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Stroll with me.... close your eyes.... and go back... before the Internet... before bombings, aids, herpes before semiautomatics and crack... before SEGA or Super Nintendo ... way back! I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop...about hide-and-go-seek; Simon Says and red-light-green-light. Lunch boxes with a thermos ... chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks and Cracker Jacks, hula hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, Mary Jane's, saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the names of cities on the bottom.
Remember -- When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids arrived home from school. When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent allowance. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels. Running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran & Ollie, Spin & Marty...Dick Clark's American Bandstand ... all in black and white and your Mom made you turn it off when a storm came. When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyard shows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights,ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt...remember that? Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back ... paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste and Evening in Paris. What about the girl who dotted her i's with hearts? (that was before that stupid smiley face)! The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops? Remember when there were just two types of sneakers for girls and boys - Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms. When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking -- all for free -- every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot! When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents. When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum.And the prom was in the gym or the lunchroom and you danced to a real orchestra. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did! When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat. Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car -- used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off or watch the submarine races? When people went steady; and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger. When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked! Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a..." And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game. Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger. And, with all our progress, don't you just wish, that just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the children of today? So send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk... As well as the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool ... and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar from the palm of your hand. There, didn't that feel good? Just to lean back and say: "Yeah...I remember......." |
Of course in those "good old days" Mom had a wringer washer and doing laundry was a two day job, one to wash and dry, one to iron and everything HAD to be ironed. Cooking a meal took at least an hour because nothing was boxed, prepackaged or microwavable. It took forever to get anywhere because "highways" were two lane and someone was always going 35 or 40. There really wasn't a choice as to what to watch on tv because only one of the three available channels came in without "snow".
It's good to reminisce but I like a lot of the things we have now, I just have to remind myself to slow down once in awhile. |
Thanks for the memories...
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:D Thank you for the wonderful memories :D
I can remember when...(Living on the farm) going into town just to the grocery store meant putting on good clothes and make up LOL. What about when visiting relatives on the weekend or holidays when everyone dressed up? Including men wearing hats (and not baseball caps)? Imagine that as kids we didn't have to be entertained as todays kids do :( How sad for todays generation :( And we actually lived thru all these things :D :D |
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Damn I feel old now! :lol: |
I am only 43 but remember almost all of those things so clearly!!
I remember trying to reach something while on the phone and have to stretch and hope you didn't drop the phone or pull the cord out. :oops: We used to go around and ask for Coke/Pepsi bottles so we kids could take them to the store and get the money back. Then we went to the drug store and bought candy. It was a good walk to the store and Mom never seemed to worry. And we did it without having a cell phone!!! :shock: :lol: What about going to the library and looking up something in the card catalog? My DD's look at me like I have 2 heads when I tell them how I had to look up things. And the Britannica Encyclopedia was where we went for information. Do they even make them anymore? |
I'd forgotten about phones!!! We had 10 or 12 houses on our party line! Every home had a different series of long and short rings.
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One of my earliest memories is catching fireflies in the backyard while my dad and his friends listened to a baseball game on the radio. It was dark and all you could see was the glow from their cigarettes. I must have been about 4 yrs old. The jar for the fireflies was glass with holes poked in the lid so they could "breathe". Nowadays, dad would be in trouble for smoking and letting a little kid have a glass jar.
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When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
I remember these especially! moms would hang theirs out to dry to show off who had the prettiest ones. |
Originally Posted by Shibori
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
I remember these especially! moms would hang theirs out to dry to show off who had the prettiest ones. |
Yeah, I remember those days.....we didn't have a dishwasher, so I had to wash and dry the dishes EVERY night. We didn't have microwaves. And wash and wear clothes were not invented and I got to iron EVERYTHING (including dad's boxer shorts!!!!!!).....yeah, the good old days.........UGH!
BTW -- I saw some of those dishes that came in the detergent box at a 2nd hand shop the other day --- they wanted a fortune for them!!!!!! |
Ahhhhh the good old days :D:D:D
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I remember being amazed at the first color TV I ever saw... the "snow" was multi-colored!!
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Wow, I am so enjoying this "walk" we are having down a tree lined memory lane.
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Thanks for the memories !!! Lots of good in what you wrote.
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You nailed it. This is my life, down to the smallest detail. More than once I have said to my husband that I wish the world was like that now. Thank you for sharing this. ;)
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How about Captain Kangaroo? I never left for school until it was over.
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I am loving this thread. I could go downtown with my sis and spend the day there and Mom didn't have to worry. We watched out for each other. I rode my bike everywhere. Times were simpler and it seemed safer then. I miss those times. One of the saddest times for me was when I had to tell my lovely outgoing daughter that she couldn't talk to strangers. It felt like I had to teach her to be afraid of people. I never had to do that as a child. Everyone was a friend. Sigh.
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Did you ever just "go for a ride"? On Sunday afternoons, my parents would say: let's go for a ride. No destination-just rode out into the country. Stopped to look a cows or horses or sheep. Now gas is expensive, the kids are playing video games, and if you slow your car down to look at something you could get blown off the road by the guy tailgating you (or in my area, they'd just shoot you).
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Laurence Welk The Carol Burnett show Red Skelton and The Dean Martin Comedy Hour. Mowing as a family gardening as a family going to the A and W after church. Pot Luck after church on Sundays and playing drop the hankie at Bible School. Red Rover Red Rover and freeze tag. Movies at the drive in and picnis at the park. Playing in the timber with no adults around riding bikes down the gravel roads. Playing house with walls of piled leaves. Climbing trees and swinging to the sky as high as we could. Playing Blindman's bluff and Mother May I. Mayonnaise sandwiches and making chocolate chip cookies with mom. Playing croquet and carrom with my dad. Only time we got pop was when we went to town to get groceries and then there was only coke orange or grape to choose from. Penny candy 5 and Dime stores. All stores were closed on Sunday in deferance to the day. We said the pledge of allegiance before school every day. Teachers were respected and parents were the final authority.
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This thread has evoked so many sweet memories:
Hopscoth, double dutch, jumping rope, skinned knees and elbows, perfecting my cartwheels and hand stands on the grass. Teaberry, Beemans, and Black Jack gum, Chuckles candy, the penny candy store where my sister and I would drive the poor owner batty picking out our favorites: candy necklaces, dots (the candy on the long strip of paper) bullseyes (caramel and marshmallow center), candy cigarettes, and licorice whips. Sunday drives with my Dad and Grandma, topped with a visit to Foster Freeze for a soft ice cream cone. Going to the forest preserve with my Dad in the fall to gather all the pretty leaves, and then spilling them on the living room rug to show my Mom each and every one :D The excitement of picking out back to school supplies. Cherry Cokes at the soda fountain in Walgreens, Woolworths, or Kressge's. Catching fire flies on those hot, humid evenings. Burning leaves (love that smell) with my Grandpa behind the garage. Pinching snapdragons to make them "bite". Making a doll bed or car from Quaker Oats containers. Burning my tongue on roasted marshmallows. Feeling perfectly safe riding my bike around town, or taking the bus across town when I was nine :!: There are countless more but this is enough...good times :wink: |
Thank You so much for this topic! I do remember all of these. And I also wish our kids & grands could go back in that time & spend a week. Talk about blowing their minds!
Janet I remember so well Teaberry, Beemans, and Black Jack gum. Hadn't thought of it in years until I read your post. Yummmm LOL Back in the good old days. Even though I do like some of our modern advances & technology we have today, just the safety we knew, was worth so much! Only sad thing was that we didn't know it. It was just the way it was & now look at us today. |
Originally Posted by JanetM
This thread has evoked so many sweet memories:
Catching fire flies on those hot, humid evenings. Burning leaves (love that smell) with my Grandpa behind the garage. Pinching snapdragons to make them "bite". Making a doll bed or car from Quaker Oats containers. Burning my tongue on roasted marshmallows. Feeling perfectly safe riding my bike around town!: There are countless more but this is enough...good times :wink: |
Roller skating without a helmet, wrist protectors, knee pads and elbow pads. Wouldn't we have \looked funny back then...I don't know one single person that dfied of a head injury during that time. One thing that I do like now is that the little kids are in car seats. How many times did our son stand up in the front seat with one arm across dads shoulders and the other across mine. I use to draw my playhouse with a stick in the dirt. I feel sorry for the kids that are pushed so fast now days. We had time to imagine and dream and be with our friends and talk about nothing. I loved to play Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I had a scooter that was fun to play on. I guess that is the secret word. We had time to play.
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I remember one of the laundry soaps had kids books in them, and bugging Mom to buy that kind!
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Originally Posted by Shibori
When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box.
I remember these especially! moms would hang theirs out to dry to show off who had the prettiest ones. And the gas stations! We always got new sets of glasses and dishes from the Shell Station. |
What a great thread! I remember my mom giving me a quarter and sending me to the corner store for a loaf of white bread. I remember gas being cheaper than the loaf of bread. No credit cards, cash only. Dick and Jane, black boards and cleaning erasers, Safety Patrol, Captain Kangaroo. Land as far as you could see now covered with houses. Going on Sunday drives and going to the A&W for root beer. When a single look on my dad's face could cause four kids to become totally well behaved in an instant. Crinolines (I saw one on a little girl's dress yesterday at Sears, I think they are coming back in style). The garden lady next door who had the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. Ahh, I think these memories have lowered my blood pressure about 20%
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Originally Posted by amandasgramma
Yeah, I remember those days.....we didn't have a dishwasher, so I had to wash and dry the dishes EVERY night. We didn't have microwaves. And wash and wear clothes were not invented and I got to iron EVERYTHING (including dad's boxer shorts!!!!!!).....yeah, the good old days.........UGH!
BTW -- I saw some of those dishes that came in the detergent box at a 2nd hand shop the other day --- they wanted a fortune for them!!!!!! |
Oh and I remember riding the bus downtown in Chicago every year just to walk around in the snow and cold to see all the beautfully decorate windows for Christmas. I remember Christmas lights with bubbles in them and lights in shapes of snowmen or santas. Loved watching my Mom cook and make biscuts from scratch, her pies were to die for! I know there must be so many other things I've forgotten, but miss the saftey of it all, being able to ride my bike or walk wherever I wanted and not worry about anything.
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Thanks for the memories----I can remember when I was old enough and my mom had my great aunt come stay with us during the summer and she taught me how to iron using the coke bottle with the cork sprinkler head on it. I still love to iron. Unlike kids today, we played outside when it was not too hot and when it was, we layed under the trees and read books and dreamed and I sewed and cross stitched. We might not have had the luxuries we do today, but it sure was simpler times and we were much safer.
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going for rides on Sunday...burning leaves...Nana & Papa had the 1st color TV in the family, watching Ed Sullivan on Sunday nights with the whole family gathered around...remember seeing the Beatles on that show, their 1st appearence...
Roller Skates that clamped to your shoes and the key to tighten them...I still have mine, somewhere...going out to play in the summer and not coming home until dinner, and Mom didn't know where you were, and it was OK, cuz the city was safe enough then... |
you make me think of brand new patent leather shoes and pretty dresses to wear to Easter dinner at the family's get together...staying out late until the street lights come on in the summer time, hopscotch, stringing a tin can phone between my house and my BFF next door...putting playing cards in the spokes of your bike...fireflies in a jar...
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I remember everyone of those oldies. Especially our trips to the ice hoouse for a block of ice(25 #) Dad found us a broom handle to slide under the twine around the block so tow of us could bring it home. We lived about 8/9 blocks away.
It probably weighed a lot less by the time we got home. |
Originally Posted by GrammaNan
What a great thread! I remember my mom giving me a quarter and sending me to the corner store for a loaf of white bread. I remember gas being cheaper than the loaf of bread. No credit cards, cash only. Dick and Jane, black boards and cleaning erasers, Safety Patrol, Captain Kangaroo. Land as far as you could see now covered with houses. Going on Sunday drives and going to the A&W for root beer. When a single look on my dad's face could cause four kids to become totally well behaved in an instant. Crinolines (I saw one on a little girl's dress yesterday at Sears, I think they are coming back in style). The garden lady next door who had the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. Ahh, I think these memories have lowered my blood pressure about 20%
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My DD just signed up to sell Avon and it make me remember our Avon lady. Her name was Judy Bell and she would bring the Avon over and Mom would order from her. I remember seeing the tiny samples of lipstick and smelling the colognes and perfumes. And all the cute Avon decanters that they came in.
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Originally Posted by canmitch1971
Originally Posted by GrammaNan
What a great thread! I remember my mom giving me a quarter and sending me to the corner store for a loaf of white bread. I remember gas being cheaper than the loaf of bread. No credit cards, cash only. Dick and Jane, black boards and cleaning erasers, Safety Patrol, Captain Kangaroo. Land as far as you could see now covered with houses. Going on Sunday drives and going to the A&W for root beer. When a single look on my dad's face could cause four kids to become totally well behaved in an instant. Crinolines (I saw one on a little girl's dress yesterday at Sears, I think they are coming back in style). The garden lady next door who had the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. Ahh, I think these memories have lowered my blood pressure about 20%
Was your A & W a drive up one? Ours was. The trays hung on your partially lowered windows. |
My gosh,Chasing Hawk! did you live in my neighborhood in the late 1950s??
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Originally Posted by Chasing Hawk
Stroll with me.... close your eyes.... and go back... before the Internet... before bombings, aids, herpes before semiautomatics and crack... before SEGA or Super Nintendo ... way back! I'm talking about sitting on the curb, sitting on the stoop...about hide-and-go-seek; Simon Says and red-light-green-light. Lunch boxes with a thermos ... chocolate milk, going home for lunch, penny candy from the store, hopscotch, butterscotch, skates with keys, jacks and Cracker Jacks, hula hoops and sunflower seeds, wax lips and mustaches, Mary Jane's, saddle shoes and Coke bottles with the names of cities on the bottom. You sure took me back in time ! Showing our age. It was a different time then. The world was not such a scary place. Please write more, love to read it. Did you ever put aluminum foil on the TV antenna for a better picture?
Remember -- When it took five minutes for the TV to warm up. When nearly everyone's Mom was at home when the kids arrived home from school. When nobody owned a purebred dog. When a quarter was a decent allowance. When you'd reach into a muddy gutter for a penny. When your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces. When all of your male teachers wore neckties and female teachers had their hair done everyday and wore high heels. Running through the sprinkler, circle pins, bobby pins, Mickey Mouse Club, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Kookla, Fran & Ollie, Spin & Marty...Dick Clark's American Bandstand ... all in black and white and your Mom made you turn it off when a storm came. When around the corner seemed far away, and going downtown seemed like going somewhere. Climbing trees, making forts, backyard shows, lemonade stands, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, staring at clouds, jumping on the bed, pillow fights,ribbon candy, angel hair on the Christmas tree, Jackie Gleason, white gloves, walking to the movie theater, running till you were out of breath, laughing so hard that your stomach hurt...remember that? Not stepping on a crack or you'd break your mother's back ... paper-chains at Christmas, silhouettes of Lincoln and Washington, the smells of school, of paste and Evening in Paris. What about the girl who dotted her i's with hearts? (that was before that stupid smiley face)! The Stroll, popcorn balls and sock hops? Remember when there were just two types of sneakers for girls and boys - Keds and PF Flyers, and the only time you wore them at school was for gym. And the girls had those ugly gym uniforms. When you got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas pumped, without asking -- all for free -- every time! And, you didn't pay for air either, and you got trading stamps to boot! When laundry detergent had free glasses, dishes or towels hidden inside the box. When it was considered a great privilege to be taken out to dinner at a real restaurant with your parents. When the worst thing you could do at school was flunk a test or chew gum.And the prom was in the gym or the lunchroom and you danced to a real orchestra. When they threatened to keep kids back a grade if they failed -- and did! When being sent to the principal's office was nothing compared to the fate that awaited the student at home. Basically, we were in fear for our lives, but it wasn't because of drive-by shootings, drugs, gangs, etc. Our parents and grandparents were a much bigger threat! But we survived because their love was so much greater than the threat. Remember when a '57 Chevy was everyone's dream car -- used to cruise, peel out, lay rubber, scratch off or watch the submarine races? When people went steady; and girls wore a class ring with an inch of wrapped Band-Aids, dental floss, or yarn coated with pastel-frost nail polish so it would fit their finger. When no one ever asked where the car keys were because they were always in the car, in the ignition, and the car and house doors were never locked! Remember lying on your back on the grass with your friends and saying things like "That cloud looks like a..." And playing baseball with no adults needed to enforce the rules of the game. Remember when stuff from the store came without safety caps and hermetic seals, because no one had yet tried to poison a perfect stranger. And, with all our progress, don't you just wish, that just once, you could slip back in time and savor the slower pace...and share it with the children of today? So send this on to someone who can still remember Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Laurel and Hardy, Howdy Dowdy and The Peanut Gallery, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, The Shadow Knows, Nellie Belle, Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk... As well as the sound of a real mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool ... and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar from the palm of your hand. There, didn't that feel good? Just to lean back and say: "Yeah...I remember......." |
I sure messed up on that last message. Sorry.
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Oh my goodness, I remember it alllll! and it was just the other day, Hub and I were saying it would be nice to have things like they were way back when we were kids! Life was simple and secure and safe! I do feel for the generations coming up and what they face. I wish we could turn back the clock and take the family with us ! Thanks for the walk down memory lane. :)
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