ZOINKS!!

Although I can gratefully say that I am a Gen X (would cringe if I were a baby boomer-yuck..more on them another day) I prefer to call my generation

The Scooby Generation

We were the kids of the 70s who grew up watching the original Scooby Doo shows...BEFORE Scrappy came on the scene.

Scooby Doo was outstanding! Should have won an Emmy.... It had everything! Mystery! Ghosts! Ghoulish Sea Men! Mummies chasing you….evil marionettes! Groovy teenagers… What else could a 7 year old ask for?

I had a big crush on Daphne....still want her shoes..with that crazy ass buckle...

Do you remember Fred would always try to pan Velma off to Shag and Scoob...now that I am all grown up I realize why-he wanted some 'alone time’ with Daphne..no way could they get into their naughty bits with stout smart Vel around!

We lived our lives hoping to one day stumble upon a real life mystery. For us, there was always the possibility that when we took a book off a shelf the whole thing could swing around and plunge us into a sorcerer’s dungeon.

The Gen Scooby kids all kind of secretly hoped that some mysterious uncle would beckon them to spend a weekend in his mansion in the woods….or that a secret staircase was found in their grandma’s house…just something intriguing…we all just wanted something to happen.

We placated ourselves by watching Scooby Doo every Saturday morning. There we would sit..in our flannel pjs…eating a bowl of ‘Cap’n Crunch’ or ‘Honeycomb’ or my favourite ‘Count Chocula’ and watch those madcap kids chasing down a snow ghost.

But being part of Gen Scooby entails far more than just watching Scooby Doo and eating sugary cereal.

We Scooby kids played outside all summer long. One favourite game was 'British Bull Dog' and when we were feeling really daring we would say 'British Bull Shit' -I now bow to our coolness...

We ate popsicles and knew how to bang them on the variety store counter to spilt the two sicles....always ate one at a time..mmm..grape was my fav but most people favoured cherry.....commoners....

A huge treat for us was getting a big old watermelon on a hot summer evening. We would gorge ourselves on slice after slice…spitting out the dark seeds (this was before the seedless variety). Invariably, on watermelon night one of us kids wet the bed.

We played freeze tag and would tromp through our forest in search of crime..once the boys from our neighbourhood actually stumbled upon a dead body....we were so envious...why hadn't WE found that decaying corpse....why did they get all the luck?

Hey, remember 'ABC After School Specials' they were on the first Wednesday of each month. We would make a mad dash home from school to catch it. The shows were always a bit heavy:
Girl who became paralyzed
Kid’s parents splitting
And if we were lucky-a bunch of kids involved in some mystery...a quasi real life Scooby Doo! On a Wednesday afternoon!

My mom hated Scooby Doo..every once in a while if she walked by the living room and saw us watching it she would exclaim,
'Why aren't those kids in school?'

We would shush her.....or argue back that it was their holiday and they played in a band!! I think she was concerned about teen sex....but we were 7 years old..what did we know? Just pass over the Scooby snacks....