Endora

Oh my word... I remember each and every single thing mentioned thus far, and have experience using a good number of them! Talk about feeling old! LOL!

- How about cigarette rolling machines?
- Plastic bonnet hairdryers?
- Beauty Salon Dome Hairdryers? We used to sit under them smoking cigarettes and gossiping!
- Smoking in stores and shops, and anywhere else you wanted to?
- Babysitting for .25 cents an hour?
- Spanking?
- Drop-sided baby cribs?
- Cloth diapers and rubber pants with safety pins?
- Plastic diaper pails?
- No seat belts?
- Riding in the back (box) of pickup trucks?
- Clothesline drying (when everyone did it)?
- Wringer washing machines?
- On Sundays everything was closed?
- Being able to send your kids to the store to buy cigarettes without a note?
- The strap at school?
- Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights?
- Disco?
- Spoolies?

Goodness me, and so many more...

Speaking of cloth diapers, I always laundered my own right at home... no diaper service, and I hung them on the clothesline to dry. Diapers were then taken down off the line, folded, stacked, and reused again and again, sometimes for two (or more) babies before a new batch would be purchased, and I always used two diapers at a time when changing a bum. My kids used to waddle like penguins, because their diapers were so bulky.

Wonnie

Knew all but 2 Ditter.....great thread! They truly were the good ole days, weren't they. I remember the doctor coming to the house when you were sick and, if it didn't require a doctor, Mom knew how to cure everything else. Our clothes were washed in a wringer washer and hung to dry. Clothes were ironed. We knew our parents loved us but they didn't spend every waking hour entertaining us. What we heard was, "Find something to do.!" or "Go outside and play!"...which is probably why those of our age are so independent. Saturday was movie day and we walked over a mile to the theater and for a quarter saw 2-3 cartoons, a newsreel and a double feature of first run films. We use to collect pop bottles and turn them in for a nickel a piece and when we reached a quarter we could get a double decker ice cream cone, a comic book and a Reese cup. We lived in the city but didn't have a car until I was in high school. Dad took the bus to work. I really did walk a mile to grade school, a mile home for lunch, a mile back to school and a mile home in the afternoon. We wore blue bloomers in gym class. We dressed up to go downtown...no jeans, no shorts, no hair in curlers, no flip flops.

Endora

Doctor house-calls, I do remember, and wringer washing machines are still something I love to stop and look at whenever I pass one.

Playtime is definitely something kids nowadays do not get near enough of, and I remember walking everywhere, because mom and dad were poor, so the family car was reserved for necessary use only.

Also, I remember all of 4, maybe 5 channels being available on television, and there was no remote controls, a unlike today where every kid you pass is sucking on a soda, we seldom got to enjoy such treats, and we were healthier or it.

Another I remember vividly, is women out shopping - sporting curlers in their hair, sometimes even wearing plastic shower caps over, and sometimes in their fluffy slippers. Yes, times really have changed.

osewme

I remember all but the first one....sweet cigarettes. But then, I was young back then. My mom & dad smoked but I never heard them say anything about sweet cigarettes. Oh, just went back & read about the candy cigarettes. Yes, I remember them. We thought we were "cool" by pretending we were smoking!
Endora, I remember all of yours except spoolies. Not sure what those are but different parts of the country call things different....I bet I know that by another name.
I also remember when we squished margarine around in a little plastic pouch that mixed a yellow coloring to it to give it a yellow color like butter.
I'm really old!

I also remember when we kids would play outside until mom called us in for supper. We also could walk all over town by ourselves without any fear & we could go trick-or-treating by ourselves & stay out WAY past dark!

Wonnie

Also remember :

saddle oxfords

and Converse tennis shoes

and coffee tins that had to be opened with a key

and canned goods on inclined shelves so that when you took the bottom can the next one rolled down to take its place

and the same Pharmacist year after year who remembered you

and the same Doctor year after year who remembered you and your ailments so you didn't have to repeat them ad nauseum every time you saw him

Endora

Osewme. My mom used to give us girls her empty cigarette packages, so as you can imagine we really felt important. LOL!

Spoolies, were tiny rubber hair rollers. I have no idea whether they still make them or not.

LOL, about the butter and adding colouring to it. Since the dawn of time it's been 100% real butter in our home.

LOL! I remember fighting with my sons over getting them to bath (once a week), because they were always too busy, and you're right, kids back in the day enjoyed freedom that's unheard of today.

I also remember whining when mom would call us in at the end of a day playing outside, sometimes late into the evening, because we wanted to stay outside longer.

jbj137

***
*** I remember *ALL* of them. I am old and glad I lived every one of those years.
***

charley26

I am from Ireland, and much the same as you all remember the 'good old days'

No tap water, no electricity, no toilet.
We had a water spring from where we got all our water needs every day. The spring was beside a little stream beside our house, and the water was delicious. There was a little area by the stream where the milk bottles were kept cool, especially in the summer - summers were always warm!!
Water from the well was fetched daily for washing - ourselves/laundry/cleaning the house. My father cleaned the well at least once a year - the well was emptied as much as possible, and he would sprinkle ?lime around it, and then it would fill again as usual. The spring never dried up.

We had an open fire with cast iron cooking pots that would be hung over the fire to use. Our lighting was paraffin lamps. I don't remember being cold, the fire kept the home cosy. Toilet facilities were outside in a small outbuilding, along with a tin bath. My mum had a singer hand crank, and we all learned to knit. We earned some money in the summers fruit picking - strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants. My mum kept chickens, and 'brought on' turkeys in the autumn to sell for christmas. We always foraged for firewood, mushrooms, apples, blackberries.

We had electricity put in our house when I was 13 or 14, and a B&W TV some months later. It was only on a few hours each evening. Around that time we had a small Aga (range) installed instead of the fire, and a gas oven (cylinder). There was always a radio - batteries - that we had to take somewhere to get charged. I still prefer to listen to the radio now.

My father worked on a farm, and part of his wages was our supply of milk, butter and buttermilk. He bought the milk home in a bottle, and it wold sit in the stream to keep cool. On Sunday afternoon one of us would cycle about 6 miles to collect the milk. The butter was a creamy colour, and slightly salted, sometimes more salted - depending on the farmer's wife (I think). My mother used the buttermilk to make soda bread every second day, we never had shop bread when we were young - probably I was 11 or 12 before I saw shop bread.

Catholic family, so a lot of stuff was ruled by the church calender. A lot of hell fire and damnation, I remember. We could not have anything to eat before church on Sunday mornings. We either walked or cycled to church - about 3 miles, and were starving when we got home. Cycled or walked to school (3 miles), school was not a friendly place, and corporal punishment was the norm if we got things wrong or made mistakes.
As we got older my father somehow managed to cobble together bicycles for us, and taught us how to ride them. I remember chasing one of my sisters (on our bikes) down the road, and she could not take a corner and ended up in the ditch full of nettles - must have been on the way to school or church. Another time we were going fast and she went head over handlebar into a car - she was fine, the driver was worried about his car!!!
We had a large extended family within about 20 miles or more, and always travelled on our bikes to visit. My mother's bike had 3 gears, ours only 1 gear! Very occasionally my mum would allow us to borrow hers. My father could drive, and I was well in my teens before we had a car.

I never remember feeling poor or neglected, and of course we were poor, but we had lots of fun at home. We made our own entertainment. Christmas was always lovely; crisp, frosty mornings, biking to midnight mass. Christmas dinner was always good, either a large chicken or a turkey (dispatched by my dad); a christmas cake and christmas pudding, and apple juice as a treat. There was always something in our wellies that we had polished on christmas eve, I remember being devastated when my mum explained about santa claus!! And, being tempted to tell my younger siblings, but not doing so. Lots of card games, dominoes etc. Halloween was always fun; we would dress up and walk to neighbours ( close by, and a couple of miles), home made costumes, moonlit night, never any fear or worry.

I don't remember being ill, but I do remember being force fed cod liver oil and an iron tonic!! My siblings loved it but I hated it. My father was in charge of dosing us with it, and there was no getting away from it. One of my sisters needed to go to hospital - she was there for about 6 weeks, my mum and dad could visit on sundays only for an hour - miles to cycle there and back.

Now, I meet up with all the family once a year in Ireland, and many memories and laughs are relived, and much wine drank! Most of my siblings still live in Ireland, within a radius of 40 miles or so of each other, and it is lovely each year to have a reunion. My mum died in 1999, and my dad in 2006, and they were dearly loved.

Wonnie

What lovely memories Charley26.....thank you so much for sharing.

Endora

And me the same. I actually enjoyed doing many things the old-fashioned way.