Another Piece of Childhood .. Lost
Remember When .. Easy Bake Ovens
I heard tonight that Hasbro will no longer be making the EZ Bake oven. Apparently incandescent light bulbs will no longer be available so the oven won’t work anymore. Remember that pink dream? It was the only present I wanted when I was 10. Those gooey cakes and brownies. In retrospect they were perfectly dreadful but at the time…fabulous!
I remember riding bikes without a helmet, knee and elbow pads and a mouth guard. Playing flashlight tag we ran thru our neighbors yards. Going to the mall without a parent. Summer mornings heading out after breakfast and coming home at dinner after a day of adventures.
Remember when it was OK to go Trick or Treating and not worrying about razor blades in the apples? We hated the apples just cuz they so didn’t compare to chocolate! We could wear costumes to school-and our mothers could make treats for the whole class. On Valentine’s Day we all got a cheesy card and there was a party-right in the classroom! Hell , we could have Sloppy Joes and cardboard pizza in the cafeteria-no one worried about the nutritional content.
I remember when it was OK to call it a Christmas Tree NOT a “Holiday Tree”. My best friend was Jewish and she loved coming over to help decorate. She didn’t seem particularly offended by our decorations. I was green with envy she got eight nights of presents…and gelt! The ACLU weren’t paying attention to us.
When I think of summer nights, I remember going to the drive in in the back of the station wagon. No seat belts as we roamed around the back. We played Tag and Dodgeball, teams actually kept score-and there were winners and losers. Not everyone got a trophy-but there was always next year!
We made tree forts without a safety inspection, loved the neighborhood father who flooded the backyard so we could skate. My grandfather made us an amazing snow house and tunnel-and hosed it down every night so it would last.
I know, I know, seat belts save thousands of lives; peanut allergies are lethal and the streets aren’t a safe place to run anymore. How sad. I’m glad I have memories of a different time.
So goodbye EZ Bake oven, I’ll remember you fondly. And I’ll be hiding some incandescent bulbs from the environmental police-just in case you need to borrow one to whip up a cake or a cookie with hot pink sprinkles!
About the Author
Polli Graham Has Written 19 Articles For Us!
I am by education an RN, have worked the majority of my career in ICUs. A few years ago I traded in my scrubs for lady clothes and a briefcase and now I am a liaison for group of excellent Rehabilitaion Hospitals here in Massachusetts. I get to travel around talking with people all day, do some direct marketing and education, and use skills honed over thirty years. In my real life I am a sister, an aunt a daughter and a friend. I have wonderful nieces and nephews who I can play with, travel with, be proud of and spoil! I’ve saved pictures of all our adventures so that someday I can blackmail them into taking me to Early Bird specials.
Related Posts
-
Beauty is a Sense of Freedom
Posted on Sep 5, 2012
-
Lessons on Life from Sir Noel Coward
Posted on Jul 2, 2012
-
A Perfect Spring Evening
Posted on Apr 13, 2012
-
And Now A Word From The Fashion Police …
Posted on Apr 2, 2012
Tags
Share This
Actually – good news – the bulbs will still be available. The legislation signed by George W. Bush in 2007 requires them to be more efficient.
I too have fond memories of my oven. And, those cakes were pretty darned good!
Well…as usual, I’m agin the grain. I never got the Easy Bake Oven thing. Big waste of time and energy, as far as I could see. I’m not at all unhappy about losing it. And, while I remember a lot of the same things from my childhood, I think kids today have their own version of happy, so their memories will be full of the same nostalgia, one day. I wish my granddaughter could experience the freedom – leaving at breakfast and not returning until dinner, as you say. But, other than that, she’s enjoying her version of kid-dom, which will always be different than ours. As ours was different than our Mother’s.
Most days I’m very nostalgic, but today… I’m just ornery. Sorry. Great, great post…
Polli, I LOVE this post! Brings back all sorts of great memories and makes me glad I lived in a time where kids knew how to PLAY!!!! None of us was overweight (despite Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, Spam and TV Dinners!) probably because we were too busy riding our bikes (without a helmet!), playing tag, and climbing trees(again, without a helmet)!
Sorry, kids, but the fifties and sixties were the best times for those of us who were growing up!
– SerenaK
I loved mine , wish i was still young because as i got older ; those light bulb cooked cakes didnt taste as good
Polli, you’ve really hit a nerve here for me. Oh those summer days when I’d get up at 6 am, make a PB&j sandwich and head outside with my dog…spending all day in the woods pretending Cleo was my pony. I didn’t have an Easy Bake, but my BFF Pam did and we’d make wonderfully awful treats and feed them to our dogs (oops,horses?). Trick or Treat, playing flashlight tag, being kids. No one scheduled our “free-time” activities, it was free time. Rainy Day boxes with special crayons and play dough kept for those days when I could not go outside. Simpler times, yes. Better times, maybe, certainly a better time to be a kid.
Thanks for this memory. Debra
Polli – Loved my Easy Bake Oven. I remember baking those tiny cakes with my sister Susan for tea parties with our dad. Do little girls still have tea parties?