As I sit here drinking my coffee, convinced that caffeine is somehow going to help me defeat my lifelong nemesis—Sleep—and maybe keep up with whatever my ADHD has planned for today, I can’t help but think about all the things I believed as a kid.
Back then, life ran on confidence… not facts.
The right pair of shoes made you faster. If they had stripes, air pockets, or looked like something Steve Prefontaine or Lou Alcindor might wear, you were guaranteed to outrun—and out-jump—every kid on the block.
A fresh bike with baseball cards clipped to the spokes wasn’t just transportation—it was basically a motocross bike. (The really bad-ass kids jammed an empty quarter-gallon milk jug between the tire and the frame.) The louder it sounded, the faster it had to be… and the cooler you were.
If you found the perfect stick, you weren’t just holding a stick. It instantly became a rifle, a lightsaber, a fishing pole, a knight’s sword, or a machine gun. One stick could entertain you for an entire afternoon.
Grape Kool-Aid, mixed with an irresponsible amount of sugar, was the official sports drink of champions. We didn’t have electrolytes. We had Purple. And Purple fixed everything. If it came from a packet and turned your tongue violet, you were properly hydrated.
When the Calexico summer hit 110 degrees, there was no bottled alkaline water with Himalayan minerals. You found a garden hose, let it run until the water stopped feeling like soup, and drank until your stomach sloshed. Somehow, that hose water tasted better than anything you’d buy today. Well… maybe not better than a lemon-lime Slushee from Circle K with a couple of saladitos tossed in.
Sprinklers weren’t for watering the lawn. They were water parks. Every sprinkler pattern had its own level of difficulty. If it oscillated back and forth, you had to time your sprint perfectly. If it spun in circles, you were basically training for the Olympics.
The monkey bars determined who the toughest kid in school was. It wasn’t about getting across—it was about skipping every other bar, or hanging upside down by your knees until recess ended. And every school had that one kid who could make it across without using his thumbs, making the rest of us question our entire existence.
Band-Aids had magical healing powers. It didn’t matter if the scrape was on your knee or you’d just lost an arm in your imagination. If Mom slapped on a Band-Aid and kissed your forehead, you were medically cleared to go back outside.
The really hardcore kids screamed their way through a fresh coat of mercurochrome. That liquid fire in the little glass bottle burned so bad it could cure injuries you hadn’t even gotten yet. It numbed and disinfected at the same time… or maybe it just bullied your nerve endings into unconsciousness.
The five-second rule wasn’t five seconds. It was more like, “If it doesn’t have ants on it, you’re good.”
We believed swallowing watermelon seeds meant one would grow in your stomach.
We believed if you crossed your eyes too long, they’d stay that way forever.
We believed gum stayed in your stomach for seven years.
If the ice cream truck was playing music, that meant it still had ice cream. We never questioned it.
We thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem in adulthood than it actually turned out to be.
If you heard someone yell, “Car!” everybody scattered, picked up the bases, waited five seconds, and the World Series resumed like nothing had happened. There was nothing better than playing baseball in the middle of the street… because back then, the street belonged to us.
Every neighborhood had one house where everyone knew not to hit the ball. And if you were the kid who did… congratulations. You’d just become the volunteer sent to retrieve it. Nobody voted. It was simply understood. You hit it over the fence, you were going on the mission.
Getting called inside before the streetlights came on was a personal tragedy. And if your mom yelled your full name across the neighborhood, you knew your life expectancy had just dropped dramatically.
The Sears catalog was Amazon before Amazon. We didn’t shop from it—we circled everything we wanted for Christmas and hoped Santa had a Sears credit card.
The TV Guide in the newspaper was sacred. If you missed your favorite show, you missed it. There was no streaming. There wasn’t even an “I’ll catch it later.”
Helmets were optional. Seat belts were negotiable. Sunscreen was whatever shade of dust happened to stick to your sweaty legs.
Yet somehow, we survived.
Funny how the magic changes as we get older. The magical shoes become orthopedic inserts. The grape Kool-Aid becomes coffee. The garden hose becomes a stainless-steel tumbler that promises to keep water cold for thirty-six hours.
And instead of believing a pair of sneakers can make us run faster, we convince ourselves that one more cup of coffee is going to solve everything.
Turns out we never stopped believing in magic.
We just traded childhood myths for adult delusions.
There’s more waiting at https://xinkblotz.com.
Telling stories, sharing thoughts, and drinking coffee. A blend of fiction, reflection, and whatever’s brewing—one post at a time.
Stories have always traveled best by word of mouth. If one of these finds a place in your heart, I’d be honored if you’d drop a like or share it with someone else.
© 2026 Mariano Velez ~ InkBlotz Press
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