The lines obscured your vision, they didn't really protect your eyes from the sun, but damnit you looked rad so you put them on and matched your posse.

Oh the days of throwing your body onto a wet (usually soapy) piece of plastic and tearing across the yard- no bumpers to stop you from flying into the great unknown,, no splash pool to stop you, and half the time it was a bunch of deflated pool loungers laid end-to-end. Safe? No way- broken bones were a plenty, cracked ribs happened, but the stories were epic, the bruises were badges of honor, and you look at what's out there today and think about how sad life has become for kids today

YES! The paratrooper. State fairs, pop up ride spots, this was a favorite. You piled in with your friends kicking your shoeless feet (because everyone lost their shoes- part of the fun as going under the ride afterwards in an epic shoe hunt) WHY did they take this away?

Boppers weren't really something kids liked but we could lure our parents out to the ice cream truck with the mere mention of a bopper- then we could get our big foot with the gumball toe and life as good.

Why did everyone have the whale raincoat? It's anyone's guess really but this made the roungs- they were always navy but the trim varied. Families had matching ones, you were no one without your whale raincoat.

Days spent in small sandboxes with our friends- no umbrella to protect our sensitive baby skin, just us, a few dump trucks, and a lot of sand in the underwear at the end of a fun morning.

If you were around when Zack's was popular, this simple picture just brought all of the smells back- walking in and taking in the aromas of the big waffle cones mixed with slightly burned fudge (mmmmmm) and then the excitement that one of the rarer flavors was on tap- White chocolate, peach, those were like winning the froyo lotto

Who needed handheld gaming devices, phones with endless apps? We didn't. We took these to bed, to the dentist, and on car rides with us. Kids today will never know the struggle of getting those little hoops on that little plastic stick or the balls through the basketball hoops.

This is what it was all about. Your mom would give you a few quarters or a dollar to stick in your shoe as you hopped on your bike to spend your day with your friends - just in case you needed to call from a pay phone or ran into the ice cream man.

These turned your tongue green. Just saying, it was a thing

Decisions, decisions. Trying to decide what color/flavor cone worked for your ice cream flavor of the day was a really tough one but you got through it.

When you went on a day trip, your mom always had a stack of these because there were no backseat videos or phones with apps in those days- nothing to prevent you from trying to throw your sibling out the rolled down window. SO these were handed out at different intervals along with a stern "Don't make me come back there" or "Don't make me pull this car over" threat when you knew the outcome was something that would make sitting veyy difficult.

In theory, the gum eyes were fantastic! Something to keep after you finished your treat! In reality, your sticky hands trying to hold the gumballs while you ate the ice cream and then almost breaking your teeth on the hardened gum that got even harder in your cold mouth probably wasn't well thoughtout

There will never be anything as good as this flinstone pushpop

Daycamps everywhere handed these out because they didn't have the permits to build campfires on the school or playground premises where most day camps were held. So we would use our imaginations and eat these as we told ghost stories during the day and pretended we were in the wild

Sure these still exist in some form, but they don't come close to the thick chocolate and crispies of a real crunch bar ice cream

Spokeydokes- why? Who knows but they were a childhood summertime requirement. It as like an alarm to neighbors that you were coming

The signs of a successful summer roadtrip as a child was talking your parents into buying as many different kids meals so you could get the toys for the ride home

You'll always miss the kissing coolers- especially the strawberry flavor.

You remember the struggle of having to rewind this to hit the beginning of your favorite song and eventually knew how many seconds you had to rewind to get there

The playgrounds were amazing- splinters were a plenty, burned bottoms from hot slides by the buttload, you nearly died on the tire swing and there was nothing to cushion your fall other than the worn out dried mud from years of play. but you lived and your scars are memories.

There will never be anything like this every again. Try to make them you might, but the banana, vanilla, and chocolate JELLO pudding pops can't be copied

THIS is what McDonalds used to look like. Want to know what's wrong with the world today? Look at the current mcDonalds. That's where we used to be and this is what it's come to

Hot summer days often found out skating in circles Tina Turner and belting out "I wanna dance with somebody" beneath that lit party ball or disco ball. There were games of red light green light and yeah, the Hokey pokey? That's really what it was all about

Burning your hands, falling off the rings, and climbing on top of the T's of this swing set only to have someone's momma run out and threaten to tell your momma if you didn't get down right away. Smell that freshly cut grass as you faceplanted at the end of a long slide with all of your friends stacked on in a train. That was the summers of the 80s