Pioneer Valley Days

What a Childhood!

Well, I've finished the list of my top 50 childhood memories (reflecting my first 12 years, 1971 to 1982). I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed putting it together. Thanks for all the comments so far.

It was tough making the final cuts in assembling the list; I had something like 70 items in the original draft. I helped myself narrow it down by not listing individual people (like family, friends and teachers) or one-time events (like Disney World in 1982, family reunions, that camping trip in the mid-'70s, and the day I ran outside naked). It's not fair to compare those sorts of experiences with the mostly trivial and/or playful items that did make the cut. As a result, the list is dominated by pop culture (toys, TV, books, music, etc.) with a smattering of activities that I did on a regular basis. In all, I'm pretty satisfied with it. Maybe I'll revise it someday. Or I might just wait for our son to make his own list a few decades from now.

Until next time, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.

Joe's Kid List Now Rests

#1: The House

"There was a house as sure as time."
--John Ciardi

There was a house in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Four families lived there, but you wouldn't know it from the inside -- to a kid, the units seemed bigger than they actually were. It's the first place Mom lived when Nana and Pop Pop moved her and her younger sister away from Pennsylvania in 1962. Pop Pop took a job with Sikorsky. The four of them attended St. Charles Church. Mom could hang out until dark on the streets when the moniker "Park City" spoke of safety and community, not drugs and violence.

There was a house where I would stay over on weekends -- many weekends, actually -- and be greeted by a signature kitchen smell. Perhaps bowties and cabbage. Or spinach and potatoes. Or Nana's legendary homemade pizza. Off of the kitchen, in a layout you don't see much in newer homes, were two bedrooms, one of which had a clothesline that ran from the window to a tree across the backyard. You could hear clearly between the bedrooms if the big metal grate was open. The bed I slept in was huge and the covers thick -- all the better to guard against nighttime terrors brought on by mirrors, religious icons and my own imagination. I found comfort in waking from a nightmare to hear familiar voices from the kitchen: they're still up playing cards.

There was a house with no shower, just a bathtub, and a sink that poured scalding hot and icy cold water from separate faucets. But the house did have an incredible pantry, two big living rooms, and a nifty little nook off one of them that featured a massive cedar chest and a cheesy fake fireplace -- and the pleasant smell of Pop Pop's pipe smoke. And just a few steps down a narrow landing was an open-air porch, with a railing covered by chipping paint, that overlooked East Main Street. There I would sit with Nana and enjoy the breeze as she continually told me not to lean over.

There was a house I visited a few days before Christmas every single year. That's where we'd celebrate Christmas Eve, and I would always be there in advance to greet the rest of my family. After dinner -- smelts and pierogi and all kinds of side dishes, preceded by that giant communion wafer topped with honey and a walnut -- the kids would rush to the living room, pass out the gifts, and wait anxiously for the grownups to straighten up the kitchen. Come to think of it, we still do that today, only now we sometimes help clean up.

There was a house with a living room floor where I sat one weekend in the summer of 1981, swinging my finger and knocking imaginary baseballs over an imaginary fence, dreaming up teams and player names and drawing up baseball cards. That weekend, I built the foundation of what would remain, in 2005, a complex parallel-universe baseball league run by me and Jeff -- with 25 years of history behind it and a bright future ahead.

There was a house from which I would accompany Pop Pop on long walks to Skydel's department store, stopping first, of course, at Golden's pharmacy for Lifesavers and Mad magazine. When the street started getting rougher, we'd walk only to Golden's, or maybe just a little past it. When the gunfire inched closer each night, and the steep staircase became more difficult for Pop Pop to manage, they left the city for good.

There was a house -- and there was contentment and peace and a feeling of belonging. I drove down that street one last time several years ago, and I was struck by the graffiti and crumbling facades and tense unease hanging in the air. I wanted to drive away, quickly, as soon as I had arrived. The house may have still stood, but in spirit, it was gone.

But there was a house in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And in my memories, and in my dreams, there still is.

Joe's Kid List Makes Friends

#2: The Letter People

I was thinking recently that I have long remembered the location of my desk in every single grade, 1 through 8 -- but not kindergarten. Oh, I remember where my friend Jonathan sat. And when I recall the day we made pillow-like crafts by stuffing decorated construction paper with cotton and stitching the edges together, and I threw a tantrum and ripped up another girl's creation, I remember where her desk was, too. But only a couple of days ago did I suddenly remember where I sat. And the image that brought that memory to mind? Attaching the red sticker onto the latest Letter Person.

I'm not the only one for whom the Letter People -- an educational program of books and records invented in Waterbury, Conn. (and later adapted into a St. Louis-based TV show) -- remains a vivid memory. You'll find on the Internet that there's a small cult of my generation-mates who share those same warm feelings. The artwork that brought these ladies (vowels) and gents (consonants) to life is a product of its time and admittedly a bit creepy, but in a wonderful, never-forget-this kind of way. Peeling off that red letter sticker to attach it to its Letter Person card was the highlight of my week. And this coming from someone who had known his letters for years.

I remember sitting in a circle of kids at the back of Miss Baron's kindergarten class at Blackham School as she introduced us to each new letter and cued up that Letter Person's song. We started with Mr. M, the Munching Mouth, whose raucous song tracked a meal of meatballs, macaroni, mashed potatoes, marshmallows, maple syrup, melon, milk and much more. Then it was on to Mr. T, a country crooner who leisurely spun spectacular lies about the hundreds of toothpaste tubes it took to brush each one of his Tall Teeth. Next in line was Mr. F and his colorfully adorned Funny Feet, followed by Mr. H, who had grown out his Horrible Hair mainly because he feared the barber. And on we went. The original songs, of which I own a burned CD copy, were psychedelic in that '70s kind of way, but also wildly diverse in style. They absolutely rock.

The Letter People exist today in a different, much tamer form, but the magic is gone. For one thing, no longer are the girls vowels. They've lost that special quality, as the genders now boast a 13-13 split. And the other changes! Mr. H got a slight trim and how sports Happy Hair. Mr. R has traded his Ripping Rubberbands for Rainbow Ribbons. Gone are sweet treats like Cotton Candy; Mr. C is now known for his Colossal Cap. And don't get me started on Mr. X, who used to be Mixed Up. Now he's just Different, which -- let's say this together -- doesn't ... even ... contain ... the ... letter ... X.

For me, there will only be the original Letter People, and the memories live on. And when Jenn wonders why I snore so loudly at night, I can tell her I'm just taking after my old friend, Mr. N -- and his Noisy Nose.

Joe's Kid List Works Hard

#3: Frederick

"It all comes down to the visions we paint.
This is the work that we do."
--Nerissa Nields

Several family members have expressed surprise at how much detail I remember from my childhood. If they've read Frederick, my single favorite book, they shouldn't be too shocked. Like the title character, I've been collecting these memories and storing them away all my life.

Frederick is a field mouse who lives with his family inside a stone wall. Throughout the warm months, while his fellow mice store away wheat and corn, Frederick sits off by himself, thinking. When confronted about his apparent laziness, he explains that he too is storing away sustenance for the winter -- not food, but colors, words and the warmth of the sun. When the dark days of winter arrive and the mice find they need something besides food, Frederick begins to share with them what he has stored away.

Granted, in my adult life, I've improved my physical work ethic (thanks mainly to the woman I married), but I've never forgotten the message of Leo Lionni's 1966 classic. That is, all manner of work should be valued, whether performed by the hands or the brain or the spirit -- and in any community, there's always a place for the sensitive and artistic soul.

I have treasured this book all my life and still have my original copy, with rhyming graffiti scribbled on the cover. But it took me many of those years to realize that the main reason I love Frederick is because I am Frederick.

Joe's Kid List Blasts Off

#4: Lego

One January day, probably in 1982 or 1983, Dad asked me what I wanted as a birthday gift, and I rattled off the name of the latest Lego space set. He then asked, "you still play with Legos?" Well, of course I did, for Lego does not believe in age discrimination.

I was into the space sets mostly, leaving behind the instructions in the box to build my own creations, combining parts from different sets to make ever-bigger and more impressive spacecraft. Sure, I grew up with the more innocent town sets, where you built houses from the ground up (actually, from that green foundation piece up), but as an older boy, it was all about attaching sleek engines and heavy weaponry onto aerodynamic flying machines and pretending to blast the hell out of ... I don't know, maybe some stuffed animals.

Of course, it's somewhat cooler to be into Lego as an adult now. I've worked with professional people whose offices are adorned with extensive Lego landscapes. And today, it's all about robotics and electronics and making your creations move. But I didn't need any of that. Few pleasures were as blissful as breaking out my Tupperware bins full of Lego bricks and spending a quiet, uninterrupted afternoon in my bedroom, building and creating and imagining.

Lego remains the greatest toy of all time, and I can't wait for the day when I can spread out on the living room floor and create new engineering marvels alongside my son. It will be a great experience for him. It's all about him, of course. Isn't it?

Joe's Kid List Takes a Hack

#5: Wiffle Ball

This would rank even higher on my list if not for the fact that I've been swinging that yellow bat fairly regularly for the past 30 years, so it's not just a childhood thing. (Of course, in the mid-80s, Jeff and I switched permanently to plastic balls without holes, which curve just as well if you know what you're doing and produce much more impressive home runs to boot.)

Still, Wiffle ball was a part of every phase of my childhood. I'd regularly take on my next-door neighbor, John, who told me I had a good slider. When no one was around, I'd amuse myself by tossing the ball up and hitting it around the backyard on my own (which is one way early JBBL games were decided, before I developed the percentile-dice system). I played with my brother Craig in Massachusetts and with various cousins while visiting relatives in Pennsylvania. When I hung out with a classmate who lived on Sikorsky Place, we took on other pairs of kids and drew up an emblem for our team, the Sikorsky Slaughter. (Driving one into the metal trash can at the outfield end of the parking lot was worth 10 runs, but no one ever managed to do it.) I even have a photo of me at about 4 years old, in my backyard in Shelton, and a neighbor beside me is holding a Wiffle bat, its handle adorned with rings of black electrical tape, the same way we tape the bat today. Wiffle ball was simply a constant, which is why Mom had to continually replenish the stock of white balls. Because once a ball develops a hairline crack, it's a very short journey to the Wiffle graveyard.

And then there was Holy Name, the school I attended in seventh and eighth grade. I enrolled a week late in 1981, and before I did, John told me about Sister Jacinta, the principal who pitched the boys' Wiffle ball games every day during recess in the parking lot. How lame, I thought. A pitching nun. But I soon found out that Sister J -- who pitched in full regalia, complete with habit and ankle-length skirt, out from which she'd kick the occasional ground ball back into play -- had positively evil stuff for such a religious person. To be truthful, despite my backyard pedigree, I was never one of the better hitters at Holy Name. But in my second year there, I did make a crucial, shutout-preserving catch of a line drive in the legendary 35-0 rout we laid on the seventh-graders. Everyone, including our esteemed pitcher, signed the ball, which was promptly retired.

I have no idea where it is today. But it wouldn't hurt to check eBay.

Joe's Kid List Digs In

#6: Senape's Pitza

My Mom was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and many relatives -- including my godparents (my godmother is Mom's cousin) -- still live there. So from the time we were very young, we'd occasionally make the three-and-a-half-hour drive from Connecticut to spend a weekend at their house. The memories pile atop one another: the family reunions that, at their early peak, drew nearly 200 people; rides on Angela Park's couldn't-possibly-be-safe wooden rollercoaster, built in something like 1628; huge, amazing Italian meals that caused the best kind of pain because you ate too much. And every morning, it seemed, someone would go get a box of freshly made pitza from Senape's Bakery.

Instead of taking up space detailing the wonders of Senape's pitza, I will direct you to a site called Roadfood.com, where someone took the time to describe it much more lovingly and accurately than I could, right down to the sharpness of the cheese and the way pitza "ripens" throughout the day when left unrefrigerated. If you have ever indulged in a box yourself, your mouth will water while reading his description. It's beautifully written.

Now, if I'm being honest here, I can't say I mind that Jenn doesn't care for room-temperature pizza (heating this stuff would ruin it). If she doesn't want it, well, that just leaves more for me whenever someone visits Hazleton and brings us back a couple of boxes. So I'm not about to make a serious effort to convert her. I can be a selfish bastard sometimes.

Joe's Kid List Can't Wake Up

#7: Night Terrors

My Mom, a pediatric nurse, occasionally hears from worried mothers who think their kids have developed some psychological disorder. When she learns the details, I imagine she nods, smiles knowingly and helps them understand that what's happening at night is completely normal and harmless -- albeit kind of traumatic for both kid and parent. She's a good person to talk to about night terrors, because she remembers that I fought them for years myself, and I turned out OK. (Stop laughing, Jenn.)

Normal nightmares take place in REM sleep and are usually remembered upon waking. Night terrors are different -- they generally occur soon after bedtime, in a deeper, non-REM stage of sleep. The sleeper might even have his eyes open for part of the experience, and physically waking from it comes easier than emotionally waking -- in other words, the terror isn't always over when you're sitting up and your mom is trying to comfort you. Even awake, you might palpably see dim, fearsome images in your room (I still occasionally wake and think I see bugs flying around the bed, a likely remnant from my childhood). I remember, during one terror when we lived on Merritt Street, a sinister voice in my head that whispered, maybe you didn't say your prayers tonight. But typically, the morning after a genuine night terror, the dreamer doesn't remember much, if anything.

I do remember being comforted, though. I remember sitting up with my Mom in her bed on Merritt Street, if they were still awake, and looking at pictures of colorful desserts in Redbook-type magazines. (I always got put back in my own bed, though.) I remember Nana trying to shake me back to reality by letting me handle her crystal perfume bells. And I remember the night, on Light Street, when the terrors left for good, never to return. I had awoken in a sweat, as usual not remembering the details. But then I got up, walked to my bedroom door at the end of the hallway and, as I stood there, felt a wave of indescribable contentment wash over me. It was a feeling I'd had only once before -- at Nana's house, one night when she came in and pulled a blanket over me -- and I've never had since. Today, I can imagine faint glimpses of what it felt like, but that's it. I believe it's something a child can experience, but not an adult. Not during this life, anyway. Peace that passes understanding.

Joe's Kid List Rises and Shines

#8: Childcraft

For the last 20+ years of her life, Grandma recalled the morning when I came into her room at sunrise, woke her up, and asked her if she knew what mountain goats eat. I was probably 5 or 6 years old, and I had just found out myself. "At 6 in the morning," she would later tell people, laughing, "I don't care what they eat!"

Well, although I've forgotten exactly what mountain goats eat, I can thank the amazing Childcraft series of books (I usually call them encyclopedias, but that's not an accurate description; they're more like textbooks for kids) for stirring in me an appreciation of that knowledge when I was young. The series, which was launched several decades before I was born and has been updated regularly ever since, included 15 volumes in 1975, the year Mom purchased it. Titles such as The Green Kingdom, World and Space, How Things Work, and Look Again (a celebration of art) give some indication of how varied the topics are. And the combination of brief, snappy articles and cool photos was always irresistible. When I read from these books to Jenn's wombmate recently, she also found the information fascinating (though she remained understandably wary of outdated facts).

Mom still has the 1975 set in her attic. I've been reading from an identical set that I purchased a couple of years ago for $5 at a tag sale, and it includes 10 additional books -- annual specials Childcraft publishes along with each year's set. One of them is about dogs, and I read our son stories one night about real hero dogs who saved their owners' lives. I ended every tale by adding, "and (dog's name) has been dead for decades."

Their memories live on, however. As does Childcraft, where goats chow down and the learning never ceases.

Joe's Kid List Adds a Syllable

#9: Spelling Bees

First grade. The lunchroom at Blackham School. The principal is amazed when this 5-year-old kid decides to show off by spelling encyclopedia for him. He takes me to a table of sixth-graders and asks me to do it again. I do. He asks what else I know. Um, I can spell earthquake, so I do that. It's like vaudeville for geeks.

Sixth grade. Stonybrook School. We had regular spelling bees, girls against boys, and let's just say my team liked me on these days. Out of 13 such contests, I was the last boy standing 12 times, and I beat the entire class eight times. The one day I didn't beat the guys, I went out very early on astronaut -- a slip of the tongue, most likely; Mr. Nelson insisted I spelled it a-s-t-o-r, not r-o. On one occasion, we took on the other sixth-grade class down the hall, the room Lori was in. I was the last boy standing on our team, but not the last player -- I went out on license, just totally botched it. Major enthusiasm from Lori's class at that moment. They eventually won the day.

Seventh grade, spring of 1982. Holy Name of Jesus School. Finally, a spelling bee that meant something. I took my 30 classmates behind the woodshed, earning a spot in the district-wide contest. Mom drilled me on words every night. I surprised myself when I outlasted the winners from about 20 other seventh-grade classrooms, advancing to the diocese-wide championship, covering much of Southern Connecticut. Six of us took our turns at the microphone in front of a packed auditorium, and one by one, four of them fell. It was down to me and one girl. Twenty-three years later, it's hard to say why I added an extra E to disastrous. Grandpa insisted that the moderator pronounced it with the extra syllable. Perhaps she was momentarily blinded by the checkered pants Mom had picked out for me. Or perhaps I just wasn't the best speller around.

Leaving the auditorium, Mom was miffed when I blew off my teacher, Ms. Green, who had come to see me compete. Still, I was rewarded with a trip to Friendly's afterward, where I was congratulated profusely, but sulked the whole time anyway. Second place? To me, that was a total disastr.

Joe's Kid List Hits Bottom

#10: Tobogganing

When I think of my red toboggan, two memories stick out vividly. One is in Westfield, in the woods behind Dad's house, where we kids would haul our plastic sleds and find narrow, cliff-like trails to hurtle down. Don't think for a second I was that brave -- I stuck to the not-so-treacherous runs, while Michelle and Craig risked trees and bramble in search of something more exciting. Viewed from the bottom, obscured by the powder they kicked up, they looked like a snowball quickly gaining speed. Michelle bloodied her nose one day and probably sustained a concussion, which ended our fun for that afternoon. But I have a feeling she thought it was worth it.

Back home in Stratford, we were blessed with the most sloping driveway on the street, which emptied into a fairly long backyard. So it wasn't surprising that it became the most popular sledding spot among the local kids after each snowstorm. My stepdad didn't exactly discourage them from coming; he'd build us a luge-like run that stretched all the way into the woods, and then soak it down with a hose to create ice. He said it was for our family, not the whole block, but when you have something like that in your driveway, you shouldn't be too surprised to see your popularity in the neighborhood suddenly hit an all-time high.

Joe's Kid List Gets Grossed Out

#11: Wacky Packages

Funny how every group of kids thinks they're the first to be into something. My friends and I were like that in 1979 and 1980, when Wacky Packages, a line of product-satire collectible stickers produced by Topps, were all the rage. What we didn't know was that every card was a reprint from a larger set of series released between 1973 and 1976. I discovered that fact on a wonderful, obessive web site that links to every single image ever made. If you were a collector as a kid, you'll find yourself smiling as you click. Maybe today's kids think the 2004 cards, which are remarkably close in style and spirit to the 1970s cards, are the first of their kind, too.

All I know is that we collected these things obsessively, at least for a year or so before moving on to other fads. I bought most of them at a little store on Success Avenue in Stratford -- a bit of a bike ride from my own house -- because my best friend at the time lived around there, and I'd go over to play Wiffle ball. (This was around the time when I also collected beer-bottle caps -- off the ground, mind you -- eventually filling a trash pail in our cellar. Why I didn't save only the unique ones remains a smelly mystery.)

Back to the topic, though, and to the other great collectible mystery of this era: where did my shoebox full of Wacky Packages stickers go? Unlike some of my friends who pasted them on their bedroom doors (I saw one or two remnants of such activity as recently as 2000, when Jenn and I were house-hunting), I don't remember ever sticking them anywhere, although Mom can correct me if I'm wrong. So where did my shoebox go? Mom? Hello?

Joe's Kid List Brings in the Sheaves

#12: Little House on the Prairie

Simply put, this is the greatest show in the history of television. But it wasn't just the compelling storylines, well-defined characters, and top-notch writing and acting that made it a classic. No. It was the incomprehensible tragedy, the random violence, and a healthy appreciation for the bizarre. These were some screwed-up Minnesotans, and we loved them.

How else to explain Mary herding the students out of the blind school (that Albert burned down) while leaving behind her baby, whom Alice then uses to break a window in a doomed attempt at escape? Or Albert's spectacular morphine withdrawal? Or Albert's girlfriend being raped by a mime? And was Albert cursed, or what? Way to bring happiness to so many lives, dude.

Yes, it could all be very hit and miss, from dirt farmer Charles' obsession with collecting extra kids (including a young Jason Bateman and Shannen Doherty) to Doc Baker's cheerful acceptance of eggs and livestock as payment, from the annual blizzards and destroyed crops to the final-episode extravaganza in which the folks of Walnut Grove gather together to blow up their town. But Little House's charms were many, none of which was as wonderful as the Oleson clan, which gave us the greatest-ever TV villain. Retrocrush, a pop-culture site, just published part one of a lengthy interview with Alison Arngrim, a genuinely nice person who played Nellie with a delicious spite, the likes of which were never again seen on TV.

Good times. I mean, bad times. Those wacky pioneers.

Joe's Kid List Moves Right Along

#13: The Muppets

The Muppet Show was appointment television when I was a kid, even though some of the pop culture references went over my head. Even now, it's my fourth-favorite show ever. And 1979's The Muppet Movie ranked #10 the last time I did a favorite-movies list (here's the proof). So, should I list them separately? And where does that leave Fraggle Rock? And Sesame Street? And Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, for crying out loud?

So Jim Henson's amazing work gets bunched here in one listing. If anyone out there is still unconvinced of his magic, just watch anything produced by his company since his 1990 death. There's something ... missing. But what a legacy he left behind. From the goofy (the gloriously awful wordplay of "Veterinary Hospital" and "Pigs in Space" to the sublime (Gonzo's campfire rendition of "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday" in The Muppet Movie, a stunning song that still makes me teary-eyed), the Muppets blessed my generation with a seemingly endless stream of laughter, lessons and sheer insanity. Has Jim really been gone almost 15 years?

As lovable masochists Statler and Waldorf repeatedly told us, "It's kind of like a torture to have to watch the show." But to me, it was the highlight of the week.

Joe's Kid List Uses a Pen

#14: Games Magazine

In the photo at left, ripped from the web site of some guy selling old stuff, are a few issues of Games from 1980. The third one from the left, which came out that spring, was the first issue I ever owned. Well, I owned it for a day or so, at least, before I brought it to school -- where it was promptly confiscated by my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Keane, and I never saw it again. I did, however, see dozens upon dozens of future issues, as I've been a subscriber, off and on, well into my adulthood. The appeal of Games to me lay not only in the quality and variety of the puzzles, but in the wit and wordplay -- much of which took me years to appreciate. For a long time, I would rip out the cryptic crosswords and give them to my dad, as I wasn't interested in a puzzle where, for instance, the clue "Five-dollar bill with no back invested in raspberry for Joe's wife" leads to the answer JENNIFER. But once I figured them out, they became my favorite feature; my Dad's interest in cryptics should have been a good sign that my mind is wired that way as well. My love for puzzles led to a short stint constructing them for a Christian publisher -- and even occasionally for Jenn.

And I still think pencils are for sissies. Messy cross-outs are far manlier.

Joe's Kid List Feels Validated

#15: The Book of Lists

I've heard it suggested that virtually every used, for-sale copy of 1977's The Book of Lists, as well as its 1980 and 1983 sequels, is ratty and dog-eared. A quick check of the photos accompanying various eBay listings proves this to be largely true. Why? Because these are among the most addictive books ever written. My own copies are in pretty rough shape.

I first discovered The Book of Lists around fifth grade at the school library. And I quickly discovered that its sizable charms lay not only in the lists themselves, but in the wonderfully written paragraphs that accompanied most of them. (In my adult years, I've penned Christian devotions for three different publishers, and I've often gone back to these mini-essays for ideas and anecdotes.) Of course, who could forget the bizarre stuff? Alongside somewhat normal topics, such as most-landed-on Monopoly spaces and longest-reigning dictators, lay material on spontaneous human combustion, stigmata, and the sexual aberrations of famous people (did I mention I first read this stuff when I was about 9 years old?) And the lists keep on coming, by the hundreds. Irving Wallace and his kids, David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace, peppered their books with plenty of opinion lists from celebrities, and they smartly delved as deeply into history as they could. As a result, while some of the material is badly dated to the 1970s (for instance, lists of all-time top-grossing movies or known moons of the solar system), most of this stuff remains timeless. Often very, very weird, but timeless.

And, as you might have noticed by reading this list, very influential.

Joe's Kid List Gets Some Air

#16: The Streetlight Rule

Jenn and I were recently hanging out with her brother and reminiscing about the days when the neighborhood kids played together outside. I guess it depends on what kind of neighborhood you grew up in, but Jenn and I had similar childhoods in that we both went outside a lot -- partly because our parents made us go. We had no Internet then, and although we enjoyed TV and video games, we didn't spend every single afterschool minute in front of the tube. We were instead encouraged to get off our butts, get some fresh air and play with other kids. That's why I vividly remember kickball and Wiffle ball on our (thankfully dead-end) street, neighborhood-wide games of tag, and riding our Huffies down to the corner store or the playground behind the woods, at least in the days before it became littered with broken glass and cigarette butts. All the neighborhood parents knew each other, because their kids were in the same general age range and hung out together year-round, most of the time not getting into too much trouble.

And what was the streetlight rule? Simple. When the streetlights came on, you had to go home.

Joe's Kid List Gears Up

#17: Capsela

It's one of the great, nagging mysteries of my life. Simply put, I had a chance. A chance to learn basic concepts about axles and gears, about construction and wiring. A chance to understand these ideas, to store them for future use, to prove my manliness by developing into a mechanically inclined adult. Capsela gave me that chance.

I have no idea what happened. Really, Jenn, I don't.

But for awhile, I built cars that actually motored along. Pontoon boats that sped across the bathtub. Desktop fans to cool my face on hot summer days. I became the master builder; I created engineering marvels from the many pieces of the Capsela kit, and I gave them power. (Well, the battery capsule did, anyway. But I wired it properly.)

Capsela has since been replaced in my life by other construction toys. A drill. A jigsaw and a table saw. A router and a sander. But these are not my toys. Oh, no. I am doomed to watch another, more talented builder play with them. Sure, I hand Jenn her tools and do some heavy lifting when we tackle projects, but it's not the same as actually holding the power in my hand.

Still ... she never played with Capsela as a child. Who's the cool one now?

Yeah, I know. Still Jenn.

Joe's Kid List Waxes Poetic

#18: Slime

There were three basic facts about Slime: (1) it was a cool and uniquely scented toy, albeit kind of useless; (2) if you dropped it outside, it was ruined; and (3) if you dropped it inside, your rug was ruined. With that in mind, and in lieu of more specific memories, I bring you three poems I wrote in May 1995 about Slime. And about the delicacy of life. Or something.

Slaiku

All the kids loved Slime.
Then they added purple worms.
What were they thinking?

Slillanelle

I dropped my can of green Slime on the ground.
My playtime crashed to earth like sodden planes.
Here, look at all the leaves and grass I've found!

We dread our days like waiting dogs in pounds,
and long to kiss the soil like men with canes.
I dropped my can of green Slime on the ground.

What shape is God? I know the world is round,
phlegm-pocked with seven drifting spittle stains.
Here, look at all the leaves and grass I've found!

With each life lopped, another king is crowned.
I've packed my bags. I dream of upward trains.
I dropped my can of green Slime on the ground.

It's hard to play with dirt. I'm toy store-bound.
This green and brown mulatto knows my pains.
Here, look at all the leaves and grass I've found!

I know there must be some use for this mound
of clay-scum. Oh, release me from these chains!
I dropped my can of green Slime on the ground.
Love, look at all the leaves and grass I've found!

Slonnet

A dab of slime, the luminescent green,
falls rugward like a wounded afternoon,
leaving its scab, a bristling, pukey sheen,
beside the dresser. Mom will be here soon.

I drench some toilet paper by the sink
and try to claw the ugly remnant out:
the ugly scab just crackles with a wink
and flips a tendril. Oh, how Mom will shout!

It seems to my child's eye as greener still
than on the day I scooped it from the urn.
And surely this great vacuum cleaner will
fail to ungreen me. When will Mom return?

My rug is rough and gaudy. Still, I might
learn to accept the stain. It glows at night.

Joe's Kid List Goes Postal

#19: One Monster after Another

I like a lot of Mercer Mayer's work, but he never wrote and drew anything else quite this awesome. It's the charming story of a letter sent by Sally Ann to her friend Lucy Jane, and how it gets waylaid by a series of hilariously smug monsters who prey on either (a) mail or (b) each other. There's the Stamp-Collecting Trollusk, the Letter-Eating Bombanat, the Bombanat-Munching Grumley ... you get the picture. This is another example of how a classic book has been partly ruined in recent years, in this case by a publisher who shrunk the page size and obscured some of the book's wonderful detail. But I've got the 1974 original, and I can't wait to show our son that the Postal Service really does work well, once you get past the greed and attempted murder.

Joe's Kid List Goes Exploring

#20: The Woods

As I was preparing to write this, I began to realize that I remember, with a vividness that surprises me, almost every inch of the woods behind our house in Stratford. You can see, if you click the satellite image at left, that the woods aren't really that big (I remember hitting a golf ball over the narrow part with a Wiffle bat), but when I was a kid, they were expansive enough that I never got bored in there. I'd cut through to get to the playground behind the little Stonybrook Road shopping plaza (or, later on, to where my bundle of newspapers got dropped off on Franklin Avenue). Or, on some summer days, I might just explore, enjoying the shade and dreaming up elaborate fantasies of war and capture, or thinking how cool it would be if someone laid track along the well-beaten trails for a little amusement-park-style train. Truth be told, much of the romance was in my head: the woods were often muddy and marshy, home to a tiny, winding, dirty stream, and teenagers would court danger there many nights as they stoked a large bonfire around which they drank and partied (and left their beer bottles). But the woods were just as much my place -- a place of solitude and inspiration, where my mind was free to wander along with my legs.

Joe's Kid List Is Amazed

#21: Glorpy

My Dad has a knack for magic, but why, out of all the tricks he entertained us with as kids, do I remember a possessed handkerchief the most? Dad would take a little ghost in his hand (apparently, ghosts were easy to catch) and stuff him into the handkerchief. You'd think Glorpy would be irritated at his sudden confinement, but he would nevertheless entertain us by rising up inside the cloth and dancing around. Apparently, this ghost was happiest when he was inside the handkerchief. Maybe he had a cold.

I should tell you that I think I remember how the Glorpy illusion was done. But since Agent Skinner is probably still getting death threats after revealing those magic secrets on FOX, I believe I'll just keep my mouth shut.

Joe's Kid List Explodes

#22: Mittens the One-eyed Cat

When I was very young, living in Shelton, apparently we had two cats: Mittens and Pandora. When we moved to Bridgeport, however, they went to live with Grandma Olivia in Stratford because our new landlord didn't allow cats. A year or two later, in early 1977, we moved to the unit above Grandma Olivia; Pandora was still there (she would die of cancer some time later), but Mittens was already gone. Here's the thing, though: I don't remember Pandora ever living with us in Shelton, only Mittens. And apparently, Mittens was quite fond of me, too, as evidenced by the photo (click it for a larger view).

Alas, we both wound up with problems. One day, after we moved to Stratford, another of Grandma's cats, Cashmere, had kittens. The kids all got to play with them, but I became brutally ill. And that began many years of very serious cat allergies. I can live with our own cats now, but that's only after becoming so sick at first that I almost needed hospitalization; I suspect I'm still pretty allergic to most other felines. As for Mittens, she came home one day with her face dripping with a sticky discharge. On closer inspection, one of her eyes was gone. It pretty much looked like it exploded, but it could have been anything, really: a BB gun, a fight with an animal, a run-in with Hamas, who knows.

This sort of thing is probably why Taz and Oliver stay indoors.

Joe's Kid List Verbs an Adjective Noun

#23: Mad Libs

Jenn regrets the day she let me pick up a thick collection of classic Mad Libs at a bookstore. Because since then, on every road trip to Maine or elsewhere, on both the day we drove out and the day we headed home, she's had to come up with a ton of nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, animals, places, famous people, and the always-entertaining exclamations (which were even more amusing in the fourth grade, but Mom doesn't have to know that). Call me an overgrown kid, but Mad Libs are one of the few things that are as funny now, as an adult, as they were as a wildly popular elementary school diversion. Sometimes on those long rides, though, Jenn doesn't want to do more than one, so I have to get the words from Maverick, which makes the entire essay read like this: "Once there was a (round) (ball). Suddenly, a (ball) (bounced) and (fetched) a (spherical) (ball)." It gets kind of boring, but sometimes Maverick tosses in "drool" or "bone" for variety. Needless to say, Jenn's much better at this.

Joe's Kid List Passes Go

#24: Monopoly

Everyone played board games growing up, and all of us have our own favorites. But two in particular that we kids used to play at my Dad's house are especially memorable -- perhaps because we were so darn competitive. There was Risk, which featured one kid running from the table, near tears, about five minutes into our very first game ever. And then there was Monopoly. Dear, wonderful, treasured, cut-throat Monopoly. You see, the way we played Monopoly, it was all about side deals and mutually beneficial partnerships and basically teaming up to screw over other players when it was expedient to do so. It was great. We're all in our 30s now, and the last time Lori, Michelle, Craig and I tried playing Monopoly was on Christmas Day in 1998, this time initiating Lori's husband, Mark, into the tradition. There was no winner, because the game ended early with much yelling and stomping out of the room. Just like the good old days.

Joe's Kid List Learns a Lot

#25: Big Science and Tiny Science

My eighth-grade class yearbook (1983) contains a "class prophecy" in which all the students predict where they will be in the future. I said I would be writing for the New York Times. The prophecy was half-true: I did become a journalist, but I made my mark at much more respectable publications.

Before this time, however, during the elementary-school years, I was convinced I would become a scientist of some sort, and my dual passions -- astronomy and microbiology -- couldn't have been more different, at least in the size of the objects studied. While other kids were unwrapping remote-control cars and football gear, there I was, on two separate Christmas mornings, opening up gifts of a microscope and a telescope, and believing myself to be the most fortunate child ever. In fourth grade, for an independent school project, I wrote a report on constellations. Then in fifth grade, faced with another such task, I educated my classmates and teacher about the wonderful world of microbes. I even took a detour to a nearby brook on the way to school once to fill a beaker with water and sediment so I could study it in class.

Jenn is absolutely amazed that kids never beat me up just for the fun of it.

Joe's Kid List Turns a Page

#26: Dr. Seuss

Flash forward to October 1991. Theodor Geisel has died. I write a sort of sentimental feature opinion for my college newspaper, which I believe is the last thing I will ever contribute to the publication before I graduate and move into the work world two months later. The article pays tribute to Seuss in an odd, circular way, hitting first on the time I woke my grandmother at dawn to tell her what mountain goats eat for breakfast (info courtesy of Childcraft), and then moving to my years of horrible nighttime fears. The point is that Dr. Seuss was always there, in the background, providing comfort and laughter, cultivating curiosity, pointing to possibilities. I am not the only college kid moved by his death, though. The morning we hear the news, I and a bunch of fellow English majors hijack a literature class with an impromptu reading of passages from Seuss. I read from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, still my favorite, ending with the line, "Every day, from here to there, funny things are everywhere."

I still have the whole thing on tape. Once the applause dies down, you can hear the professor, an aging saint who has dedicated his life to God, his wife, and Shakespeare, ask softly, "Did I hear nothing from Yertle the Turtle?"

There are not many things we were all raised on. Dr. Seuss is one of them.

Joe's Kid List Gets Creepy

#27: Ghostly Sounds

It begins like this: "Night falls. The forest holds its breath. Everything is still. The blood-red moon stares through the trees. Suddenly, the wind blows. The trees shiver. A bat quivers in the night and flies away." From that opening onward, Ghostly Sounds, a Halloween-themed sound effects album, never lets up (at least not until its much lamer side 2, titled "Monsters from Outer Space"). Released on the Peter Pan label in the early '80s, this is the work of Gershon Kingsley, the acclaimed master of the Moog synthesizer. But we didn't know that as kids. What we remember are the odd sounds, the sinister (but slightly tongue-in-cheek) narrator, and the cool cover art (which is, admittedly, not all that scary). This is one of those childhood artifacts that just popped into my head one day not long ago, so I went googling for it. You can still find used vinyl copies for sale, but it was never available on CD. If you visit Kingsley's web site, however, you can download a short snippet from the goblin dance, one of the album's most memorable moments. Just navigate to the "Outline" link, then click on "Miscellaneous Music" to listen as "goblins step. And laugh. And dance..."

Joe's Kid List Sits on It

#28: Happy Days

Let's get something straight first. I did not have a Fonzie doll on my bed when I was a kid. It was more like a Fonzie-shaped pillow, with Fonzie's thumbs outstretched and the word "aaaayy" prominently displayed. Just so we're clear. Not a doll, because that wouldn't have been cool. And Happy Days was pretty cool when you were a kid in the 1970s, as well as being my favorite comedy back then. When Jenn and I watched the recent reunion special, I was struck by how corny a lot of the humor really was -- but make no mistake, it was funny, and still is. By the way, if you go to the Jump the Shark web site, there's a listing of 18 ways in which shows go downhill, such as "New Kid in Town," "Hair Care," "Singing," and "Ted McGinley" (really). Happy Days is guilty of at least a dozen of them -- not to mention the quintessential shark-jumping moment itself -- yet it remains a classic.

So, just to recap: Not a doll. A pillow. Aaaayy.

Joe's Kid List Laces Up

#29: Rollerskating

OK, some simple math. Couples skate = social pressure. And social pressure = trauma. You can draw your own conclusions, but I will share two moments that stand out. First, there was the time during the late '70s when my grandmother took me and my sister, Lori, to a local rink. Grandma didn't want me to miss even one second of skating time, so during an announced couples skate, she actually found me a partner. Someone my age. A boy my age. Yes. I know I was only 8 or so, but really.

Then there was the fall of 1981. Seventh grade. There was a girl who, I had heard, sort of liked me, but when you're 10 -- actually, when you're 10 and you're me -- talking to girls in that way is nearly impossible. But still, we actually sort of skated together (at least somewhat near each other) at one of our school's regular skating parties. But it wasn't a couples skate. No, during the couples skate, she skated with another, older, much cooler guy. And they held hands. I watched from the sideline. Grandma wasn't there to get me a partner, which was just as well.

You might think that wasn't so traumatic, that the details of that moment of rejection would have faded from memory. But the song that played as the two of them skated past was Air Supply's "Sweet Dreams." So you would be wrong.

Joe's Kid List Hopes You Have a Good, Good Time

#30: The Magic Garden

How would you like to go to a magical garden of make-believe, where flowers chuckle and birds play tricks and a magic tree grows lollipop sticks? Well, if you lived within broadcast range of New York City's WPIX during the 1970s, you could do just that every afternoon. It is an absolute pleasure to write about such a beloved show, and I was also pleased to learn that Carole Demas and Paula Janis, the show's guitar-toting, hippie-chick hosts, are still performing family concerts. I have incredibly fond memories of their songs, of Sherlock the squirrel and Flapper the bird, of the Chuckle Patch of flowers that loved corny jokes, and of the Story Box, which would give Carole and Paula the costumes and props they needed to tell a story properly. At its peak, this show got bigger ratings in the tri-state area than Mister Rogers, Romper Room, even Sesame Street. And there's no secret why. After all, you don't need a key, so follow me: there are no locks on Story Box, on Story Box, on Story Box.

Joe's Kid List Finds Its Roots

#31: Casey Kasem

If you want to find the roots of my list obsession (or at least an early instigator of it), look no further than America's favorite Arab, the man who's been counting down the hits for decades, all the while keeping his feet on the ground and reaching for the stars. I was a devoted listener of America's Top 40 on the radio (and viewer of America's Top 10 on TV) back in the late '70s and early '80s, not just because I was a burgeoning music fan, but because I loved the idea of making lists. I even took the concept to school in sixth grade (1980-81), where, as an independent project, I made a ballot box for classmates to write down their favorite songs that week, then compiled the results into a master list. It only lasted a few weeks (lack of interest, as I recall), but I can tell you that the first number-one song was REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You." And I guarantee you that, as my wife reads this, she'll think to herself, he can't even remember to call for heating oil when we're low, but he remembers THAT.

Joe's Kid List Plugs In

#32: Electric Football

Have you ever envisioned a football game where the roar of the crowd was replaced by a very loud droning buzz? Where the ball carrier crept along at about 0.2 miles per hour and had to stop if he was so much as touched? Where the defensive backs would begin spinning around in tight circles for no apparent reason? Welcome to Electric Football, a game in which you spent more time sticking the tiny uniform numbers onto the players' backs and adjusting the little directional gears on their plastic bases than actually playing the game. Why? Because it didn't matter what you did to the plastic base; the player was going to move in whichever direction he darn well pleased. Slowly and loudly. And the weird quarterback arm mechanism never worked, so you forward-passed the ball by flicking a homemade, folded-paper triangle with your index finger.

And then you got bored and went to the arcade.

Joe's Kid List Goes for a Ride

#33: Riverside Park

I remember five amusement parks very well from my childhood: Quassy at Lake Quassapaug in Middlebury, Conn.; Playland at Rye Beach, N.Y.; the ancient Angela Park in Hazleton, Penn.; the now-defunct Mountain Park at Mt. Tom in Holyoke, Mass.; and the one I've chosen for this list, Riverside Park in Agawam, Mass., which is now a Six Flags. It's much bigger and better-known under its new ownership, of course, but it was big enough back when my family used to get season passes, and it had an undeniable charm. My brother Craig and I did this incredibly lame thing a time or two when we were kids: we'd draw a little map of the park from memory and decide the day before a visit which rides we'd go on and in what order. Never followed it, of course. We were, however, in the park the day the Cyclone, that great, retro wooden coaster was introduced. Other memories are just as vivid but less fun at the time, like losing my dinner while walking off the Rotor. Riverside (so named because it straddles the Connecticut River) used to be a top regional venue for rock concerts, until (as Jenn informs me) one night when the traffic coming out of an especially raucous show got stalled on the main road outside the park, and drunken concertgoers took to relieving themselves on people's lawns. Then there were no more concerts. And everyone's grass eventually grew back.

Joe's Kid List Goes Vroom

#34: Matchbox Cars

There's a little metal car on my desk at home, a black convertible. It was a stocking stuffer for Jenn a few years ago in lieu of buying her an actual Mustang convertible for Christmas. It's also a reminder of the days, back in the '70s, when I had two huge containers (Tupperware, of course) filled with Matchbox cars. I have no idea where they are now, but I do know they represent one of the few toys from my childhood that normal, non-geek kids played with, so we can be thankful for that. Whether utilizing one of those vinyl racetracks to propel the cars around, or some Fisher Price-type garage, or simply my own imagination out in the backyard garden ("Fifty-foot-tall tulip ahead! Swerve! Swerve!"), Matchbox cars provided hours of fun.

Joe's Kid List Gets a Job

#35: My Paper Route

Paper routes seem to run in my extended family. A brother and a sister both had one, and so did my wife and her sister. I had a 35-house route, one street over from where I lived, from 1982 to 1984. In those days, The Connecticut Post published two weekday editions: The Telegram (mornings) and The Bridgeport Post (evenings). I delivered the Post after school, picking up the bundle at the curb where it was dropped, loading the papers into the basket of my black Huffy, and doing the route. Each customer had a preference as to where the paper should be left: under the mat, in the mailbox rack, in the door screen, etc. And in those days, billing wasn't done by mail, so on Saturday mornings, the sounds of ringing doorbells and my repeated cry of "collecting!" filled the neighborhood. On Sundays, I'd combine the paper and the inserts at home and load the piles in the back of the Tupperwagon (see entry #39), and my Mom would drive slowly down my route as I bounced from car to house. Jenn thinks that's pretty wussy, but there you go. Some of the customers could be real characters, from the guy who thought I was 8 and gave me kiddie toys each Christmas to the nice elderly couple who once fed me hot chocolate with a dollop of vanilla ice cream after a snowstorm. Good times.

Joe's Kid List Sighs Longingly

#36: Martha Quinn

Back in the days when MTV was new, desperately clawing to get onto cable systems, we watched a lot of videos. But what was it that transfixed the younger set in the early '80s? Was it the garish colors and impossible hair? Was it the excitement of the new wave sound taking over our TVs? Was it the fact that the network actually played videos back then? Actually, none of the above. It was the awkward, next-door-neighbor hotness of Martha Quinn. Because, after all, middle-school geeks need goddesses, too.

Joe's Kid List Doesn't Worry

#37: The Adventures of Isabel

"Isabel, Isabel didn't worry. Isabel didn't scream or scurry. She washed her hands and straightened her hair up; then Isabel quietly ate the bear up." Well, I've been getting a recent education in the general creepiness of children's literature, and there are few more wonderfully creepy examples than this 1960s interpretation of Ogden Nash's classic poem (which you can read in its entirety here). This image was difficult to find online, because Walter Lorraine's sinister drawings have been usurped by a 1990s edition by an artist who turns the story far too cute. Isabel is very brave, no doubt, but her situations are not cute, and Lorraine, with his understated, spooky, purple tones, got it exactly right. Through his eyes, this is a wonderful book, and well worth the expense if you can find it.

Joe's Kid List Sings Along

#38: Sweet Caroline

You can trust me that my Mom had a fairly cool record collection in the '60s, but by the time the '70s rolled around, it was largely usurped by the likes of Barry Manilow and Neil Diamond. (And the Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack, which I'd listen to on Good Friday.) As uncool as much of this was, I got into most of it, which helps explain my smooth transition into Perry Como three decades later. And my very favorite song as a child was Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." I'd sing along to the record, we have a photo of me dancing to it, I just adored it. One Halloween night, at the tail end of trick-or-treating, the neighbors could see a ghost marching down Merritt Street in Bridgeport, sack full of candy, belting out "Sweet Caroline," like a little Broadway showtuner. It's amazing I wound up liking girls.

Joe's Kid List Gets Fresh

#39: Tupperware

So say you've got that Tupper feeling up in your head, deep in your heart, down in your toes, even -- the horror -- all over you. You sing the praises of fresh-tasting food, you extol the many attractive sizes and colors, you can't get enough of those locking lids. And if you're my Mom back in the early '80s, you join countless other Americans in selling the stuff. So not only were our cabinets stocked with every piece of Tupperware imaginable, but I got to fill out, by my estimation, several billion pieces of paper (invitations, or order forms, or something -- I've repressed the memory) as my Mom's very own little party-planning helper. When she got to be a manager for awhile, they gave her a station wagon, which was thankfully not made of Tupperware. She called her group of dealers the Cari-o-liers, which reflected (1) her name, Cari, and (2) an actual product. So if her name was, say, Lydia, her group might have been called the Always-burp-the-lydias.

Thank God she went back into nursing. Tupperware is insane.

Joe's Kid List Gets Merciless

#40: Flash Gordon

The 1980 version of Flash Gordon, in addition to having one of the coolest soundtracks ever (courtesy of Queen), probably contains more quotable lines than any movie of my lifetime. “Flash, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the Earth!” … “It will make your nights with Ming more agreeable.” “Will it make me forget?” “No, but it will make you not mind remembering.” … “I do.” “I do NOT!” … “No! Not the bore worms!” This movie was a constant stream of cheesy dialogue, all framed against some of the most psychedelic sets you’ll ever see. Not long after seeing Flash Gordon, I remember sitting for a really nice seafood dinner at my grandmother’s house, and my brother and sisters and I (and my Dad, as I recall) couldn’t stop quoting it. We were too young to mind some of the horrible acting, especially by Sam J. Jones as Flash, who was also supposed to be a New York Jets quarterback. Hey, if you can’t beat the Patriots, you might as well do something useful and save the universe.

Joe's Kid List Inserts Another Coin

#41: Arcades

This would be higher on the list if video games hadn't hit big so close to the end of this list's cutoff, 1982. But at that time, they were huge. I spent entire Saturday afternoons with friends at the nearest arcade, with quarters (earned on my paper route) bulging from a felt Crown Royal bag my grandfather gave me. You'd put your quarter up and wait your turn to play early classics like Galaga (pictured), Q*bert, Tempest, Dig-Dug, Joust, Donkey Kong, Popeye, Jungle Hunt, and my favorite, Ms. Pac-Man. One night at college in 1987, around 2 a.m., I reached 300,000 points on that sucker (you're pretty much without power pellets after 140,000 or so). It was the highlight of my semester. (OK, I was a sad, sad individual.) And the seeds of that glorious achievement were planted years earlier, when arcades were at their peak. Even during my first visit to Disney World in 1982, despite all the other stuff there was to do, my brother Craig and I would spend time with these games in the rec room of the Polynesian Resort. Eighteen years later, on my next visit to Orlando, Jenn and I blew most of the final full day of our honeymoon at an arcade, as I played the classics. Jenn's still annoyed about that. I don't blame her.

But those early games are still the best. The kids these days have no idea.

Joe's Kid List Gets Sleepy

#42: Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba

This is a no-brainer for this list, yet I had forgotten about it for the longest time. Both Mom and Nana (her mom) used to sing this Italian lullaby to me when I was very young. Recently, I did some googling to find out if it was a real song or just something they made up. That's when I discovered it was an actual recorded song by Perry Como. So, doing what any guy with a really cool music collection would do, I bought a Perry Como CD. And to my wife's endless dismay, I actually liked it. Not just the song I was searching for, but the whole thing. I probably get it from Nana, who, I'm told, adored Perry Como to the point where my grandfather would be jealous when she watched his TV show. Kinda silly, really. I mean, I don't get jealous when Jenn sees Howie Long, Colby Donaldson or Dwayne Johnson on TV, and in return, she lets me watch The Rachael Ray Makes Sure She Has Enough Money Left Over for Alcohol Sweet Alcohol Show.

Joe's Kid List Gets Eaten by a Grue

#43: Zork

In the very early '80s, home video game systems were in their infancy, with Atari set to reign supreme for the first half of the decade. But the game I recall most fondly from this era was played not on a console, but on a home computer (Commodore 64, anyone?). It began, "Zork is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortals." Um, wait ... seen by mortals? Players never actually saw anything: Zork had no graphics, just words. You were the dungeon adventurer, looking for treasure and trying to avoid getting killed by typing in commands and seeing what happened. See, there are two types of gamers: people who crave fast-paced, graphics-heavy challenges requiring split-second timing, and people like me, who prefer something more leisurely and puzzle-like. That's why I've actually downloaded and played Zork (and its sequels) in recent years. It has never lost its appeal.

Also, I'm a geek.

Joe's Kid List Feels Awful

#44: Bronchitis

Every single November, without fail, I would spend a few days home from school. Why? Bronchitis, the Old Faithful of my childhood maladies, paying its yearly visit. My lungs have never been great since a serious bout of double pneumonia when I was six weeks old, and that (along with my non-existent fitness regimen) probably partly explains the asthma today and the annual bronchitis back then. But it wasn't all bad. I got to prop myself up in bed with my crossword puzzles, and Mom would bring in soup and ginger ale and antibiotics. Not a bad life, actually. I was supposed to take those pills for 10 days, but I disliked swallowing them, which led to Mom's discovery one time of seven or eight day's worth in a desk drawer (I was never good about properly disposing of evidence), and her angry response: "Do you want to DIE?"

And don't get me started on those oh-so-tasty liquid medicines.

Joe's Kid List Goes Blank

#45: The Match Game

Gene Rayburn: "Lame-o Joe was so lame..."

Audience: "How lame was he?"

Gene: "Every day after school, while cooler kids were enjoying team sports, Joe would enjoy blank."

(Cue music and frantic scribbling)

Contestant: "I'm going to say The Match Game."

Gene: "Well, let's see how you did."

Charles Nelson Reilly: "Well, I was going to say 'spending time with his girlfriend,' but that didn't seem right, so I went with The Match Game."

(Audience applause)

Betty White: "Oh dear, I said 'hanging out with his many friends.' I feel so silly."

Richard Dawson: "That's OK, I went with The Match Game."

(Audience applause)

Gene: "Hey, Richard, way to come to the set sober today!"