was sweet tea. But not Yeah, sweet interesting. Because my mom would always ask, because every now and then we, you know, you there would be a rare restaurant that would Yeah, because she'd be like, is your tea sweeter and sweet, and they'd be like, we have one tea. But if they said, No, we do have unsweet, yeah, she would be excited because she didn't drink, yeah, or it's just nice to make it yourself. But yeah, sweet tea is sweet, like pre made. I know McDonald's, does it? I can't hear but not. Midwest. I don't think, I don't think you can get and maybe now, yeah, because it's more of a phenomenon, but, like, I would have never thought to get sweet tea from McDonald's in Indiana, you know, like, I don't know that happened. I mean, maybe I have Indiana friends who are listening. I'm like, No, you could. Maybe you could, but I don't think so. Yeah, anyway, all right, well, tell me some more. Okay, more. So I don't know if you guys did this, and I was just talking about this the other day, because, dang it, in this heat and our dryers in our garage, nothing will dry. Oh yeah, because it's so humid, so it takes a million years. So your dryers in your garage, I bet that does take. Oh, it's awful. And then you walk into the garage and, like, it's like, if you're out there for like, a couple minutes, you will probably pass out. It's so hot in there. So we, like, leave the door open, or we open the garage door, but we used to have a clothesline, oh yeah. And we would, literally, I remember taking out, like, sheets and towels and like underwear. Like it didn't matter it was in our backyard, but still, like, we shared like, a chain link fence with our neighbor, like they could see all our stuff hanging up. And I remember we would hang it out there, and it would smell amazing, like your sheets, your clothes, whatever would smell amazing. But I just remember the towels being like, hard, you know, because there was, like, no fabric softener. And my mom would just fold them up, all crispy now, just like, stick them in the cupboard and but if the storm blew in. Oh, yeah, whole family's running outside. You get all that stuff down. And I mean, we had a dryer, obviously, because you could only use the clothesline where I was from a couple months a year, yeah, but I remember using it, and there have been a few times that I'm like, Man, I wish I did have a clothesline to at least give these towels like a start. But here's the thing, though, Katie, when you use a clothesline in the south, it does not smell good. I could see that it smells like, I could see that mildew. Like, yeah, you know, like, you might pull you ever leave towels outside to dry? God, yeah, see, that's what it's you're right? So we had, like, a portable clothesline, you know. So we would sometimes put stuff in our backyard, like, on that, like, stuff that can't go in the dryer, like, remember, I put it in the sun or whatever, but it would always stink, yeah? Honestly, ours probably did too, but you just thought it smelled amazing. I feel like you're like, Let me think about it, the sheets, okay, would always smell really good, yeah, remember that specifically. But I feel like anything that wasn't like. That was like, because sheets were, I guess they were probably cotton blend a little. But anything that was like, mostly cotton or polyester, I feel like was not and denim. Oh, my God, it would be like, so hard. Do you know my stepdad used to take his jeans to the cleaners? What way back in the day? Yeah, his stuff for him when I worked for him as a teen and a young adult, and he would bring his jeans there because he liked them to like be crispy. Okay, he would get extra starch, extra starch on your teeth. That's what I just thought about when you're talking about those so funny. So clotheslines, but clotheslines. Another one I have on here is I put camping, literally intense. Like, all that's separating you from the outside world is a zipper, yeah, and, like, there's an outhouse, or, if you even have that and you're, like, sleeping on the ground somewhere, do you like camping? No, I literally hate it. I don't like camping at all. Like, I knew that was my husband, thank God. Oh, that's good. Oh, he hates it. Troy always tries to, like, Okay, we've been together for a long time, and he's always like, well, what if we did this? And I'm like, is it outside sleeping? I'm not doing it. I will go outside and, oh, yeah, outdoor things. But at the end of the day, I would like to like, like, we have evolved from sleeping outside, so I would like to have my AC, and sure, like swimming, hikes, yeah, whatever, bike rides, let's do it, yeah, but I will need AC, a door that locks. I will not be able to sleep if, literally, someone can unzip my tent bear and a bear can rip it open or pull me, or my kids from my sleep and Blair Witch, thank you. And it for me as well there which she's coming. When I was in college, like, I had friends, they would go, like, they'd be like, Oh, we're going on campus. I was like, I go, like, Y'all have fun. I'll be the only person left here, because I am not going, Yeah, I do not like camping. But I remember one time when I was a kid in the 80s, my dad loved camping. Okay, my dad was huge out mine too. Yeah, there's a big hiker. And, you know, he grew up in North Carolina out of farms like he loved, and my mom is like me hated, and my poor dad had my mom and then two daughters who also hated it. So bless his heart, bless him. He would try and try, and then, I guess he gave up. But then, so one time he took me and a friend with him. He would go on these camping trips. He had, like, a group of friends. They would go on these annual, yeah, hiking stuff. He took me and a friend with him. And his friend brought his son whatever, and my friend threw up in our tent. Oh, God, the worst. And I was whining in complaint. It was horrible, like we were absolutely and it rained, miserable, and we were just absolutely awful. So I never went again with him. So much I remember crying, oh boy, oh man. Yeah, camping, whoo. I camping in Louisiana, by the way. Yeah. I mean, we lived by the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, like, literally right by it. And so for my dad's birthday in August, we would go camping, and that was his big, like, birthday thing. Like, that's what he wanted. And eventually it turned into just him and my brother's going, because me and my mom were like, No. And we would go and, like, hang out. We would even stay for the campfire. But then we'd be like, bye. And then, after I had a baby and I went, we my daughter, and I surprised him for that birthday, because he wasn't expecting us. It was all it was definitely over that I was like, I have a literal infant. I am not sleeping outside. Goodbye. I need a crib. Yeah, I need air conditioning. I need a changing table, like all these things, but, and then him and my brothers got one a few times after that, but I don't even think they've gone for like, a few years, you know, because it's hard for him to leave. My mom now too, so, but yeah, we would do that for his birthday because we loved him, but we probably made it miserable for him at the same time. So sorry, Dad, sorry, we did love you. I think I also put on here. And I know these still exist, because my kids always loved them. These library reading clubs in the summer that was like, universal, right? Oh, yeah, every library and every they now have adult ones. You can do them. I think Brevard has one that's really, yeah, yeah, you have adult ones. So you would at least where I was from. It wasn't necessarily a list you had to read. It was just like, a certain number of books, well, and sometimes they had like genres, like a mystery or read whatever, read a nonfiction, yeah, and you would check off like, and then you'd get little things for it, yeah, little prizes. And I know our library had where I was growing up, and also here in Florida, when my older kids were younger, they would have a little party at the end of the end of the summer, and if you qualify by reading like a certain number of books, you could go and there may be like, games or fun or pizza or whatever. And it was just like a way to encourage kids to keep reading in the summer and get incentives for it. But I would always get really excited about it. I know I loved going to libraries are fun. And you know, my kids used to be very big readers. They kind of fallen off the wayside a little bit the order they've gotten. And I hope they eventually come back, because, like, yeah, they went to my high school, or, like, once you're in AP classes and stuff, you're just reading for work, and yeah, not, it's not the same. So I hope they come back. But they were big readers, because I'm a big reader, so they would come with me to the library before they could read, because I was going exactly but, and we moved around a lot, right when my kids were little. So every town had a library and there's free stuff to do, yep. So we would go every time we moved, as soon as we got somewhere, go to library, get library cards, and absolutely, we utilize every single library, everywhere we were and did all the reading clubs. I think the best I'm trying to like, I'm sitting here trying to remember the best reading club. Oh, do you need to go out there? I don't think so. Okay, sorry. Katie studio door, I told them we were recording. Okay. Anyways, I'm trying to remember the best reading club. I get my states mixed up. I loved our library. When we lived in Missouri, we lived on base once. We lived there twice. We lived on base once and not the second time, but the one in town, not on base, always had the coolest little kids area. And it's a small town, like it's a very small town, but they've really invested in their library, yeah, which I love, because that is a very important place for communities. It really is. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. So library, libraries in general. So my library, yay. Okay, so the final one on here is the memory of no air conditioning. My heart just sank. What? Yes. So again, Indiana. So it wasn't as hot as often, but it got hot. I mean, it had like, the 90s, you know, a lot. And the home I grew up in, it was two story. We did have these huge oaks trees all around the home. So that part was good, but we had no central air, girl, get out, none. Shush. And we had, like, after a while, we had like, a single box air conditioner, like in our kitchen. And then I remember my parents got one for their room, and then eventually I lived upstairs, and I had one in my room, and that would kind of like, handle the whole upstairs, but we had box fans we would turn on at night, we would open our windows to let in air, and I just remember, yeah, it was like a 3000 square foot house, you know, like an old Midwest house. And on the hottest days, I have literal memories of laying in the middle of our living room under a ceiling fan, just being hot and like we're just. Gonna lay here under the fan, like, literally, that's what we would do, and not being able to sleep at night and just, and that's Indiana. Like, it's, believe it or not, places in the south and all that used to also have that I don't know how my So, my grandparents, my dad's mom and dad that live in North that live in North that lived in North Carolina. They both passed away, but there, they did not have air conditioning in their house in North Carolina until after my grandpa passed away in the 80s, like my mom refused to go there. And or actually, maybe it was before he passed away, my mom would got to the point where she refused to stay there with, wow, with us and, like, like, as small children, because it was so hot. Like, yeah, it was so hot, and they would not, like, they were very frugal with money, and which a lot of people of their generation were, yeah, they lived through some hard stuff, and they but she, my grandma did get, finally get central air. Yeah, same with my grandfather. You know, their home was near ours growing up, and they didn't have central air. And I remember even being in like, high school or whatever, and he didn't, I mean, I didn't. I mean, I know, like, one of Troy's siblings lives in Portland, and I think they live in a different place now, but they're her original house she lived in. They didn't have hair. Yeah, we went on. Oh, girl, this is a totally different topic for a different pot, but I don't know if I've ever told you this when so Tegan was a baby, so we're talking like maybe seven years ago. She was like, toddler age. We took a 33 day road trip with all five kids in our minivan. That sounds awful. We didn't have any pets yet, but no pets, but literally, like kind of started in Florida. Maybe we'll do a whole episode on this, or a bonus episode, but we started in Florida, went all the way at the East Coast, and we're strategically picking places that we knew family or had friends, although there were a few stops that we didn't. Went all the way at the East Coast, over to Ohio, Indiana, up to Missouri, over out to Colorado, Seattle, down through California, through Texas, like, back we just made like a big square of the US crazy stopping along the way. But wow, where's it going? Oh, like, wow. That was a long memory. My friend, my cousins, live in Colorado, that's okay, and they there's environmentally a lot of laws around free stuff too. So when they get, like, a certain allotment anyway, all of this. So their AC wasn't hooked up. And we just happened to be there during like this record heat wave week, of course. And it was like 95 outside, and they had no air conditioning, and this was seven years ago, or whatever. They were, like, we're so sorry. I was like, It's okay. Like, you know, yeah, it would be, like, Amber Levy, yeah, it was, it was a lot, but, I mean, yeah, so anyway, well, that is a lot of a lot of memories, memories. I mean, we we stuck in the 80s, but then we ended up talking about your road trip that. Yeah, so kudos. And we had no intro today, so no intro but, but I hope some of these memories resonated with you, and then if you have any, yeah to add. I mean, obviously, of course, everyone's we've talked about this before. On one hand, there was a lot of mainstream cultural things that we all share, but also it was a lot more fragmented. Oh yeah, and you didn't necessarily know about other people's traditions if they didn't live by you, because there wasn't social media and there wasn't whatever, whereas now, like, I feel like I get a peek into the way other people live, or a lot more than when I was growing up. So there may be something really cool that you did as a kid that we don't know about. So whether we're talking about this or something else, we're always open to hearing more about that. And like, as we were talking, like, now I'm like, Oh, I just thought of like, 600 more. But yeah, fine, maybe we'll do a part two. Yeah, we'll do a part two. I love that awesome well as always. Thanks for listening to generation in between. As any old podcast, you can join us over on Patreon, where we've got our bonus episodes and our fun after shows and some other fun things coming up, especially in the fall, when it's not so hot out and we'd love to see you there. And also leave us a review wherever you listen, share us on your social tell people how much you like our podcast. That helps a lot, and we'll see you next time. Yeah, stay away from DIY slip and slide. Not DIY, actually, just stay away from slip and slides period. We're too old for that. 43 don't get 43 now. 42 go ahead, but okay, that's me, 41 or younger. Okay, okay, bye.