Exactly how old are you?

This question was posed to me by my beloved son of 12 years. Now he knows exactly how old I am. He knows the hour and the minute that I was born. He asked, I told him and on my birthday he generally greets me at that spefic time with a 'Happy Birthday Mommy!' So, he knows how old I am, but for this one reason only, he just had to ask.

On Wednesday he got home from school and called me. He told me all about his day and then proceeded to do his chores. About 45 minutes later I get this call:"Hi Mommy.""Hi Eric, what is up?""Well, I was watching Nick and there was a commercial for Shirley Temple. Do you know who that is? ""Of course I know who she is. Why?""Well, I was just wondering. I saw a commercial for her and I was wondering if you knew who she was. Did you like her?""Yes, I did. I know the songs and the movies, all if it. Why?""You know the songs and the movies?""Why sure I do! That is what I grew up on.""Ok, and exactly how old are you? This stuff is in black and white. This stuff is pretty old. I can't believe you know all about her.""Eric, I am not THAT old. It was a fun time when she came on TV and we would watch them as a treat.""Well, I saw a commercial, and I thought you would like the videos. Do you think you would like them?"
And it goes on from there. But it was quite funny for him to ask me how old I was. Or more like Exactly how old I was.

They don't understand that we only had 3 channels to watch, there wasn't that much on FM radio, so we listened to AM. We didn't have a colored TV until I was about 12. I grew up on a B&W tv, just like most everyone else of my generation.

He loves to hear stories of when we were growing up. And, of course, there are some that I won't tell him, some that I can't tell him, or some that I would prefer to erase from my own memory. But I look at him when I tell him about my childhood, what I can remember of it, and he looks at me in awe, like it was really cool to grow up like that. Ok, there are somethings in my childhood that was really neat, but the rest, well, it was not how I would have wanted a childhood.

They both get a chuckle out of our lives, the food that we ate, the shows that we watched, the things that we played with. It is fun to tell them the things and watch the expressions that I do get. Walking 2 miles to the bus stop was nothing, not like today, dropped off right at the door.

Ah, the luxuries of life!