Tabla de contenidos para January/February 2022 en Good Old Days

The date Nov. 12 is one I will never forget. It was a Thursday. My best friend and I had decided to double-date the following night. The two of us were equally nervous—not because we were undecided about who we wanted to ask, but because we had discovered there was an opposite sex only a year before, and that just wasn’t enough time to adjust to this new reality. Although girls are generally referred to as the gentle sex, I would have preferred to face an entire pride of lions than one of those “gentle” creatures back then. Although I always talked to Judy just before I went to English class at our Jamestown, New York high school, today my stomach did flip-flops as I saw her approaching. I tried…

It’s Friday night and Mr. Dailey is dressed in a bolo tie and has a pocketful of pennies. It must be family game night! It’s time to put on our best poker faces. The Daileys, Jim and Betty, lived down the street from us in Tulsa, Okla., back in the 1960s. As luck would have it, they had three boys, and the two older boys, Jimmy and David, were my brothers’ ages. Then there was me, the oldest, and Tommy, the youngest of the crew. We did all sorts of fun stuff together, like Cub Scouts. I guess I was the original girl in the Cub Scouts. What can I say—it was fun! Mr. Dailey was the pack leader. That means he was in charge of the monthly meeting. He…

Do you remember... When was the Pentagon dedicated as the headquarters for the United States Department of Defense? Find the answer on next page. FAMOUS QUOTE “The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”—Audrey Hepburn ANTIQUES CORNER Question: We found this Milton Bradley board game in my wife’s parents’ basement, but she doesn’t remember playing it. The box indicates it was based on an ABC-TV series. Is it a winner? Answer: Margie was a sitcom that aired on ABC-TV for only one season, in 1961-1962. Despite having a favorable time slot on Thursdays—following My Three Sons and preceding The Untouchables—the show was canceled after 26 episodes. It starred 21-year-old Cynthia Pepper, who played a teen growing up in a small New England town in the 1920s. It was…

The third graders of Room 10 loved games and elections and cupcakes and cookies, but they did not love Valentine’s Day. The boys especially were not fans! Back in 1970 in North Riverside, Ill., giving a valentine to each member of the class was mandatory. As the young teacher of this opinionated bunch, it was my job to get them on board well before room mothers arrived with pink and white frosted cupcakes and red Kool-Aid. “So, Valentine’s Day is coming,” I reminded the class, ignoring the boys’ anguished groans. “I thought you might want to have an election about it.” “You mean we can vote to skip it?” Joe blurted out without bothering to raise his hand. Many applauded. “Well, maybe, if you also want to skip the cupcakes…

Dreamboat I grew up in a small town in Virginia, and I guess I was a typical teenager growing up in the 1960s. I loved rock ’n’ roll music, teen magazines, makeup and really cute boys. One summer day while running errands with my mom, my life changed when I saw a cute blond boy drive by in a dark green ’57 Chevy. He was a dreamboat, and I couldn’t get him out of my mind! I kept seeing him from a distance, and I hoped that one day I would get to meet him. My girlfriend lived across the street from the small grocery store where he worked, and we tried to watch him as he worked while we hid behind displays in the store. I guess he saw…

In the 1960s, Sundays were reserved for visiting relatives. If we weren’t traveling to a relative’s house, they were coming to ours. It was tradition, after Sunday Mass, to gather the family into our station wagon and head out to visit relatives all over Milwaukee County. My siblings and I were delighted to know we would be spending the day with our many cousins. While visiting, we never gathered in front of a television. Everyone talked to one another or played board games. Of course, the one exception to television was if the Packers were playing. Then Dad and the uncles turned it on while they continued talking. Dad set up a telescope and we jostled to get a turn. The aunties, with scarves on their heads, would try to…

In the early 1950s, when my grandpa and grandma Frederick purchased some rural acreage in Maineville, Ohio, they dug a small lake after the house was built. It didn’t cover more than a couple of acres, but it became the stage for fond memories and much of my outdoor education and recreation in my youth. At one end of the lake, the fringe of cattails was robust and plentiful; but at the opposite end, Grandpa raised ducks. Near a stately oak, he built a nesting box for the mallards to lay their eggs, surrounded by an overhanging chicken-wire pen to keep owls, weasels, turtles and other varmints away from the newborn ducklings. The pen was also submerged into the water, so he soon had a small flock to keep his…

Recalling the Best I enjoy reading Good Old Days from cover to cover. In the May/June 2021 issue there was an article about an icebox. Like in that story, when the iceman came down our street, all the kids got a washcloth and he gave each of us a piece of ice to eat. I also had ball-bearing skates and had a skate key to keep in a safe place like the little girl in “Rolling Around.” I spent my day skating up and down our street and sidewalk, and letting my friends use them also. Riding a bike in the early 1950s was so much fun. My sister and I wanted a bike so badly for Christmas. My folks had a grocery store with old wooden floors. There was…

Winter and subzero temperatures were no reason to stop having picnics when I was growing up in Iron River, Mich., in the 1940s and ’50s. When it was cold outside, we kids still enjoyed hot chocolate, cookies and peanut butter sandwiches within the shelter of snow caves and snow houses. With 8- and 10-foot snowbanks being common alongside the road leading off Hunter Road to our house, there was always an abundance of snow available, and a fresh snowfall—especially a heavy, wet one—provided plenty of building material. When we were finished, we could shelter in our snow cave while we ate our picnic lunch and read Captain Marvel comic books, usually with the aid of a flashlight. Larger snowballs formed the base, and as the walls got higher, we used…

There was a time when we as a society were not so generation conscious. We intermingled with people of other age groups. Invitations regularly had a “PS. Bring the kids” tacked on the end. Grandparents were at gatherings too, and if they were on the sidelines, it was by choice. In the farmlands of Iowa back in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50 s, no one was left out of the fun. The young ones ran and played games. The teenagers teased and shared secrets. The mothers exchanged recipes. The fathers talked business and sports. We ate from a grand assortment of sandwiches, angel food and chocolate cakes, apple pies and homemade ice cream. And then the party started. The children were sent outside or, in the winter, to another room…

If only the walls could talk, they could still tell a story of bonding between a father and his son. The drywall and two-by-fours that formed those walls might remember a time, nearly 60 years ago, when that father, short on money but driven by ambition, made the difficult choice to hire a man who had a pickup truck to make a trip to a distant lumberyard to acquire the drywall and lumber for constructing bedrooms. He was handy enough to build the bedrooms himself, but he needed help to get the supplies from the lumberyard to his rural home. That was my dad. He had grown up during the Great Depression and served in the Navy in World War II, and though he was lacking in formal education, he…

The smokestack towered high overhead; one could see it from two blocks away. “Rainbow Laundry” was printed vertically from top to bottom on two sides. I liked going there with my dad’s shirts, especially in the winter. The people were friendly, and the hot blast of warm, humid air that enveloped me as I walked in was welcoming in Chicago’s frigid temps. It felt like I was taking a hot shower with my clothes on. My father had a blue-collar job, but he wore a white shirt on Sundays with a suit and tie. We all dressed nicely for Mass and to receive relatives and friends or go to their homes later in the afternoon. Dad liked his dress shirts laundered with medium starch, folded with cardboard inside, and boxed—not…

It was 1969, and I was relaxing aboard the Crescent, the train from my home in Atlanta to Auburn Ala., where I was a student at the university. It was after dark that Sunday evening when the conductor came down the aisle. “I’m looking for Valerie Fleming,” he announced. My heart froze. What could he want? I tentatively raised my hand and he came over to my aisle seat and bent down. He spoke quietly. “We’re going to make an unscheduled stop to let you off the train in Opelika” (a town close to Auburn with a station that was usually closed on Sunday nights). “There is an emergency, and someone will be there to pick you up.” I felt panic rise within me, even as kind passengers near me…

As I remember it, back in 1958, the national Sunday pastime was visiting. In other words, dropping in on folks, often unexpectedly, was common. This came about in our area because not much was open on Sundays in Fremont, Ohio, or anyplace else for that matter. Sunday newspapers, like Cleveland’s Plain Dealer, weighed two pounds. Reading helped pass the time, especially on cold, boring Sunday afternoons. Everyone got their weekly groceries at the A&P or Kroger’s on Saturday morning because the stores were closed on Sunday. However, if you were in a pinch for milk, chipped ham or the best chip dip, Lawson’s was open. Only a few restaurants were open on Sunday. Mama was treated to dinner out on Easter and Mother’s Day. Otherwise, we stayed home and Mama…

Sonja Henie started it all. That tiny Norwegian skating sensation whirled, twirled and twisted her way to more Olympic and World Figure Skating Championships than any other skater. But Sonja’s real ambition was to go to Hollywood and become a movie star. After her father arranged a Los Angeles ice show highlighting his daughter’s amazing talents, it wasn’t long before her wish came true. She became one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars in a series of box office hits from the late 1930s through the 1940s. I was so excited that my hands were trembling as we put on our ice skates. But sadly, when I tried to stand, my legs were trembling too. I was the envy of my James Rhodes School classmates for the incredible luck of having a…

Our usual Saturday-night gathering with cousins became unusual when they met us at the car with souvenirs from their vacation in California. They had Hula-Hoops, the first ones seen in our part of Missouri in 1958. Wham-O had just started marketing the Hula-Hoop that year. While visiting relatives in California, my Farris cousins discovered their Farris cousins were manufacturing this new toy. When their vacation ended and they were leaving for home, they were given Hula-Hoops of their own to show their friends back in Missouri. That Saturday-night visit turned into a Hula-Hoop marathon. Putting the plastic hoop around our hips, we literally gave it a whirl. At age 6, I mastered hip swiveling that night, as my mom’s photos prove. The credit for that achievement goes to my cousins…

Ohio winters are unpredictable. One year may be mild, almost springlike. The next, an arctic vortex whirls down from the north and seizes us in its blizzardy grasp. Those are the best days for chatting with friends to discuss books and share recipes. My love of reading began with a blizzard. During my first visit to a bookmobile, I discovered Snowbound in Hidden Valley by Holly Wilson. It had been published more than a decade earlier, but to me the pages were as fresh and exciting as new snow. When we moved to a town with a public library, I spent the entire summer exploring the wonders of the children’s section. It was there I stumbled upon Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Banks of Plum Creek. Delighted to learn it…

In the 1950s and ’60s, I grew up on a small farm in northeastern Colorado. Our home was just over a half mile from the nearest highway. One day a fellow school bus rider exclaimed, “It looks like you live in a field!” She could see our house sitting up on a hill bordered by fields. No wonder she made that comment. Actually, our home was surrounded by farmland and pastureland, but we did have a large graveled yard. When someone turned off the highway, they had to travel up a hill and go around a couple of curves. My nine siblings and I grew up very shy in this secluded setting. Many Sunday afternoons, relatives came out to our farm to visit. If we kids were playing outside, we…

In the 1950s, Vancouver, Wash., the town where I grew up, had dark, dreary, extremely rainy Februarys. But that month, I would hurry home from school to check the mailbox. On weekends, I would open an umbrella and sprint out to meet the mailman. “Waiting for a letter from your sweetheart?” he teased. “I don’t have a sweetheart,” I said. “So what are you anticipating? A big check?” “Nope, the Burpee Seed Catalog.” That catalog was better to me than Valentine’s Day cards. When it finally arrived, I slowly turned the brightly colored pages. Looking at the pictures of scarlet poppies and variegated pink peonies, I never thought about the weeding I would have to do May through August. Sometimes Mama would join me. We would sit side by side…