We had the 'cool' house

After my dad built the putt putt course in our back yard, that is where you could find him every Saturday night.  With his 8 track tape player sitting on the picnic table and the speakers blaring blue grass and country music,  he would settle in for the night.  (If you are under the age of 40, please Google '8 track tape').   Since there weren't really any neighbors around and it was a dead end road, there were few complaints about the loud music.  If the fish had been biting at the river when he had recently gone fishing, supper was fried fish.  If daddy had come home empty handed, the menu for the night was T-bone steaks.  Usually it was just momma and daddy, but if someone happened to stop by, he sent her to the grocery store to pick up a few extra steaks.  Most of the time, there was always an extra person or two.  Everyone was welcome as long as you didn't turn the music down.  It was a lot of fun to be there, listening to the music, playing golf, laughing and joking around.  Good clean fun. 

When our sons were in high school, Eric and I built a garage.  It was a 2 car garage, but one side housed a rec room.  We put our old den furniture in it and bought a juke box from my uncle that he restored.  The juke box was from the 1970s and played 45s.  (If you are under the age of 40, please Google '45 record'.)  We put a dart board on the wall and bought a pool table.  Records from the 70s and 80s were loaded in the juke box and a sharpie pen was placed by the door for everyone to sign their name.  The crowd started coming over after football games, stopping long enough to grab a canned drink out of the refrigerator and sometimes pop a bag of popcorn.  Names were written on the back of the door and the music was turned up loud.  No matter how cold it was outside, the gang still came over.  We had a few basic rules that everyone knew, but as far as we know, they were never broken.  High school was soon over and the kids started college.  Weekends still found them at our house if they were home.  The college years flew by and wedding invitations started showing up in our mailbox.  We now see some of the guys, married and with children of their own. 

I am so glad that we were able to provide our sons and their friends with a place to hang out.  I hope they made some good memories and remember all of the times they laughed and joked around.  I hope our house was as cool as my parent's house.