Memory Lane part 2

I was a little concerned there for a couple of days because the memories had slowed down. Guess everyone was just busy, as now there are some more popping up. We may have already "remembered" as much as we can, whadda' think? I know that every time I read someone's memory, it brings up something I remember too, either the same or a little different. I think it's interesting to see things done in one area (the secret trees) that were not done in other areas.

that was a great poem.

gita - i saw somthing in a magazine that i think i am gonna buy. it not only plays vinyl 78's and 45's but it can also record them to a cd at the same time. it's abut 400.00 dollars.

me and my brother were "sometimes" allowed to put the tinsil on the trees but my mom said that we had to stand near the tree and not "loft" it from 10 ft. away.

To put your mind at ease, Gitagal, the white asbestos is harmless. Only the green "marine" asbestos is the dangerous one.

Asbestos is asbestos! Period.

It's simply not true. My dad worked with it from 1923 to 1964 - all day, every day.

I remember being about three or four, couldn't have been older because we lived in CA until I was four and this happened there. My sister and her friends and I were walking down the hot, sunny street and I was eating a raw potato. My mom has died so I can't ask her why on earth she would give a three year old a raw potato as a snack, but she did. Maybe we were poor then. Anyway, I took a bite and started screaming because there was blood on the potato. I lost a tooth. It's odd how a traumatic event can stay with you. I don't remember much from that age, but that potato incident is vivid.

When I was four, we packed up our belongings and moved back to Buffalo, NY. The family had just bought a new car. My Dad named his cars. Most of them were Betsy. So the family took a vote on which car to take to Buffalo...The 1950 Olds -Betsy, or the 1940 big, black monster of a Ford named by me...Sprinkle. I think the vote was rigged, because I cast the only vote for Sprinkle. I used to lie on the back ledge of that car when we went for a ride. I loved it. Don't know why I would have named it Sprinkle. But it's one of my few clear memories.

I guess these stories are boring to anyone besides me, but it felt good to think about them.

I see no one is submitting any photos. It might be kinda fun to do that. Let us see how 'cute' we all were when we were young.

We sorted through some old photos last Saturday at my sisters. My brother is going to put them all on a disk so we each can have a copy. So soon I can post some. Some are real "goodies".
Bernie

I'll be scanning old photos this coming week into my computer, so will post then. It would be fun to see two of each person--then and now.

Oh my, does this thread bring back memories...those were certainly the good old times. I'll scan some old photos after Christmas too. Looking forward to seeing everyone's.

Did anyone grow up with a 'Warm Morning' oil heater? We had one in the living room. One of those big "pretty" woodgrain ones. Warmest place in the house, 'course, the bedrooms were a different matter. Going to bed meant crawling under 3 or 4 of those cotton quilts that granny made. Boy, were they heavy, don't think I turned over all nite. And, to this day, I can't go to sleep without a heavy cover, even in the summer!

How about Argo starch? I remember it came in a red and white box and it was in cubes, you know like sugar cubes. I used to like to sneak a few just to eat. Why in the world, I don't know. Anyway, we had a wringer washer on the back porch, and I helped Mother do the wash. Only one time did I get my fingers smashed! Once was enough. I wasn't tall enough to hang the clothes on the line, so just handed her the pins. And boy, when time to bring the clothes in, they were so stiff they stood by themselves! In fact, some were taller than me. Sound familiar? Then at ironing time, the clothes had to be sprinkled first. I remember it was a thing and was stuck into a Coke bottle to sprinkle water on the clothes. Sorta like a sprinkler head on a watering can. Then, the clothes were balled up and put in a plastic bag, waiting for their turn to be ironed. Those were the good ole days.

Think it's time to go crawl under the quilts. Good night.....

Jean

nap - nothing is boring here. i am looking for pictures.

My mother used to sprinkle the clothes and so did I for a long time after I got married. We didn't have plastic bags yet though, so ours were wrapped in a big towel. If you couldn't get them done that day, you had to sprinkle them again. We didn't have Coke bottles either, but my mom had some sort of skinny clear glass bottle with the sprinkler on top. Don't know what the bottle was in a prior life. And EVERYthing got ironed. No permanent press!! We had to be careful how we hung things on the line. My mother always reminded me that you don't have to iron out wrinkles you don't hang in. Our clotheslines were a thing of beauty!! And the underwear had to hang on an inside line so that the neighbors would not be looking at it. Remember running for the clothes if it started to rain? The Keystone Cops had nothing on us!! Clean clothes carefully ironed reflected on good mothering back then. You could be poor as church mice, but if you were clean and your clothes were clean and ironed you were good to go out the front door.

My mother used a cleaned out vinegar bottle with the sprinkler top. She'd sprinkle a lot of things, pile them up and then use the Ironrite and be done in "no time" - about four hours.

Here I am at maybe 2-3 years old. No date on the photo, and my folks are dead so no way to actually know when or where. I loved the running boards for as long as they still made them.

A recent photo (2-3 years ago) is on my DG home page.

So glad you all reminded me...I have ironing to do today! I had totally forgotten about sprinkling clothes and letting them sit in a plastic bag. Yes, my mom did that and so did I, until steam irons came out. And to think that now I put off doing the laundry because it's a bother having to go down to the basement to move the clothes from the washer to the dryer!

The under-50s (not all of them, of course) don't know how fortunate they are. Any more than the rest of us, if you'd ask our parents. THEY would say that WE had life easy!

LOVE those socks!!

This message was edited Dec 22, 2006 10:55 AM

I remember helping mom with the sprinkling when I was a boy. Learned to iron with hankys. Only burned a few. Paid pretty good when I was in the service - everyone had to have pressed pants and shirts.

I also remember laundry rooms in the basement and garage.

I won't buy a house if the laundry room is NOT near the bedrooms. Much more convienient.
And a hearty thank you to whomever invented wrinkle-free cotton shirts. DW and I rarely do any ironing any more.

My 4th birthday with flowers from my mom, as always. The other "always" was a scraped knee.

Behind me you can see one of my dad's old wooden ladders that formed a fence for the Victory garden.

This message was edited Dec 22, 2006 3:27 PM

Sprinkler on a coke bottle - this was my Grandmother's. I also have the pants stretchers and sock stretchers, along with some old the old bars of soap.

As soon as you mentioned "stretchers" I thought of the old curtain stretchers with the thumb tack type protrusions that nicked the little fingers as I'd help my mom.

I remember the curtain stretchers only in that I saw them, but my sister has vivid memories of the bloody fingers from helping stretching the lace curtians that hung in the dining room windows. Lots of "bandaids" to prevent getting red all over the white curtains!

Taking them off the stretchers was such glorious fun!

I hope these aren't too small to see. In the top right, check out my sister's spiffy bike. And in the lower picture, there is an old wooden slide in the backyard, and something that looks like a rack for hanging clothes, maybe.

This message was edited Dec 22, 2006 4:26 PM

Love that stroller! Great pictures.

And did you notice? We're all wearing dresses.

That had to be ironed!! And hair brushed, of course.

The last time pirl did the curtains, SHE ended up on a stretcher !!! But don't tell anyone.....

man, the guys must have been chasing you girls all over the block and doing stupind things just to impress you. i know i would have. LOL

great pictures. i remember the coke bottle with the sprinkler.

gotta find one of me.

Nothing going on here. I just got a wonderful email story about the old aprons and all they were used for, but I can't get the stupid thing to transfer. Still working on that one.

I'm going to be scanning old pictures of myself to post. How about the rest of you?
Diane

One printer/scanner is being obstrepterous - I'm trying to get a new one installed. Have lots of pics but will restrain myself.

I'm glad this thread didn't die after all !!!! We were having such fun with it !

1gardengram/Diane, there's a thread in the Parking Lot forum called "Grandma's Apron." Lots of wonderful stories besides the original post.

After a LOT of searching, I found the same apron story I was trying to copy into here. It's in the Jokes and Chat forum and I just bumped it up to current, as it was from 2004. It brought back such memories!! I had forgotten all the wonderful things that my grandma did with her apron.

oops, Diane... sorry I named the wrong forum! Great thread, isn't it?

Yes, darius, I loved it. What wonderful memories it brought back. I'm so glad you told us about it. Good to have you here.

When I finally thought to type in Grandma's Apron, the system gave me 4,356 entries or something like that. Good grief!! Not a very good search system. At least that was less than the 115 pages it gave me to search in the first place.

The age here was about four.........

Cute!

(But didn't we all used to be cute?)

Yay! Old photos! More, please!

What were those little black square things called that were breath fresheners? I think they were called sin sins or something like that. Really enjoy reading this thread and trying to see where I fit in on this time line. Carbon 14 might be the best way to date myself on a time line here!! As a baby boomer I remember a lot of things here. I remember these breath fresheners were very tiny and come in a little box.


Cuckoo

Sen-sen.

I was born the first year of the baby-boomers, 1946. The final year is 1964, the year I graduated from high school. That's a long time, nineteen years.

Edit: How weird that sounds! I graduated at the age of seventeen! Turned eighteen in November.

This message was edited Jan 6, 2007 7:49 PM

I'm war baby, 1943. My dad was to old for service & the lone man on a farm.
He would have been long gone by todays way of doing things.
Some guy, 54, joined up to go to Irag. Even has diabetes.
Look out, from now on all the baby-boomers are going to start drawing government checks. They will have to hire more mailmen. LOL!
Bernie