dont be scared..show your age

[REDRUM]

32. I'm guessing I'm not going to impress too many people here with stories about when I was a wee lad...

 

[wpt-me]

The horse and wagon coming around to pick up rags, old pots and pans for scrap during W11. Hathaway bread trucks that had cans of brown bread. Cranking the cars motor over when too cold to with the battery.

Bill

 

[Rocky]

James, this is a great idea for a post! Funny how one person's memories sparks some in others. I was only 3 1/2 when WWII ended so I don't remember the scrap metal drives. I do remember the "rag man" coming around. I also remember these regular visitors to our house:

The Milkman - He would leave a few quarts of milk, butter and cottage cheese ("Get the best, get the best, get Sealtest")
The Bread Man - He used to open the door, say something that sounded like "Beck" which I assume was "Baker" and toss in a loaf of bread. Occasionally my Mom would ask him what kind of pastries he had on the truck and he would come back with a large (about 3' x 3') tray laden with goodies! It was Duquesne Baking Company for those of you in the Pittsburgh area.
The Fuller Brush Man - all types of brushes
The Sharpening Man - we would gather all the knives and scissors in the house for him to sharpen and we were fascinated by his use of the pedal driven sharpening wheel.
The Huckster - fresh veggies and fruit. At Christmas time he even had trees.

In the days before Super Markets, we used to go from store to store shopping:

the poultry store - fresh chickens that my Mom would designate for "execution" and we would watch as the head was chopped off and the chicken ran around the sawdust floor spurting blood.
the meat market - to stock up on steaks, roasts, ribs, chops. My most vivid memory was the fly paper strips covered with stuck flies. It is a wonder I am not a vegetarian.
the bakery - where we would buy the "real" bread, not the "chewing gum" delivered in sliced loaves.
the Italian market - for Italian cheeses, meats, sausages, fish, olives, olive oil, etc.
the fishmarket - where we would buy fish other than Baccala, Sardines and Anchovies.

When wpt-me mentioned bread in cans, it reminded me of an experience I had in Basic Training in the Army. I guess the government was trying to use up excess rations and who better to feed it to than starving raw recruits? I was on KP and opening cans of bread and slicing it for the mess. I happened to notice the date on the can, "June 1941." I was going on 22 years of age at the time and that day I ate bread that was baked before I was born!

Keep the memories coming. Nostalgia is what it used to be.

 

[Runningwolf]

Thats funny you mention the Fuller Brush guy. Here I always thought that was just a local thing. We also had the bread and milk man, but today they have been replaced by the Pizza man. How did companies afford those guys in the old days but not today? We would buy cases of chickens and butcher them our selves, and buy a half a cow at a time and freeze.

 

[jamesngalveston]

Rocky, Our memories are just stored bits of info...Sometimes it is great to unload them...good are bad...
I just thought it was a way that we all could share something...And we have, that in itself is a memory...
I have so enjoyed reading everyones replies.

Running wolf we did the same, when we lived in the city..bout a cow are half a cow..

 

[Rocky]

Yep, me too! My Father bought half a pig and half a steer one time that I remember and we literally got half the animal! We were packing everything into a large chest freezer and there was this one package, wrapped in white butchers paper. When we opened it, it was half of the pig's head. One side looked like a pig in profile and the other side looked like something out of an anatomy book. We were wondering what in the heck to do with it an a German neighbor who happened to be there said she would love to have it if we did not want it. We were glad to get rid of it and she made a dish called "hog's head cheese" or "souse" from it. I remember thinking I would really have to be "soused" to try it!

 

[the_rayway]

Aha! That is a delicacy in my family (also German). We eat it with vinegar.

 

[sour_grapes]

Ah, yes, the milkman and the eggman.

Before Easter, you could get baby chicks dyed different garish colors; I forget where, perhaps at Woolworth's. One year, we were allowed to get some. A week or so after Easter, when we came home from school, the chicks were gone. What happened to them, we asked? "Oh, we gave them to the eggman, he took them to the farm." In reality, my grandmother had drowned them and flushed them down the toilet to get rid of them. I don't suppose you would tell the kids that, though!

 

[Rocky]

Yes, Paul. I remember the chicks. They were dyed pastel color of pink, yellow, blue and green. We used to keep them for a while and then give them to my Aunt and Uncle who had a small farm. I don't know if they were roosters or chickens but I remember seeing them "grow out of their color" and turn white. Your Grammie buried them "at sea," did she? Come to think of it, we probably ate a few of them at my Aunt's and Uncle's place.

In the late 1940's my Father and his partner, Tony, bought a cheese company in Jasper, Arkansas that produced goat milk cheese (Caprino). Though we lived in Pittsburgh, I did spend some time in Jasper. A couple of memories from that time come back now:

I remember riding with "Zip" (Italian and also from Pittsburgh) in a Dodge Power Wagon over the mountain roads to pick up the goat's milk from the farmers' stands. I also remember looking down over the side of the mountain (no guard rail) and being rather tense.

In the town square was the Court House/Police Station/Jail. We could actually talk to the people in jail through the barred openings. They would toss us 15 cents to get them cigarettes from a machine at the General Store. Inside the cellophane of the pack along the side were three pennies (cigarettes were 12 cents a pack in the machine) and this was our "fee" for the service. We could get a good amount of candy with the money we made.

We must have been there over Easter one year because Dad's partner brought home a spring lamb. We thought it was a pet for us and played with it for a week or two. We had a name for it that I don't recall, something like "Fluffy." I remember when we sat down for Easter dinner, one of my brothers asked, "Has anyone seen Fluffy?" My father's partner (born in Italy on a farm) pointed to the roast in the middle of the table and said, "Fluffy? There's Fluffy!" We screamed and ran from the table. I remember my Father being were upset with Tony but it all passed. You just can't eat an animal that you have named.

 

[jamesngalveston]

my mom would make hogs head cheese also.....i love it.

 

[knockabout]

I'm 42. What fun it is to read through your memories made me recall Sunday nights with Disney when we were allowed to stay up late. Tv was a family activity then. We'd find enough soda bottles to return them and use the deposit to buy ourselves a new soda for free with our bottle deposit money. Couldn't believe people didn't save their bottles. Lol.

 

[jpike01]

We used to walk from school to my grandmothers flower shop, just 200 feet from the school. We would often be given a few cents so we could go to the little store next door to buy a coca cola and some penny candy. I can still smell the flower shop.

 

[Boatboy24]

Allright everyone. Who remembers watching Schoolhouse Rock on Saturday mornings?

 

[Fabiola]

Someone should come up with a trivia to test everyone's memory (not knowledge)...

 

[jamesngalveston]

american bandstand, red skeleton...

 

[winointraining]

I can remember there was a burger joint up on the highway and I would ride there on my bicycle and get a hamburger and a coke for a quarter. I can remember going rabbit hunting and walking all day long for maybe 1 scrnawy rabbit. All the fields we hunted are now stores , warehouses, a giant landfill. I can say we had bbgun wars in the hills around our subdivision. We dug forts (holes) in the farmers field and played war.

 

[jamesngalveston]

yea..but didnt that 1 scrawney rabbit taste good...mine always did.

 

[JohnT]

51.

I remember how an erector set was the best thing ever. This was just scraps of metal, some nuts and bolts, and a small, cheap wrench. No limit (it seemed) to what you could build.

Lost in space, the banana splits, (yes schoolhouse rock), wacky racers, and DARK SHADOWS which used to scare that hell out of all of us kids.

I remember the moon landing and how this thing call Watergate kept interrupting my favorite shows. I also remember the cold war and how communism was considered a feared scourge.

I remember being able to get 2 pieces of bazooka bubble gum for a penny.

 

[Jericurl]

I remember playing with a spirograph. A couple of years ago, I went looking for the original spirograph on Ebay and they wanted a ridiculous amount of money for it.

We also watched American Bandstand on Saturdays.

I can remember seeing a few episodes of Solid Gold. My sister and I decided we were going to grow up and be solid gold dancers. One of the relatives (extremely religious family) chided mom and dad for letting us watch a show with such skimpy outfits and secular influence, and that was the end of that.

OH, I just remembered this one....
When we would get home from daycare/school, there were a couple of shows on that we would get to watch before we had to do chores. Little House on the Prairie. I remember loving the show and all the characters as a kid. I rewatched probably all of them about 10 years ago. It was the only thing on tv during my lunch break at the time. Just about every.single.episode was sad and depressing! Amazing what we don't pick up on as children.
We also watched Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. They did NOT censor that show like they do with wildlife specials today.

 

[jpike01]

How can anyone forget Twister?