Memory Lane part 2

Herbie -- Those were Dixie cups. You got to lick the ice cream off the lid, then peel off a wax paper piece that protected the picture. They came with little wooden spoons. I swear those spoons added to the flavor!

At the soda fountain in our local drug store, you could actually buy a half pint of ice cream, freshly scooped into a little cardboard container. I think it cost a quarter. When my mom was pregnant with my little sister she would send me fetch her favorite "craving" which was butter pecan.

Ahhhh, soda fountains. You got the best malts in the world, thick and creamy, with real malt in them, served in a tall glass with a long spoon so you could get any the good stuff left in the bottom. Never had a malt like that any place since. The straws were in a tall glass container with a metal lid that pulled up and all the straws came with it--you just took one out and put the lid back. No paper covers on them. There were little boxes along the counter and in the booths into which you put money to play music on the juke box. The boxes had glass fronts and pages inside that you turned with a metal tab at the top of the box. There were wooden floors and wooden stools. Best egg salad sandwiches anywere, but even better were the BLTs. BIG sandwiches. There was a short order cook in the back that made hot dishes like the Blue Plate Special and there was a dishwasher person. Plain food, but good, and lots of it.

Birthday parties were just like posted above. The kids came in their nice clothes and the moms had on their nice dresses and aprons, with stockings and high heels (not the spike heels that came later and are also popular now). The birthday child opened their gifts and there was always ice cream and cake. Sometimes we played games outside and sometimes inside, depending on the house and the weather.

Sports stars and movie stars cherised their good images, not displayed all their dirty linen for the world to see and wonder at. Movies were so "clean" back then that Roy Rogers only kissed Dale Evans in ONE movie and that was on the forehead!!

The birthday party games were Pin the Tail on the Donkey and some others. The gifts were crayons or coloring books - things kids would find unacceptable today.

The cards! Does anyone remember the very tiny cards - about 2" square with an odd kind of soft plastic outer page to them? I'll try and find one, take a photo and post it.

Back then, girls wanted to look like their mothers and dress "grown up". Today, it's the other way around....It's so pathetic to see these "mothers" wanting to look like their teenage daughters.

I always thought we were the only ones who didn't keep their milk in a glass pitcher, like June Cleaver and Mrs. Anderson (Father Knows Best...what was her first name?)

Having an "overdue" library book just WASN"T acceptable. It was considered a privelege to be able to use the public library. The ladies at the library knew all us kids and were always very helpful... we held them in very high esteem.

Margaret was the wife's name.

Good grief! I remember the leather mini-skirts and boots and my girlfriend dressing up like that to impress her daughter's boyfriend! How embarrassing!

The library had a check out limit of 4 books per week. My family was so regular that we were allowed pretty much any number we wanted, and the *very* few occasions we were late returning, we were never charged an overdue fine. I was allowed to select my own books before I was 5. I read, and mostly understood, "The Fountainhead" at 13.

Spending the night "camping" out. This consisted of hauling a bunch of old blankets and pillows out into the front yard, getting our beds fixed up, waiting until Mom and Dad were asleep, and then piling in all the puppies and kittens we could round up (usually plentiful on the farm). It was a real adventure to us. By today's standards, it wouldn't hold up as entertaining. Nor would it be so safe.

Every May going out to the high point in the pasture and flying kites. Daddy helped us make ours - he had a *box kite*!!!! I would pick clover blossoms to make chains for Mom to wear. She *always* wore them with pride.

Milking cows. It was my job to feed the barn cats their share of fresh milk.

i remember thinking at the time, (i was a young man then, LIOL) that mini skirts were the greatest thing ever made, especially when i took the subway to work and the girls would sit down and spend the next hour trying to pull the material over their knees. this forum has so gotten to me that tomorrow am going to an oldies show featuring the duprees, cleftones, shangri las, the tokens, the harptones and the dubs, (never heard of this last group) and then on the 19th of this month will be going to the andy williams christmas show.

Childhood memories...the icebox to keep the perishables. I still can't stand milk that doesn't taste very fresh! My father used to bring blocks of ice home attached to the...was it called a running board, or what? The milk and other dairy stuff was delivered to the house. We were too poor to buy a refrigerator, but then we won a contest at a store and got one free. My mother had one of those washboards to wash clothes on. Later an old washing machine and she cranked the handle to wring the clothes out. In the winter we occasionally had "blue northers"...this was in Texas. As a girl, I never owned a pair of pants until I was in high school and didn't wear any to school even then. Now I almost never wear any dresses or skirts. Or pantyhose...I hate those. Using a switch or a belt on a child was punishment for bad behavior (not child abuse then) and all the good Christian parents tried to raise their children to be respectful and obedient. My parents both had fathers that were preachers, so no bad language was tolerated. My parents would never have thought about drinking or smoking. We didn't have a TV until I was about 10. Before that we always had radio.All those radio programs and music back then! Then I remember my father turned the TV picture off during American Bandstand at first and let us at least listen to the sound. Can you imagine? Later on we got to watch the picture also. But children were safer back then. They didn't worry about us walking down to the school playground. But we didn't go to any house to play with other children unless my parents knew the family. I was born in 1947.

Good morning, Linda--Yes, it was called a running board. Never understood the name. My grandmother had a washer board that she used to do laundry in the sink on the back porch. Then they went straight out to the clothesline for drying. Loved the fresh air smell of those clothes. Now we buy products to put in our dryers to attain the same smell. I believe children were safer to a great extent because parents were involved--knew who our friends were and knew where we were playing in the neighborhood. Children don't play outside anymore.
Diane

My dad's roofing truck had a running board! It just acted as an aid to enter or exit the truck. I think modern big vans have them now.

I love the smell of fresh air with clothes and sheets dried on the old clothes lines but hated the stiffness, especially towels!

I guess I'll stand alone in defense of many of today's kids that aren't on the street playing. They'd be in more jeopardy than ever before with speeding cars and perverts. My 15 year old granddaughter, Megan, has read more books and received more awards than anyone I've ever known. She does spend time researching on the computer for items of interest, her school work and her hobbies. Now she's taking a math course that will give her college credits - that was unheard of when I was 15. She loves film production and was honored with a first place win from all high school student's entries on a documentary she made with her friend. It was judged by Jeffrey Lyons and other big name critics. So, while she doesn't have our childhood experiences, she has her own. I have a copy of her last report card and her lowest mark was one 89 - all the others were from 93 to 100. The computers are not a toy for many of today's teenagers.

I know why kids now aren't allowed some of the freedoms we had back then. And most of the change is unavoidable, I guess. There are more (and some different) dangers. Of course back in those days a few of those dangers existed but just weren't acknowledged. I know a few grown people who were molested as children back in those days and nothing was done to the perverts even in some cases where the parents found out. So in that way it's better now. But I still wish today's children could experience the outdoors the way we did as children. In some of the places we lived as I grew up, we played outdoors in areas where nature existed in all its splendor, before the bulldozers and developers destroyed those wild and beautiful places.

the town i live in is called east fishkill new york. i am very happy that the town provides teens the opportunity to get involed with all kinds of programs during the entire year but mostly in the summer. they have at the recreation area baseball, basketball, beach volleyball plus much more. for younger children the "rec" center provides supervised activities and them even go bowling, swimming and sometimes have day trips to six flags etc.

I know there are many different dangers for kids nowdays. To me, playing outside means in your yard with someone watching over you or such a ton of kids that no one would try to snatch one. But guess those are part of what doesn't happen anymore. I know a lot of kids that do a lot of good things on the computer and use them properly and I don't object to any of that, but I know equally many kids who have a TV turned on from the time they get up in the morning and are plopped in their little carrier seat-thing "so they don't get bored" and then they are plopped in front of the TV until they start to school and then after school, AND there may be a TV on in every room the child goes to. By then the habit is well-formed, and for all that time they have been out of the way of their caregivers. I hate that. But when they are on the computers alone, someone needs to be watching over that also, similar to watching over the kids in the yard. The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Don't mean to change the subject mid-stream, but how many of you slept on brush rollers every night of your life, when you were in High school?!( early to mid- 60's) Ouch! I can still feel them jabbing me.

And was there ANYTHING you hated worse than that LILT perm your mother insisted on giving you? Ewwww. The smell would just permeate your nostrils.

Love this thread,
Deanna

LOL, I remember those brush rollers, Deanna. Secured with a net to keep them all in place. How on earth we ever slept, is beyond me.

I also remember sitting under those hairdryers that you could buy that were plastic caps that fit over the rollers.

Ah yes, the good ole "Toni" perms. I have photos at an early age sporting an Afro before it was in style. LOL

Don Ü

Good thing I had curly hair!

One of my sisters used "Curl Free" once....the smell was horrible...and it lingered for weeks in the house. It sort of made her hair "dead"...after a few weeks she just cut it all off.

Remember sun lamps!! DM wouldn't allow us to lay under them, so we had to do it in secret. The beet red face gave us away every time!! In the summer we greased up with veg. oil mixed with something to get a tan...can't remember what it was!! was it iodine??

Yes it was. We used to mix iodine with Baby Oil and lay out on balnkets, at the beach or the backyard and ...bake!

Deanna - Oh, those home perms! The house stank for days and so did your hair. And they only came with skinny curlers so you always ended up with kinky hair. I did pin curls at night, using bobby pins plastered to my skull. And we teased our hair by combing or brushing it backwards until it stood on end. It's a wonder we aren't all bald.

I slathered Noxema on my face, convinced it would give me "radiant skin" and prevent pimples. It was another product that you could smell a mile away. My mom swore by Pond's Cold Cream, and she used mascara that came in a case with a little brush that you had to wet and rub over the mascara. And the Sears catalog was my personal wish book. I could spend hours building myself a dream wardrobe, or fantasizing over the perfect bedroom. (I can still do that!)

Who remembers moms applying Noxzema to sunburned backs? Then it would all cake up - disgusting. Sheets smelled of it!

My mom used Pond's, too.

Evening in Paris "perfume" ring a bell here? In the signature blue bottles - funny to look back and think about how each year we'd buy a larger box with more in the assortment. Where on earth did that go?

Here are some Oldies but Goodies (songs) for you:
http://www.tropicalglen.com/

pirl,
OMG! I hadn't thoughtabout those little blue bottles of E.O.P. for years. You could buy them at the "five and dime" for $.10, I think, when I was about 11 years old-and just beginning to want a bottle....so I could impress the guys I played baseball and football with! LOL
As a working Farm Girl, I could out play most of them, anyway. heehee

Remember how the guys used to always wear a white t-shirt under their button up shirts, and left the top two buttons of outside shirt undone? I was such a tomboy, I begged Mama to let me dress that way. I out grew that phase, tho, pretty quick-thank goodness.

Deanna

Darius, that link is fantastic! I have the 60's list minimized right now.

I also sent a shorcut to my desktop, so I can use it, anytime I want! I could kiss you, right now! LOL

Deanna

Topo Gigo and Lambchops!

What years were those guys? I seem to remember being fairly young watching them, but I sure don't remember when that was. I know what programs they were on, just not the time frame.

Good remembering about the E.O.P. (my poor mom got a bottle every Christmas) and the Noxzema. I was forever sunburned (paying that price now, for sure). Heard later that Noxzema was mostly wax and horrible for your skin. Sure thought we were doing the right thing. I put on baby oil one time and went to the beach. Got the worst sunburn I ever had in my life, and could only wear my mother's chenille robe turned wrong side out for days. The doctor said I might as well have put oil in a frying pan and jumped in.

When I was in high school, the guys wore their shirts like that, or just the t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Jimmy Dean style. And their jeans were rolled up, too. The girls didn't wear pants to school--ever--the whole time I was in school (graduated in 1956). No pants at my first several jobs either.

Along with the teasing came Beehive hairdo's and hairpieces, and those terrible wigs that felt like you were wearing a touque. The boys had Duck tails and used Brylcreme (a little dab u'll do ya) LOL

The ads for Brylcreme and Dixie Peach Pomade still stick in my mind.

Darius - great link!!!

Yes indeed, thanks Darius. It's in my "favorites" list now, so I can Bop 'till I drop anytime I want. Ü

Don

I have Rock Around the Clock playing right now. It's so wonderful and takes me back to dancing for hours! It happened to be the first song my DH and I danced to, also!

Has great Christmas music too. I have it playing continually on my PC now.

Don Ü

Topo Gigo - the little Italian mouse puppet on the Ed Sullivan Show - Kiss me goodnight Edieeeee!

Lambchops - Shari Lewis' hand puppet.

For anyone interested in revisiting nostalgia at close hand, there is a mailorder source known as the Vermont Country Store. Many old-time items can be found such as Walnettos, Evening in Paris, etc. Yuska

I remember when "flocked wallpaper" was the big deal...we thought we had really "arrived' when my parents did the dining room with it.

I vaguely remember "Kukla Fran and Ollie "

LOL, I had forgotten about "Jade East" men's cologne and "Tigress" colonge for the ladies. Hair Spools...how could I have for gotten them. ;-)))

Thanks for the name of that site, Yuska.

Don Ü

Good grief! I had that flocked wallpaper in my dining room, too!

Can't remember whether it's fairly recent - but shag carpeting was a headache to maintain....

Believe it or not, shag carpeting is popular again...at least here it is...!!!

I thought shag carpeting didn't come along until the 70s. It was gold or avocado green.