Tabla de contenidos para April 2022 en Good Old Days

Dear Friends of the Good Old Days, When the going gets tough, the tough get going. That popular saying has been around since the 1950s, but the sentiment behind it reaches back decades further. It means, essentially, that when a situation becomes difficult, determined people can step up and handle it. My family history is filled with descriptions of uncommon courage when folks faced economic hardship, natural disasters, family losses and even daily uphill battles. I’ll bet your family tree is bursting with inspiring narratives too. As the editor of Good Old Days, it has been my privilege to read hundreds of accounts over the years that poignantly portray the resourcefulness and perseverance necessary to bring the “tough get going” part of the old adage to fruition. In this issue…

Nothing brightened my spirits more than hearing Mama say, “Aunt Gee-Gee is coming for a visit!” This was especially good news the spring of 1958. Fourth grade was rough for me, with frequent bouts of tonsilitis. My teacher expected assignments in my Think-and-Do Book to be completed regardless. Great-Aunt Gee-Gee was a welcome sight to my often-teary eyes. Gertrude Norton was a World War I widow and childless. She was Mama’s mother’s older sister. In the 1920s, she was the court stenographer for high-profile cases being tried in Cuyahoga County in Ohio. As a tot, I couldn’t pronounce Gertrude, so I called her Aunt Gee-Gee. Wearing a suit, hat and pumps, Gert boarded a Greyhound bus in Cleveland. She got off at Tremper’s, a variety store in downtown Fremont, Ohio.…

Once upon a time, the game of baseball was truly America’s pastime, especially among developing sandlotters who had aspirations of becoming the next Babe Ruth or Cy Young. Baseball fields abounded, flattened out of the thick underbrush anywhere a patch of vacant real estate could be converted into a field of dreams. Love for the game was inherent in all variations—playing stickball, throwing rocks into a country lake or pond, or perhaps one of the other derivatives of the game, hitting stones. So, it wasn’t unusual when, one day in the mid-1950s, my closest friend, Arnold, joined me in taking turns being Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the backyard, blasting some nice-size pebbles with our badly chipped Louisville Sluggers. We marveled at the distances we were reaching with perfectly…

Do you remember … When did the Supreme Court uphold “Separation of Church and State” with regard to religious education taking place on public school property? Find the answer on next page. FAMOUS QUOTE “It’s the fans that need spring training. You gotta get ’em interested. Wake ’em up and let ’em know that their season is coming, the good times are gonna roll.”—Harry Caray Fifties Baseball Players Quiz Can you match these 1950s baseball players with their respective teams? 1. Ted Williams 2. Mickey Mantle 3. Roy Campanella 4. Bob Feller 5. Monte Irvin 6. Hank Aaron 7. Minnie Minoso 8. Richie Ashburn 9. Stan Musial A. Cleveland Indians B. St. Louis Cardinals C. Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves D. Philadelphia Phillies E. Brooklyn Dodgers F. New York Yankees G. New York…

Hats were a requirement for women and girls in the Catholic Church when I was growing up in the 1940s and ’50s in Iron River, Mich. It might even have been a sin to go into the church without a hat; I was never quite sure about that. But I knew it was a major offense, and that I had better not forget my hat when I was going to Catholic school or the “good sisters” would tape a napkin or a tissue to my head to cover it. Maybe that’s why I still don’t like hats to this day. But at that time, at least, getting a new hat for Easter was something to look forward to, and when I could actually go to the ladies’ section of the…

The detective character Sam Spade was created by writer Dashiell Hammett for his crime story The Maltese Falcon. Spade was a hard-boiled detective with cold detachment, a keen eye for detail, and unflinching determination to achieve his own justice. The character is most closely associated with actor Humphrey Bogart who played Sam Spade in the third and most famous film version of The Maltese Falcon. In 1946, William Spier, one of radio’s top producers, brought Sam Spade to the airwaves starring newcomer Howard Duff as the title character with Lurene Tuttle as Spade’s secretary, Effie Perine. Duff took a considerably more tongue-in-cheek approach to the character than the novel or movie. Dashiell Hammett lent his name to the radio series but did little more than cash the checks sent to…

Chug, chug, chug. The sound came from the bowels of our house in Milwaukee. I would lean my ear into the clothes chute and hear the wonderful swishing sound of water down below. I would dart down the steps to the basement to find my mom leaning over the old wringer washer. I was fascinated-and a little scared-when Mom washed the laundry in that round swirling behemoth. It was 1965. We couldn’t afford an automatic washing machine like on television but relied on a secondhand wringer washer from Grandma. Unlike modern washers, a wringer washer had to be manned. Mom marveled at it though. When she was a child, they washed laundry in a metal tub on a scrub board using Fels-Naptha soap. In the basement, Mom smiled as I…

Can you match these 1960s film roles to the correct actor? 1. Spartacus in Spartacus ___ 2. 1st Lt. Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty ___ 3. Capt. Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone ___ 4. Danny Ocean in Ocean’s 11 ___ 5. Mark Antony in Cleopatra ___ 6. Col. Davy Crockett in The Alamo ___ 7. Bert in Mary Poppins ___ 8. Professor Ned Brainard in The Absent-Minded Professor ___ 9. Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music ___ A. Gregory Peck B. John Wayne C. Richard Burton D. Christopher Plummer E. Frank Sinatra F. Marlon Brando G. Fred MacMurray H. Dick Van Dyke I. Kirk Douglas Answers: 1-I; 2-F; 3-A; 4-E; 5-C; 6-B; 7-H; 8-G; 9-D…

It was a warm, clear summer’s day in the mid-1950s when my brother, Jim, and I, along with the two Bacon brothers, set out on our bicycles in search of the legendary Big Swing. I might mention that I was only about 10 or 11 at the time. I might also mention that none of us had ever seen the Big Swing. I, in fact, had never even heard of it until that very day. Nevertheless, the Bacon boys had heard of it and seemed to have a general idea of just where it was supposed to be. According to what the Bacon boys had heard, the Big Swing was a contrivance affording the means whereby one might swing far out over a stretch of Stoner Creek and let go,…

The siren exploded in the night air. Our little frame house shook under the force of blasting winds. Rain had cascaded down our windows all day until we wondered when it would stop. Where would the water end its journey? Our yard couldn’t hold any more. Now the siren wailed louder in short staccato bombs, telling us, “Go to shelter!” In the coastal town of Anahuac, Texas, residents were usually prepared for the numerous spring storms. Our house was equipped with canned goods and other items. It was not unusual to hear the siren warning us of the possibility of flooding in our area. When this happened, we went to the highest point in the town, the three-story school building. The storm I remember happened in 1946 when I was…

It was the first of May, 1933, and my mother told me it was time to buy wallpaper cleaner. At 12 years old, I knew instantly that meant it was spring cleaning time for our Ohio home. The cleaner came in a can and looked like play dough. You picked up a handful of it and gently rubbed it over the wallpaper, and it erased all the dark film deposited by the coal furnace. After the wallpaper was cleaned, it looked like new again. We had wallpaper in every room of our two-bedroom house, and cleaning most of it was easy. The hard part was cleaning the wallpaper on the stairway. My father helped us. He fashioned a scaffold from a combination of bricks and ceramic tile and a ladder…

None of us had ever seen anything like it! Oh, our own Easter baskets contained many delicious treats—wonderful chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow chicks and coconut-cream eggs, usually made by our mother. Mother’s eggs were very tasty, but she never quite figured out the chocolate coating. It seldom hardened as much as it should have. We really didn’t care, though, since we ate our eggs as soon as we possibly could and then licked the soft chocolate coating from our sticky fingers. But this Easter egg of Aunt Charlotte’s was more spectacular than anything we had ever dreamed of. It was a huge, hollow, two-piece chocolate confection that didn’t soften or melt when it was touched, as our own chocolate eggs did. It was tied with a beautiful, silky, lavender…

Disbelieving his announcement, I trailed Coach Callan near our bench where he posted and had just read the batting order for Most Holy Redeemer’s fifth-grade San Francisco C.Y.O. championship game at Big Rec in Golden Gate Park. “Is this a mistake?” I wanted to ask. “I’m batting last in the championship game after hitting fifth or sixth through our undefeated season? Hitting after your son, who is more of a basketball player? After Jimmie, who we always hope draws a walk? After the fourth grader playing second base?” But the year was 1959. I wanted to blurt out those questions, but my parents and the nuns who were my teachers had taught me to speak when spoken to and to respect leaders. Silently, I grabbed my glove to take infield…

Have you ever wondered who the writers and photographers in Good Old Days magazine are? They’re people just like you who enjoy reading and sharing sweet memories of the past. You can be part of this magazine too! Send us your heartfelt true stories along with photos that add colorful support to your tale from yesteryear. We enjoy reading all of them, even though we don’t have space to use them all. Your story has the best chance of publication if it fits the seasonal and editorial themes we need, is interesting and well written, and highlights a specific experience that will strike a chord with readers who were growing up between 1935 and 1965. Stories 500-1,000 words in length are preferred. We accept shorter stories for our Bits &…

My grandmother was born in 1901. She was a strong, spirited lady. I was lucky that she lived with my family while I was growing up. She told the most wonderful stories, and one of my favorites is the story of how she learned to drive. Grandma had a rough life. By 1936, her mom had passed away along with her two brothers. Her father was wheelchair-bound and that left a lot of responsibility on a young woman’s shoulders. But Grandma Brandt was not just any woman. She was fierce by nature and necessity. She held the family together and helped take care of the farm and her dad. Luckily, she met a man who was just as hardworking as she was, and after they were married, he moved to…

SUNDAY STYLING Submitted by Marje Smith Perkins of Mesa, Ariz. Marje and her sister, Carole, eagerly looked forward to Easter, when they could replace their heavy winter garb with new dresses made by their mother. Off to church they went, with new hats and shoes too, and then they enjoyed a family Easter dinner afterward. Marje is on the right in this photo, taken in 1949. A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN Submitted by Shirley Harkins Rowell of La Palma, Calif. It was 1947 when Shirley played on her high school’s softball team in Houston, Texas. Shirley (front row standing, on the right) enjoyed playing the sport, and today, at 92, she enjoys watching girls’ teams play ball in the park next door to her home. “Softball is still in my blood…

Like most of us who grew up during the Depression, I was used to being told to save on everything, from electricity to food. I was told to save my “good clothes” for church on Sunday and even to go barefoot during the summer to save on shoe leather. I didn’t mind. We lived on a farm near Olivet, Mich., and we always had a roof over our heads and enough to eat. Everyone else was in the same boat, or so it seemed. But then, about 1943, our old hand-dug well caved in. Suddenly we had to ration the water we used. Our neighbors a quarter mile down the road were kind enough to let us come and pump water from their well. So every night after my dad…

We stood outside the dilapidated picket fence and shaded our eyes, casting our gazes across the grassy pasture of Old Man Buhler’s farmland. His thriving cotton farm had once been one of the largest in the region-a 20-acre-plus piece of land near the center of town. When hard times prevailed, Old Man Buhler sold all but a few acres to a developer who, in 1951, converted the acreage into suburban city streets with row upon row of houses. Smackdab in the middle of this suburban development was what remained of the Buhler property-a 2-acre field with a farmhouse where Old Man Buhler lived and tended his sheep. I lived directly across the street from that field, its weeds and tall grass surrounding the tired and weary farmhouse. The house wore…

Each issue on this page, we will feature a question that will be sure to prompt a flood of heartwarming memories. Send your 100-words-or-less responses ASAP to Editor@GoodOldDaysMagazine.com or to Good Old Days Q&A, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, IN 46711, and your response could be featured in a future issue! Photos to accompany your story are welcomed and encouraged! Please include an SASE if you want your photo returned. What was your favorite park or playground memory from when you were a kid? How did you overcome “tough times” in the Good Old Days? We kids in the Ed and Jane Evans household didn’t know that the late 1940s and early 1950s were “tough times” for us. Dad had survived Iwo Jima and was trying to buy a house,…

In 1950, I was 12 years old when we moved to Bassett, Calif., a small community between Rowland and El Monte, about 16 miles from Los Angeles. Among its multitude of schoolboy attractions were a grammar school, a dairy and a little river that ran through the dairy, ensuring that when we swam in it, we got a fungus that caused some of our hair to fall out. There were railroad tracks for flattening pennies and a railroad trestle to lie on top of when the trains went by, and right alongside the little river stood a pomegranate tree for staining our clothes. Basset also had several steep hills to dry-sled down, great little areas for camping, and enough poison oak to make you itch for a month. I’d been…

The 1940s and ’50s were interesting times, and my memories of growing up during those years are unequaled. My childhood was spent on a farm about 20 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., in the rural area of Glen Allen. I had four pets when I was young: a dog named Trixie, a kitten named Weensie, a puppy named Wolf and a duck whose name slips my memory. My dad raised a little bit of everything, from vegetables to animals of all kinds, to make ends meet. His biggest endeavor was raising chickens. Thousands of yellow baby chickens were delivered on a regular basis in large flat boxes with tops on them. About twice a month, we would see a big truck with “Southern States” written on its side enter our…

It was a warm spring Sunday afternoon, and I knew what was on Dad’s mind. As soon as we got home from church, Dad changed out of his church clothes and into long pants, a comfortable shirt and a light jacket. That was my first clue. Then Dad foraged through the hallway closet to retrieve his walking stick. That was my second clue. But the dead giveaway as to Dad’s intentions was his rummaging through the kitchen junk drawer for an empty plastic bread bag to contain his harvest. Dad was going to the woods on the other side of a nearby cornfield to hunt mushrooms. It was an annual spring ritual for the men of south central Ohio. But the funny thing was, they weren’t really mushrooms. The objects…

Inoticed my mother’s Girl Scout Handbook on one of my bookshelfs the other day. While I occasionally pause a moment in order to recall a name or date, there was no need to open the cover of that book to refresh my memory. I haven’t forgotten The Girl Scout Promise: On my honor, I will try:To do my duty to God and my country,To help other people at all times,To obey the Girl Scout Laws. The Girl Scouts was founded by Juliette Gordon Low on March 12, 1912. Low focused not only on skills useful in the home and outdoors but also on personal values and leadership qualities. When the little brown beanie was placed on my head as a child, I earnestly embraced what it meant to be a…

Like most boys in the early 1960s, my birthday presents probably included a Hula Hoop, a baseball mitt, an army shovel, a model airplane or two, and a new bicycle somewhere along the line. But there’s one present I’ll never forget. Every time there’s a change in the weather and my wrist starts aching, I’m reminded of the Timex watch I got for my 14th birthday. As I was going into my freshman year in high school, my parents probably saw the watch as a symbolic milestone, but I remember it as the gift that saved my summer of baseball in 1963. I was on the convoluted track to adulthood, having just gotten a motor scooter, which was necessary to get me to a summer job that I needed to…

The novel My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara was published in 1941. O’Hara had worked as a scriptwriter for silent-era films in Hollywood before she and her Swedish-born husband bought a ranch, in 1930 in Wyoming, where they bred horses. In summer, O’Hara ran a camp for boys from Eastern prep schools to help pay the bills. Ultimately, she turned to her typewriter as a means of support during the Depression as it was difficult to make ends meet on the ranch. In her autobiography, O’Hara wrote, “When I told little stories about [my animals], I noticed people stopped what they were doing and listened.” She imagined what would happen if a young boy caught and tamed one of the wild mustangs that roamed the West, and at the age…