The Way It Was

How It Used To Be

By Pat McManus

Mom walks in to her ten year old daughter’s room, “So, Sunny how’d your good-bye party go?”

“Horrible. They didn’t even care. They were on their stupid phones the whole time!”

Comforting her, “I’m sorry, baby, that’s just how kids are nowadays.”

“I want it to be like when you were thirteen.”

“It’s a whole different world now. And I hate to make it worse, but the moving trucks are coming here in the morning so see what you want from the attic and the rest is going in the dumpster… They’ll miss you, they’re just too busy with their phones to see it.”

Sunny rummages through the boxes in the attic then comes across a little black book. She leafs though it and discovers it’s her mom’s diary from when she was around thirteen. As she reads through it for hours, her drink spills, hitting an old lamp with a frayed cord and she gets shocked and knocked out.

Sunny wakes up in the late 70’s. She looks down at her Holly Hobby pajamas in disbelief. Her older brother, Eddie, 15, screams, “Hurry up, the cartoons are on!”

She darts out of bed then down the steps to see her older brothers sitting in front of an old, huge tv console on the floor.

She looks around confused as her mom hands her an old fashion phone hooked to the wall, “Say hi to grandma.”

She puts it to her ear, confused, “Hello?”

She jumps a bit as she hears her grandmother’s voice. She’s never seen a phone like that!

Her other brother, Brian, 14, rips the phone from her hand, “Hi, grammy!” as he walks away twirling the long phone cord around his fingers.

She looks around in this new time warp and sees her little brother, Jeffrey, 11, try to sit back down in his seat on the couch but Eddie pushes him away, “You got up! It’s my seat now!”

A commercial comes on the tv and her sister, Loren, 8, crawls over and changes the big, round channel manually until she finds another cartoon.

Eddie finishes his cereal, “Let’s go!”

Everyone gobbles down their cereal and as if this is just a normal Saturday morning, leaves their cereal bowls on the floor and runs out the door with Loren trailing behind. The screen door slams.

Sunny quickly goes upstairs and changes into a pair of terry cloth shorts and a t-shirt then joins her large family and the neighborhood kids in the cul-de-sac for a game of kick ball.

Sunny, still in disbelief, catches a fly ball, and after hearing screams from her brothers, throws it to second base which is a telephone pole. Pete, a neighbor watching second base, tags out their neighbor, Mikey. Sunny’s team cheers for her as they jump up and down in victory! They won the game.

They throw their hands in the air. Her brother, Eddie screams, “The Hatfields are the best! And the McCoys are the worst!”

Her brothers and others from the neighborhood hoot and holler as they continue to celebrate.

Her other brother, Brian, leads the way as they celebrate over a drink from another teammate’s nearby backyard hose. They all get a drink from the hose, spray everybody then toss it down so the losing team can rehydrate.

Eddie leads his team to some bushes on the property of the open backyards of their neighborhood and plops himself down as he eats the mulberries off the bush triumphantly.

Sunny grabs a few berries and sits by her brothers who are now laying down eating their berries and looking at the clouds. Eddie giggles, “That one looks like a butt.”

The teams just giggles and eats their berries happily. The other team joins them, picks their berries and they all make creations out of the clouds.

Sunny looks at everyone. She is still freaked out that she’s in another time, but relaxes, looks at the clouds and just takes it all in… happy as can be.

A neighborhood mother yells in the distance, “Joey, Tiny, Mikey… it’s time for lunch!”

Eddie says to his brothers, Jeffrey and Brian, “Let’s go the stream.”

Sunny and Loren follow them and the rest of the neighborhood kids eat their berries.

They get to the stream which is behind their house. It is a nice flowing stream with tall trees surrounding it and big rocks to step on.

Eddie, says to his brothers, Brian and Jeffrey, “I bet you I can climb the highest!”

All three of them start climbing different trees as fast as they can.

Brian screams, “Sunny, see who’s the highest!”

As they climb up the trees, Loren, overturns a rock and finds a salamander.

“Look, Sunny, I’m gonna get him!”

She scoops up the salamander as the boys hoot and holler as they make their way up the trees.

Loren cradles her new salamander friend and says “I’m gonna name him, Eddie.”

Jeffrey screams, “Who’s the highest?”

Sunny looks up and screams, “Eddie is! Sorry, guys!”

Sunny lifts a rock and finds a frog who hops away. The girls try to grab him but he’s too fast. They chase after him as the boys climb back down. Jeffrey, who only made it up to the first branch, jumps down and runs to aid his sisters. He scoops up the frog and holds his hands together to lock him in. “I got him!”

Brian races to Jeffrey and rips the frog from him as their mom screams, “Kids… lunchtime.”

Brian throws the frog into the stream as they race to get to their lunch that’s waiting on the deck.

The door slams as mom walks back in.

The boys devour their bologna sandwiches as Sunny still stares in disbelief.

Without a word, they finish their food, down their Kool-Aid, then wipe their mouths off on their wrists.

Brian says, “Let’s go to Pete’s.”

The boys take off.

Loren takes her sandwich, “I’m going to get my salamander.”

Sunny wants to go with the boys but looks at Loren still with the mindset that it’s not 2021. You can’t go alone!”

Loren gives her a strange look, “I go alone all the time.”

“Well, be careful!”

Loren trots away.

Sunny runs as fast as she can to catch up with her brothers.

She gets to Pete’s backyard and the boys are already on the old swing set trying to go higher than each other.

Eddie and Brian are neck and neck, Jeffrey pushes Brian to get him higher.

“Who’s higher, Sunny?!” Eddie screams.

Sunny looks at both of them, “Eddie is…again.”

“No way!” Brian yells.

“Sorry.”

Eddie, “Let’s see who can jump the farthest!”

Eddie jumps off the swings and then Brian does.

Sunny scrams, “Brian got farther!”

Eddie grabs a stick and starts thrusting it towards Brian, who gets a bigger stick and tries to fight back. The two of them go at it until the whole neighborhood rejoins and decides to do a kickball rematch. They play until it gets dark and a cute girl from their neighborhood wants to catch fireflies.

All the boys try to catch one to win her heart, one by one, the mothers start calling in their kids for dinner.

Sunny and her brothers leave saddened then get home to a delicious tv dinner consisting of a Salisbury steak, corn and a little brownie in their tin dinner box served on individual folding table trays.

They watch, Happy Days until they’re done then go to leave.

Mom yells, “Clean your mess! Or you’re gonna get it when your father gets home!”

The boys stop in their tracks and clean their mess.

Sunny follows the boys out as they meet the rest of the kids from the neighborhood. Sunny is still confused but loving her new life.

Eddie yells, “First one to catch a firefly picks the game!”

They all scurry to catch one.

Jeffrey gets one and let’s everyone see he really caught it, “I call manhunt!”

Unaware of the rules, Sunny just follows everyone as the two rival teams climb trees, hide behind bushes and run from each other trying not to get caught in this hide and seek kind of game.

When the game comes to an end, the boys fight with sticks as the girls catch fireflies.

Everyone runs around doing their own thing until one by one, parents call their kids in.

Eddie, Brian, Jeffrey and Sunny breeze through the front door, muddy, grass-stained with bruised knees, and exhausted, then plop down in front of the tv. Eddie, agitated says, “We don’t want to watch the stupid news.”

Dad comes in with his tv dinner, exhausted, “It’s time for bed, don’t make me get the belt.”

The kids run up the steps. Loren is already asleep but the boys invite Sunny to their room for some scary stories. She is delighted.

She crawls across the hall so her dad doesn’t hear her footsteps.

As they listen to make sure they weren’t caught, they hear a tv commercial, “If you call now you win 20,000 dollars!” Jeffrey writes the number down on his palm.

Sunny crawls to her mother’s room with the boys following. This is her big chance. The boys won everything all day. She grabs Jeffrey’s hand and attempts to use this very old phone. She figures it out and calls the number and gets through!

She passes the phone to Eddie, who disguises his voice as an adult and they say he won!

The boys praise Sunny as her smile lights the room!

Her brothers hug and shake her excitedly but whispering loudly, “You did it! You did it!”

But as they continue to shake her, she wakes up to her mother shaking her, “Sunny! Sunny! Wake up! Are you alright?!”

Sunny regains consciousness and looks around, confused.

“Honey, your drink spilt over and hit an old, frayed wire from a lamp. You got knocked out for a few seconds. Are you alright?”

“Mom, I just played kickball, and drank form a hose, and the boys fought with sticks…their eyes didn’t even get poked out, we played on the swings, climbed trees, the boys had bloody knees…me and Loren caught salamanders and a frog, we played with all these kids in the neighborhood! It was amazing!”

Eddie, Jeffrey and Brian snap pics of her and laugh.

“Why are you laughing? I won us 20,000 thousand dollars! I did mom. They were so proud of me!”

Brian, “Oh, man, this is gonna go viral!”

Mom, screams at her boys, “Turn that off! Go downstairs!”

Mom looks at her very concerned. “Honey, those are all the things I told you about when I was little and the 20,000.00 thousand dollars, we told you…you’re dad got that for being the best sales rep this quarter. Sweetheart, you’re scaring me. You got zapped by the cord…”

“No, I won that money! The boys were so proud of me! I don’t care if you don’t believe me! I got to live one day without cellphones… without pics… I got to be just free! I laid in the grass and looked at the clouds! I caught fireflies…everyone played together… big kids, little kids. It was awesome!”

She looks around and realizes she’s in the attic and it was just a dream.

“The boys were so proud of me.” She looks saddened and feels embarrassed.

“They still are, honey.”

“It was a great dream! I wish I could go back there.”

Mom kisses her forehead, “Streams, salamanders, frogs, trees… clouds… grass… they’re all still there. Just walk outside.”

“You’re right… it is all still out there. I’m gonna ditch my phone and go outside… and see all the things I thought were so amazing! Everybody should. Now where’s that broken lamp cord, I’m gonna zap the boys and send them back there… for good.” She smiles and hugs her mom.