Memory Lane part 2

You are so right gardengram, it was the 70's and those same colors carried into kitchen appliances.....

Yep, I had Asparagus Green Shag rug in a brand new home built in 1972, Can you remember raking them? The house came complete with Avacado Green appliances. Of course, back then, we all thought these things were just "over the top"! LOL

Pirl -- when I was little, Evening in Paris was my annual Christmas present to my mom. I bought it at Woolworths and it cost about a dollar. I thought the blue bottle was really elegant so it must be "good" perfume. My annual Christmas present to my father was always two packs of Chesterfield cigarettes. That blew my $2.00 allowance for Christmas shopping.

And in my teens I yearned for a ponytail but had short, fine hair. I bought a fake ponytail made out of synthetic hair, pinned it to the back of my head. It fell off during science class and I was totally humiliated. And my brother overused Brylcream and we sang "a little dab'll do ya" to tease him.

The house that we've leased for six years was built in 1978 and has a harvest gold kitchen sink, formica countertops and a Roper "continuous cleaning" double oven. When we win the lottery I'll buy the house and gut that kitchen. The rest of the house is fine, but that kitchen is a real challenge.

Darius! Love that link! Right now I'm listening to Glenn Miller. I don't know why I love that music so. I wasn't born until 1946. I graduated from high school in 1964 and was a huge "early" Beatles fan, but would rather listen to Big Bands or Swing nowadays. So thank you!

darius - great link

June - do you recall the Evening in Paris gift sets? There was one with "dusting" powder and the "perfume", another that included some other E of P thing, etc. and they got larger and larger so as allowances increased you could go the next step up to the grand assortment! My dad was Chesterfield, too!

The three big colors in the 70's, for appliances, were the Avocado Green, Coppertone and Harvest Gold. I went with the gold.

As for shag carpeting - we put it in my son's room - red white and blue. It lasted almost 20 years!

Nap - swing has been our favorite music for many years.

Oooh! OOH!
something else I just thought of.

In early 70's I worked in an Eastman custom furniture factory, in the sewing room. "Fur" apholstery was the "HOT" thing. As employees we got to buy the scraps from the cutting tables, and some of us would sweet talk the guys in the scrap room, to save us the big pieces from "wanted" fabrics. Cost me $5.00 for enough scraps to make a Queen size coverlet /bedspread for our bed. I had a new baby at the time, and he claimed it, almost immediately. He had that fur blanket for 25 years, before it fell apart!
As an apholstery fabric, it turned out to be worthless-wore out in no time-but, we could hardly keep up with the special orders for it!

Our most popular radio station here is "Oldies 100.5 FM". That's all they play. You here it in stores & restaurants as background music.
It should be available in your areas on a local station.
Bernie

Talking about hair......
Remember the "French Twist"? It was all the rage. You twisted up all your hair in the back of your head in a sort of cone-fashion and pinned it in place with a zillion bobby pins. Kind of like an ice cream cone...
If you did not have long enough hair, you could buy this little wire "cone" that was used as an "insert" and twist your hair over that. No one knew......

I HATE avocado green--to this day! Everything in my Mom's house was avocado green! Carpet. Refrigerator (the one with the little flap-top freezer on top), her stove, the tile in her kitchen floor--UGH!

We had our house (that I still live in) built in 1969. Of COURSE I have all harvest gold fixtures in all my bathrooms! Can't much change them--have to live with them....And--I still have some of the "Earthtone" furniture and a 7' x 5' long beautiful Macrame wall-hanging I made to match the 9' sofa. Don't see those anymore!
I tell you, the wall-hanging IS a work of art. I need to take it off the wall, as I bought new LR furniture this year. I have NO idea what to do with it. I have nowhere else to hang it and I will not give it away. It took me 3 months to make it and my husband spent $80 for a piece of South American Rosewood and made it into the piece that all this hangs from.
In the 70's I used to really be into all kinds of Macrame plant hangers as well. I got pretty good at it. You used pieces of driftwood as the top part to start knotting on and inserted all kinds of wood beads along the way. I still have most of my books. You should see all the hanging stuff that was in there! Mamma Mia! Tables and really fancy holders of all sorts. I kind of miss those days.......
It is such a shame that fads come and go! Not saying everything should hang arround forever, but when it comes to crafts, it is sad to lose all that once was done on a daily basis. All forms of art should be preserved somewhow!

Oh, well! I tend to live in the past anyway......Gita

Gita - I have lots of driftwood if you ever go back to Macrame. I thought it was lovely.

I don't know how it is in other staes, but the young kids here in their 20's are crazy for all that 70's decor "look". The thrift shops sell out of it as soon as they get it in...especially the macrame things!!!

Does anyone remember those "oil lamps" that were made of monofilament and had a pump that dripped oil down the strands? They usually had plastic greens in them and a Venus de Milo inside.... They hung from the ceiling and were all the rage at one time....along with those clusters of resin grapes that were attached to a piece of driftwood...they came in purple, orange, yellow and red...and weighed about 10 lbs. !!!

I never had the patience for macrame back then, but paid my friend for a couple of plant hangers that were quite beautiful.

I remember the E of P sets getting bigger with the powder and all. Loved the bottle shapes. My poor mother must have gotten so sick of that stuff. But there wasn't a lot of perfume/powder available back then in our price range.

The "retro" look is really the big thing. If we had saved all that stuff, we could get rich off of it now!!

I could live with the gold and the copper, but I have always hated avocado green. Our appliances were always white, thank goodness.

I wore my hair in a French Twist for years!! Was much easier to fix in the mornings than it sounds like. I had my hair done once a week on my lunch hour next to where I worked during that time and she kind of glued it in place and then all I had to do was repair it every morning. Toilet paper around the bottom. Remember the petals?

Toilet Paper on the bottom? I remember wrapping my entire head and then putting on a most becoming hairnet on to keep it all in place. Usually it didn't...

Remember those balsa wood glider planes you could buy for a dime? You had to put the wings on verrrrrrrrrrry carefully.....or they would split in half.

I always found it bizarre that girls and women only washed their hair once a week !!!

I always liked those Christmas ornaments that indented in and were fluted on the inside...and they had that point on the bottom....you don't see those anymore...

One year, we were "horsing around" in the house, and the bird cage got knocked over...the canary spent the rest of the Xmas season in the Christmas Tree...it was nine kinds of fun catching it once the tree came down....!

My grandmother was astounded when she saw me washing my hair and I "soaped" it up twice. Even told her neighbor. I never did get that one.

I have some ornaments still that fit that description. Found them at a yard sale of all places and love them. I still have an ornament that was on my parents' tree when I was very young, so it has to be close to 60 years old. It's a big ceremony every year to take it out of its special storage can and hang it on the tree. (The can is one of those little cheap things you can put candy in and give as a gift--perfect size for that ornament.)

Loved the canary story. My grandmother used to raise canaries and they had pedigrees and everything, a couple of which I still have. Once in a while she would put powder on them for mites and wrap them in a hankie, pin the hankies shut with tiny safety pins and put them in my lap for whatever time period it took to kill their little bugs. I was so proud, and I must have been all of five or six. One time the phone rang and there was one bird in my lap. She told me to make sure it didn't get away and ran for the phone. I hung on to the bird so tight that I killed him--a prize-winning breeder!! Does anybody remember that radio program where it was just canaries singing to organ music? That's all I remember about it, except that we listened to it a lot.

I remember the whistling to "Rinso-Blu". My "aunt" was a contender for the whistler.

Here's a little poem I just received by e-mail, that I thought you'd all enjoy.

Great item!

Oh, that is great. Thank you so much for adding that wonderful poem. I was about jumping up and down reading it!!

Who remembers polishing leaves on plants? The polish came in a container like the white baby shoe polish. Every leaf looked so perfect - especially Golden Pothos, which mothers all seemed to call Philodendrons. I loved doing it for my mother but then I was also the Glass Wax Queen with all the tiny panes in the six double sets of French doors as well as the chrome on the family car and truck.

I still use Glass Wax.

I don't remember a solution for polishing. My mother never grew houseplants but when I had my own I used milk as I had heard about when I was younger.

Well, I was just thinking about bacon grease. Did anyone else's mom save that in a can and use it for frying? I just loved my eggs done sunnyside up in bacon grease! These days we use microwavable bacon. No grease.....and not much taste either.

Never have been able to handle that "Microwavable Bacon. Just doesn't taste like the real thing fried in a frying pan. Probably worse for us, but....yum!

Don Ü

One slice for me, every Sunday. Heavenly.

Use regular bacon - place paper towels on newspaper, bacon on paper towels, cover with paper towels and newspaper - zap 1 min/slice. Check for desired doneness - throw out the greasy paper.

You don't get to save the drippings, but the bacon is great!

If you want the bacon oil - use a cast iron skillet and bake it in the oven - You can render all the oil out.

I cook extra bacon (for the oil) for hash browns - much better flavor.

Thanks, Bubba, I'll try that in the microwave. We can get good apple cured bacon here and I've been craving some. I love it pan fried but hate the mess all over the stove.

I always do my bacon in the microwave! As June said--No grease at all for the bacon slices to sit in.
I do not use newspaper--just a double layer of paper towels on the bottom and a single layer on top to leep the splatters down.

I also like doing fresh broccoli and green beans this way. It stays crisp and green and nothing gets lost in the water (if you boil it).

Just thought I would chime in....Gita

Since we've hijacked the thread -
There is a microwave steamer - plastic instead of stainless. Place in a glass or plastic pot ans steam your veggies - great for retaining all the flavor and color - use ours all the time.

"Now back to the news" - Gabrael Heater.

Bubble Christmas lights.

8-bulb Christmas light strands - if one bulb burned out - the entire string went out - loads of fun finding the bad bulb. Ya, right!

I still have one bubble light that works. I use it in a nightlight plug now, as they don't fit in the new light strings now. Still get a charge watching it bubble away. Ü

Don

This message was edited Dec 20, 2006 9:46 AM

Another memory from my early childhood --- Christmas trees were not put up the day after Thanksgiving. In our house, my parents hid the live tree somewhere, then decorated it on Christmas Eve after I was in bed. Coming downstairs early on Christmas morning and having the total surprise of a fully decorated tree was part of the thrill. I believed that Santa brought the decorated tree right along with my presents.

The lights on trees then were big things, and if one burned out they all went out. Someone had to spend time "testing" each light to find the culprit.

June - my Christmas mornings were filled with the same sense of wonder as yours were. To come downstairs and see the tree was so magical.

When I was older and knew "the facts of Christmas" I remember the great problems with unravelling the lights and replacing the ones that burned out. Getting the tree to stand up was a challenge in itself.

Or at least, stand up "straight"! Ü

Don

PIRL -- I grew up in NY and NJ. Maybe that "secret" tree was an East Coast custom? My DH is a native Californian and doesn't recall that happening in his house.

And... I wonder how our parents actually bought our presents. I certainly never was taken to stores, pushed around in a shopping cart, watching my mother check out my gifts at a counter. There was no online shopping, and I don't recall that there even was UPS or FedEx back then, just the mail man (and it was always a man in those days). My mother didn't believe in babysitters unless they were relatives, so what did she do with me while she went Christmas shopping? Hmmm, maybe there really IS a Santa Claus! Do ya think?

Let us not forget the "Christmas Catalog" from Sears Roebuck. Our town had the catalog store. Things were ordered & didn't need to be picked up until Christmas eve day. Our toys were never wrapped in anything but the brown shipping paper. Presents were never under the tree until we took the trip over to "Grandma B--'s" house. This was a neighbor lady that babysat us. Her & her husband were older than my parents, but they wood visit back & forth. Dad & Henry would sit & play cribbage. My mom & "Grandma" would talk. Anyhow mom would send something for her & dad would give Henry a bottle of Morgan David wine. We would take this over on Christmas eve & when we returned Santa had visited our house. Afterward we would have supper, milk the cows & then go to midnight mass. Christmas day we went to my mothers parents house. All her brothers & sisters would be there with all us kids. It was a house full.
Bernie

Our parents seemed to work miracles, didn't they? Maybe your mom shopped at night or said she was going to a movie or used some excuse to cut loose early a few nights and kept the gifts in the trunk.

I have one big one in my trunk right now, waiting for a time when I can wrap it without DH seeing it.

I remember those huge lights for the tree. And all of them were colored. I don't remember any white ones. And we had garland that went on right after the light strands and then the ornaments and then the icicles!! And those had to hang straight--and they were saved from year to year, taken down as carefully as they were put up, and packed around a piece of cardboard for next year. Nobody wasted things.

Since we always had gifts under the tree, I never knew how hard that was for my parents to accomplish. They really worked miracles back then to do for us.

How about the "snow" we would put on out Christmas trees that was made from spun glass? It looked like cotton. Now that was dangerous! You had to be careful not to get it in your fingers.

I guess it may have been in the same category as Fiberglass Insulation is today.
And Asbestos --it was everywhere in the basements! Wrapped around the pipes and the air ducts. My house (37 yrs old) still has it wrapped all around the heating ducts anf the house itself had Asbestos shingles all over it--until I covered it with siding. But--they are still there--just under the siding.

How times change!

I have my 45s in the little carry totes.

I remember the spun glass stuff. We would put it around the base of the tree. We called it Angel Hair back then; I thought it looked like clouds, but it WAS sharp. It would cut your fingers if you handled it too much.

Don Ü

Aguane,

I still have my 45's in that little carry-case as well. And I still have a cardboard box-full of 78's that i used to play over and over while day-dreaming about guys. Some of them are now warped a bit, but I still hope to listen to them some day.
I just read in the paper, where someone is manufacturing a palyer that will play the old 78's and 45's. Isn't that graet????? Everything OLD is NEW again!

I still have my first Hi-Fi "Stereo" player I bought in 1957. It was a console, and I still have it in my basement covered up with an old beach towel. One of my "dreams" is to restore it so I can play all my old 78's and 45's on it again some day. Yeah, right!
I have checked it out, and it is all moldy, inside and out as it has been sitting in my lower basement since 1969. It used to run on "tubes". Luckily, we have a store here that still sells all kinds of "old" parts to anything electronic--including "tubes", but they now cost an arm and a leg. If I really wanted to, and had the money--I know I could restore this player. Seems I do not have the conviction or the interest. I think I bought it back in 1957 and paid a lot of money for it. It is a Magnavox!

Don,
Thanks for "filling in the blanks"! I could not think of the term "Angel hair". My brain is on low batteries. nowadys....
Gee! The more I read, the more memories I have! Everyone brings up something that i also remember! Keep them coming......

Gita