Friday nights

Once upon a time, Friday nights were something special.  I guess they still are but in a different way.  You know, the I just want to get my jammies on and collapse kind of way.  Because that is some good stuff there.  My family looks forward to that.

But some years ago Fridays were special for another reason.  It was date night. 

But before that, Fridays were the best night of the week because my family would go visiting on Friday night.

Sometimes we were at Aunt Mary's house (you know, my Great Aunt that I wrote about yesterday)

Sometimes we packed up and went to my grandparents house.  My sister and I might pack along our Barbies to play with while our parents and grandparents played clabber.  My grandparents almost always had ice cream or cookies as snacks for us.  Nana used to make cookies out of graham crackers and leftover cake icing.  We always loved those treats.

Sometimes we were at my mom's best friend's house (where we kids would pretend to already be asleep so that we wouldn't have to leave--it never worked--we always had to just get up and get our shoes to go home with our parents).

But I remember oh so many great nights at Aunt Joyce's house.  She was a part-time nurse, full-time mother married to Uncle Jerry (worked in an office and hated the telephone).  They had 6 kids--3 boys and 3 girls.  I couldn't keep the boys straight so I just called the two blond boys "that boy" and pointed to the one I meant.  They were all older than me anyway so it wasn't like we were hanging out and I couldn't remember who they were.

Aunt Joyce made the best popcorn known to this little girl.  She made it in a skillet on top of the stove.  She would pop it up for us and set it on the dining room table.  Sometimes we would get a little bit of soda with our popcorn.  We only got to eat at the table. . .never in another room of the house.

I loved her dining room.  It wasn't fancy but it was functional.  She had hardwood floors and a built in china cabinet to the left rear corner.  Their dog Queenie (part collie, part German Shepard and scared to death of storms) slept in the little nooked out area below the cabinet.  The table was large enough to seat eight.  And she had this very cool light.  I wanted one for our house but it never happened.  It hung from the ceiling but it was adjustable.  So if you wanted more light you could pull it closer to the table and if you wanted the light to spread across the room you would pull down then push up (similar to the motion for a roller shade on a window).

Our parents would visit in the dining room or maybe the living room.  We kids were often on our own unless one of the girls was home.  One of them was just four years older than me but you know how kids can be.  Four years is a lifetime and sometimes she just didn't want to play with us babies.  So we were always able to go downstairs to the rec room where there was a bumper pool table and a cabinet with some Barbies, some coloring books and some old comic books.  There was a TV down there too.  We didn't watch it much.  We'd play pool sometimes.  I remember taking comic books back upstairs to read while sitting in the same room as the parents. 

They were good simple times.  I guess it was just a different era.  We kids were included in the evening but not catered to either.  We could keep ourselves occupied with an assortment of toys.  And some of the snacks ever--popcorn or simple little graham cracker cookies made us smile..