Tabla de contenidos para September/October 2025 en Good Old Days

School, Scary Moments and Sweet Grandparents There’s something about the crunch of leaves underfoot and the scent of sharpened pencils that stir up fall memories. The season always seems to carry a bit of magic in its crisp air, and with this issue, we celebrate those golden moments. As we read through your submissions, we found ourselves smiling at your stories—whether they were tales of getting into mischief or heartwarming thoughts of your grandparents. We also enjoyed wonderful tales of the homes you grew up in and the unique treasures in each room. So whether you were the kid who couldn’t wait for recess, the teen who loved playing the family piano, or the one who enjoyed spending time with your grandparents, there’s something in this issue for everyone. Now…

In 1965, when I was 171/2 years old, during the months of June through August, I managed to fail three driving tests in the Jamaica neighborhood in Queens, N.Y. Given the brief time period I tried to get my license, I might have set a new failure record. I had to take the tests in quick succession because I was leaving in September to attend Boston University, and the idea was that I would have my driver’s license before I left since I wouldn’t be in New York to renew my learner’s permit when it expired. He scared me half to death, and I was a nervous wreck taking the test. Driving test No. 1: I drove to the testing site with my father in the passenger seat. At the…

At the start of October 1957, in Worcester, Mass., when I was 11 years old, things were as usual. The regular baseball season had ended, and once again, my Red Sox, though their record was a winning one, had finished behind the Yankees, who would once again go on to the World Series. On Oct. 4 of that year, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into orbit. We Americans were shocked. The Russians had beaten us. The Commies were winning. Day after day, Sputnik was the news, and the news was Sputnik. Stories abounded on radio and television and in the newspaper. Shown again and again on TV was film of the satellite, a white dot passing over a dark background accompanied by a monotonous beep beep…

You wouldn’t know it by watching his movies today, but Cary Grant was born and raised in England. If anyone questioned his loyalty to his homeland during the span of his screen career in Holly wood, take note: He devoted his entire salary for The Philadelphia Story (1940) to the British war effort. His real name was Archibald Leach, and it was the studio heads at Paramount Pictures who gave him his immortal stage name. By 1933, the actor began expressing how irksome he found it to always play a “charming, cultured gentleman” on the screen. He yearned to play a villain, but his good looks and long-term contract with Paramount denied him the chance. He despised his performance in Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), claiming it was way too…

In the 1956–1957 school year, as a sophomore at Helix High School in La Mesa, Calif., I enjoyed being a member of the flag corps. We marched in many parades, but I especially enjoyed being part of the halftimes at football games, being in the middle of everything on the football field. We practiced with the band after school on weekdays. Then I walked 3 miles home over the Massachusetts Avenue hill in Lemon Grove—it was a long walk, which built stamina. In the spring of 1957, we were informed that a new high school was being built in Spring Valley on Sweetwater Road. It was to be called Mount Miguel High School. Since my family lived in Lemon Grove, some distance from both Helix High and the soon-to-be Mount…

Do you have an old Christmas item that has been passed down for generations? What is it? WE ASKED: What did you want to be growing up? I was always fascinated with 18-wheeler trucks. I got to ride in a Coca-Cola delivery truck a few times, and that got me hooked on riding high over everyone else! I would ride my bike in the summer and stop on the Union Road overpass of the New York State Thruway in order to wave at the trucks coming out of the toll booth. It made my day when they tooted their horns! I moved to Texas after graduation, went to work at Eckerd Drugs. I also learned to drive big rigs. I’ve been driving for the same company for the past 46…

In l967, I went to third grade in the small town of Sugar Grove in northern Illinois. My family lived on the east side of Ashe Road. The kids growing up on the west side of Ashe Road went to Big Rock School, the next town over. At the same time every morning, our buses met and turned in opposite directions. The kids in those windows looked like foreigners to me, heading off to some unknown land. I was sure nothing good happened on that side of Ashe Road. At the end of my third-grade year, my parents built a house just down the road a bit, but far enough to catapult me into the Big Rock School District for my fourthgrade year. “I’m a Sugar Grove girl!” I wailed…

Ina, my dad’s maiden sister, was my favorite aunt. She was one of four children born to Maria and Kustaa, two adventurous, strong-willed people who left their homeland of Finland to settle in a small community in the northeast corner of Ohio—Ashtabula. Ina grew up resilient, determined, and some have said, stubborn. Well, these qualities came to her aid as she worked her way up the ladder in her career in the banking industry. Some say she had to work twice as hard to prove her abilities over less competent male co-workers, but she persevered. Indeed, she was a woman ahead of her time, managing to maintain a career and still take care of her elderly parents. I have many fond memories of visits with Aunt Ina and my Finnish-speaking…

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 from yesteryear, and be sure to include a photo. Although we may not be able to include all the stories, we enjoy reading every one of them. For the best chance at publication, your story should be interesting and well-written, fit the seasonal or editorial themes noted (see page 4 for upcoming themes), and highlight a specific event or experience that will strike a chord with readers growing up between 1940 and 1975. Main stories should be 500–1,000 words in length; shorter Bits & Pieces stories…

The scent of lavender perfume clung to Grammy like a wellworn shawl, a fragrance I associated with Sunday visits and the hushed reverence I had for her walk-in closet, a kingdom of faux furs, pearlized buttons and meticulously hung dresses-each a relic of a life lived on the precipice of glamour. Grammy, you see, had been a hand model. Not famous, not exactly rich, but touched by the glow of a world I only glimpsed when flipping through her high-end fashion magazines. Beyond the glam and glitz and the garments of grandeur she had once worn, Grammy possessed a quiet, natural elegance and captivating grace. Even as she aged, she always wore an invisible crown, moving with an air of practiced dignity, her chin held high, each step slow and…

I was reminded a few weeks ago of an event that happened in 1959 when I was 9 years old. My family and I were living in Richmond, Va. Back in those days on the first day of school, Richmond schoolteachers would give each kid a list of school supplies. The list contained what would be needed for the school year— pencils, loose-leaf paper, spiral notebooks, crayons, etc. In my family, there were six children—me, and my three brothers and two sisters. The first day of school had been a few days earlier. We couldn’t get our school supplies until Dad got paid on Friday. Well, on Friday night, Mom and Dad called us all into the living room and collected the six school-supplies lists. I was very excited, as…

My three sisters, my brother and I were raised in a single-parent family on the west side of Long Beach, Calif., in a small, two-bedroom house. The house was sold to us furnished with a brown couch and chair, a dining room table with six chairs, a kitchen table without chairs, a double bed, and two sets of bunk beds. The furniture was old and ugly but functional. Mother dubbed the decor “Early Halloween.” But the coolest piece of decor didn’t come with the house but was built by a family friend, who also built ply wood chairs for the kitchen table, a coffee table, an end table, a corner table and a small bookshelf. The special piece he made for us was a sewing box. The sewing box had…

I never wanted summer to end. The back-to-school ads that started showing up in newspapers and storefronts in late July seemed like personal assaults. Going back to school meant an earlier bedtime, no more trips to the lake, and homework. But once those last days of August rolled around, there was nothing to do but resolve myself to the inevitable and embrace the few good things that occurred prior to that first day of school. One good thing was the purchase of a new Nifty Notebook, and the other good thing was a trip to the nearby Robert Hall Clothes store. Nifty Notebooks were popular in the 1960s, and fortunately, our local drugstore, Blake’s Rexall Drugs, carried them. They were slim and cool looking and came in various colors. The…

If you lived on a farm in Wisconsin in the 1940s, a husking bee was something you might have looked forward to … or maybe not. When fall came, it was time to harvest the corn. Some of it went into a silo where it eventually became silage (which is fermented corn), and this was used to feed the cows. The rest of the corn stayed out in the field to dry into hard corn, or dried cobs—the kind that you see today sold for squirrel food. Back then, the hard corn was picked by hand. When I was 9 or 10, Dad and Mom would have to find extra help to pick the corn because it was too hard a job for someone my age; it required someone taller…

I grew up in a typical Milwaukee, Wis., bungalow built in 1915. It had hardwood floors, a large front porch, and built-in china cabinets with glass doors in the dining room. But my favorite part of my childhood home was the room immediately to the right of the front door. This small room had a large, rectangular, stained-glass window close to the ceiling at the far end. Underneath the window stood an old upright piano, refurbished by my dad. Is it any wonder we called this the “piano room”? In the days before radio and television, this special piano room was the entertainment center of the home. Back then, it was a status symbol to say a piano graced your home. Originally, our piano had been in my grandparents’ farm…

We asked about the days when Mom would send you down to the corner grocery store. So many memories were shared! “I would use my bike basket to pick up a gallon of milk. I could barely balance it when I was 7.” —Jennifer H. “One time my mom sent me to the meat market to get some ground beef for supper. I proudly told the butcher I wanted a half pound of ground beef. He said, ‘Are you sure?’ I said yes confidently, but when I got home, Mom told me it was 11/2 pounds. I think the butcher knew a half pound of beef would never be enough for our family of six.” —Wendy K. “I was allowed to use leftover change to get a couple pieces of…