maybe 6 of us remember this

[Rain]

You guys got milk without having to milk the cow first?!

You guys got milk without having to milk the cow first?!

It all applies to my childhood except for the newspaper. My brothers delivered the milk to the front porch..... but then my sister and I still had to strain it into jars. Those ?partyline? phones were a real hoot! Boy did the gossip fly in those days.... ...and when you received a call you had to listen closely or you?d answer a call meant for your neighbor!

Nancy, you?ll never believe what happened the other day. Sara came home from a birthday party with some of those little bottles filled with liquid...... I couldn?t believe it! I hadn?t seen those in years.

Hey Bonnie, we had that same kind of washing machine. I was putting clothes through it one time and tried to put too many through at once........ it swung around and hit me!! OUCHIE!! I still have my Grandpa?s radio with the tubes... and it still works! For fun we did stuff like sliding down the hills on car hoods in the winter, ice skating parties on the ponds, etc. In the summer we were riding inner tubes down the canal, having bon fires, camping out, hay rides, etc. I'll never forget when we took a hay ride up town to the drive-in movie.

 

[Nancy]

Oh my--Hay rides and drive-ins Now that brings back lots of memories!

 

[Granbonny]

Rain

Rain

Tomorrow, when I drive into town where I was raised. will look at the old concrete drive-in still standing and laugh. Mama would take us out there if we begged enough. then we would sit on back floor and cover with a blanket to get about 3 of us in free. bonnie

 

[hensylee]

My great grandson's 7th birthday is coming up in a week. He wants Spiderman, Hulk and Batman stuff. I told my daughter I would like to get hm some comic books with those characters in them, but we decided that maybe they are no longer available and if they are, where can one buy them? WalMart - ? I haven't seen any in many years - but I recall we used to stand around in the drug store (where the soda fountain, the pharmacist were) and read them. Archie, Superman, Superboy, and then get invited to leave so we wouldn't bend the pages. But if we had a dime, we could buy one - and not even pay sales tax. When's the last time you saw a comic book - and how much did it cost????

 

[Georgia]

I was on the cusp for some of those

I was on the cusp for some of those

But sprinklers - Mom was so thrilled to get her first steam iron. And then POLYESTER came along and not so hard to iron.

Everyone's mom have a mangle? Monday washday, Tuesday ironing.

Peashooters (fun; you'd think everyone got hit in the eye and inhaled the peas); all the Disney paraphenalia of the mid-50s - coonskin caps (take that you animal-rights folks); zorro swords Bat masterson cane; floating little paper boats down the gutters in the rain and clothespin dolls and hollyhock dolls (my grandmother's things).

Sigh. I'm sure we all remember it better than it was, but it's sure fun to reminisce.

 

[pillarpaul]

Quote from Rain:

_______________________________________________

"Those party-line phones were a real hoot"
_______________________________________________

Rain, when did Cortez, Colorado get private lines? Last year?

Yours Truly,
Sophsiticated in Denver

 

[Rain]

Out here in the country we spell it ?sophisticated?.

Out here in the country we spell it ?sophisticated?.

That?s right Pual... Cortez hasn?t had private lines all that long. I think I was about 15 when we got ours. ... and that wasn't very long ago.

Georgia, my little boats were made out of pea shells, we'd float them down the ditches while my mama was irrigating the garden. I love raw peas.

 

[pegne]

memories

memories

The older I get the more I realize how lucky I was to have the childhood that I had. I would love to see kids go out and play like they used to. Mom would send us out to play in the morning and we better not show up before lunch or we would be put to work. After lunch back out to play. I remember chasing butterflies and lightening bugs. I remember capturing caterpillars and waiting for them to turn to butterflies. We would play all the normal games like tag and red light green light and redrover and when we got bored with them we made up our own. I remember getting a new fridge and using the box to play magician and putting on performances. I remember using our imagination. I remember Dad coming home the same time for supper every night. After supper it was time to sit around the table and talk...and laugh...and talk...and laugh. I have three sisters and dad and my two brothers would leave the table because they knew it was girl time. What a great time we had. We lost Mom and Dad at a very young age but we have these memories and noone can take them away from me. I also remember paper dolls but I called them cutouts. They were my favorite. After my doctor appts. Mom would buy me some. It was really great growing up like that and I really believe those simple times were the best times.

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Henry Ford lives.........

Henry Ford lives.........

My brother bought a Model A Ford for $35.00 when he was about 14 yrs old - 1955. Didn't need a license or insurance in those days when you lived far enough from town..didn't even really need brakes! Not a lot of paved roads in the brush country.

He took us younger girls riding after a Halloween carnival and we got in the rumble seat. We were laughing so hard that girlfriend Sandra wet her knickers...

We used to wait for the water moccasins to swim out of the way and then we'd dive in...

Nancy, I loved those little bitty wax bottles filled with what seemed like 8 drops of the bestest sweet stuff.. And loved Grapette sodas in the small bottles.

And I didn't get off a partyline phone until 1981.....! Still remember -- 4 rings. So you hushup there Mr. PillarPaul and quit makin' fun of us country girls.

Had to learn how to spell 'television' before Daddy would buy one...I did -- 1952.

 

[hensylee]

Remember when the phones had 4 or 5 numbers, then they added a name to the front of the numbers, then took away the name and made it just 7 numbers. That's progress?

Cousin took me to a garage sale today - found a jar of marbles for $10.00! Then she took me to an antique store - found some more marbles for $20.00. My young great-grandson isn't getting them for his birthday. He wouldn't know what to do with them anyhow. Sure were pretty, tho.

Jsnie, I think Miss SS went swimming like you did, but she didn't wait for the snake to leave.

 

[Nancy]

When I was little, and it was winter, there weren't so many cars, and they didn't plow the roads very soon after a snowfall. So those people that had sleighs and horses would ride around the streets with sleighbells attached to the horses. And people would go caroling to all the houses at Christmastime.

Also our bakery trucks (home delivery then) were horse-drawn, summer and winter. When the milkman came in the winter, the whole milk wasn't homogenized, and the cream rose to the top and sometimes froze, popping out the top cap.

Some of the other street vendors were the umbrella man (who fixed and sold umbrellas), the scissors-grinding man who came around with his little wheeled cart, the rag man, the ice man, the vegetable man, the popcorn man, the yo-yo man who sold wooden yo-yos and carved them with beautiful designs and then added dye to the carved area. They were a real work of art. And there was even an organ-grinder man with a monkey who collected the tips. Another man had a pony and went around to take pictures of children sitting on the pony.

These are fun memories. It was so safe and so different than it is today. No one even locked their doors, and children could go anywhere they wanted and feel safe. Everybody's mother watched out for every one else's children and many extended families lived in close proximity.

How things have changed.

 

[hensylee]

Nancy, you just reminded me of the 'store truck'. It also was called the 'rolling store' but mother was a little uppity so we called it the store truck. In the country most folks couldn't get to town so a truck came around once a week and those who may have had $ could buy and others traded for goods. The store truck had just about anything you could want. My cousin reminds me that they picked blackberries and traded them for goods. There was 'light' bread - which is sliced bread as we know it today. Most of the country folks had only biscuits made at home and light bread was a real treat. Now this one goes way back yonder, doesn't it.

 

[fyrfytr]

My parents brought clothes from a company called Minnesota knitting Mills. He came to the house about every other year with a lot of suit cases filled with clothes and we tried them on and if they fit we brought them. This was our good clothes and school clothes. Hensylee, our phone number back than was LA2-1037 and all you had to do was dial the last four numbers.

Dave
_________________________________
Aortic Aneurysm Repair
AVR, with a St. Jude
Heart Center of the Rockies

 

[Ross]

our phone number back than was LA2-1037 and all you had to do was dial the last four numbers.

Man I wish it were like that now. In my area, all numbers dialed consist of 10 digit dialing. Funny thing is as far as I know, it's just our area code that has it.

 

[hensylee]

The town where I live is verrrrry old and when I moved here the first 3 #s for your phone were 892 - well, then they ran out of numbers and the next group start with 951. Well, everybody in the county knows that if you have a 951 number, nobody knows you, you are a foreigner (and probly a yankee at that), and you just don't come from around here nohow.

The last town I lived in about 20 yrs ago was the same. Everybody's number started with 494, then they added 936 and if you were a 936, you were definitely new in town - OR hadn't paid your bill, got your phone cut off and had to start out with a new number. lol

 

[sylviayasgur]

i actually remember some of that stuff, even though i didn't grow up in this country....
used to visit my grandma in queens, ny and i remember the day she got her first color tv!!!
we were glued to the set!!! watched ed sullivan with the family. (cartoons with my brothers)
i remember comic books, archie, superman, etc. i remember "father knows best", andy griffith, (wasn't here for leave it to beaver, but joey remembers..) . i still get my milk delivered!!!
remember pedal pushers and "moo moos" (dresses)?
life was so simple back then. something to be said for it.

 

[Granbonny]

Rain

Rain

How lucky your Mom told Ryan about the Great Depression.. My In-Laws came from Sweden in the late 1920's and Hubby was born in 1930. They lived in Chicago...My Mother-in-law had no way to feed Hubby..so took him back to Sweden when he was age one and left him for 7 years...where his Grandparents lived on a farm with food.. she returned to Chicago to help his Father eek out a living. Returned to get him when he was age 6...Came back to Chicago and put him in school. He spoke no English..but was so smart...promoted him to second grade...He has always said..throw kids in a group and they all speak the same in a few months....My Mom said..because they lived in Alabama..they could raise all the food they needed..Milk cows, ect. at one time they had 5 extra kids living with them. Total..15 children ( one little Black Boy who took their last name..Went on to Mobile and came very succesful ......I spent all the summers when I was very young on my Grandfather's farm. Yes, they did the same thing. Potatoes, ect..were dug and buried in hay in a barn..Kept all winter..smokehouse for meat. My favorite memory was the water-bucket was on a wire going down hill..dipped with a weight..hand pulled back up to back porch. There was a water spring down there with fresh water. We kids were Never allowed near that Spring....Nature took care of it..All 25 of us Grandkids are still alive and kicking. ...Ann. I remember the Rolling store that came every Wednesday....We would buy candy bars, ect.. Knew when he was coming. Could see the Red Alabama dust a flying down the old dirt road. By the way..all my cousins who lived there full time are now very wealthy..Turned the pine trees into telephone poles, ect when electricity, ect came thru. bonnie

 

[John S]

Marbles

Marbles

Hensylee,

There is a website called mikesmarbles.com--a recent grad from our university started it. Just for fun, if you're a marbles fan.

I'm just a youngster at 53, but I remember thinking "The Rifleman" with Chuck Connors was just about the coolest thing I ever saw. Of course, there was Ed Sullivan on Sunday night. I thought Topo Gigio was the dumbest thing I ever saw--never understood why they kept him around.

We grew up in New Jersey suburb, but still, Mom would strike a heavy metal triangle by the back door to call all five of us in to dinner. A father down the street used to whistle this distinctive whistle to get his six kids home.

My father , who would leave for work at 6am, never quite liked the idea that the milkman would come right into the kitchen during his rounds.

At dinner we'd ask, "What's for dessert?" and my father would always answer, "Desert the table!" It took us years to figure that out.

 

[hensylee]

Forgot about the whistlin call. I called my children home with my loud whistle. They knew if they heard my whistle they better get their fannies to the house - because you could hear it for a mile. Whistled at son's baseball games from little league til sr yr of high school. If the guys didn't hear the whistle they wanted to know where Chuck's mom was. I think they felt special because nobody else's mom could whistle. I learned at the circus - sat by another 12 year old and while our moms watched the show, we learned to whistle - loud.

 

[Georgia]

two more things

two more things

We moved to Oswego, NY in 1955; my mom thought it was just about the end of the world because they didn't have dial phones - they had "number plee-ehz" operators, and numbers were still 4 digits. She said she hadn't had such prehistoric phones since she was a kid. And then when she moved to Evergreen CO in 1972 she got a party line. hohoho

Second: we lived in Appleton, WI, until '55. The trash man had a horse-drawn truck, and since we had the remnants of an apple orchard in our back yard, he came by to get the old fallen apples for his horse. One day he got a bucket and fed them to the horse, and stopped to chat. A little while later the horse was sideways in the street - he'd gotten snockered on the apples that had fallen and fermented. We always got a laugh at that - he had to lead that horse home.

This thread has been more fun than a barrel of monkeys.