Nostalgia

friendly emails | 7/31/2017 | unknown

[Mr. Jeeves]

We had a culture. We chose not to promote and defend it.

[JBW1949]

I remember getting our first TV...Black and white (there was no color then...)
Watched the 1956 World Series (Yankees/Dodgers)...That’s why my dad bought the set....

[JBW1949]

Anybody ever make a “spoke gun”???

Take a bicycle spoke, bend it so you had a handle the “barrel” was the female end that screwed to the rim...

Break off about three strike anywhere match tips in the hollow “barrel”...Poke a BB in and hold a match under the barrel...

It would shoot a red hot BB about 25 to 30 yards...

[Drawsing]

I remember the Little Rascals when they were new, not reruns

They were shown on TV in the 50s and 60s when I watched them, but they were filmed in the late 20s and 30s. So.... I bow in respect to my elders.

[Songcraft]

Oh, maybe they were just local.   I grew up in the Philly area and we had those small white air-filled rubber pimple balls and star-studded rubber air-filled pimple balls (both the same size, smaller than a hardball), and we played stick ball with them and an old taped broom stick, and we also used those balls for "roof ball" (throwing the ball up on a slanted roof, and the other guy had to catch it on the way down for an "out"), and wire ball, where you throw that kind of ball up at one of the wires overhead at that place where we played it, and if the other guys caught it, it was an out, but depending on which wire you hit (if any), if they didn't catch it, it was a single, or double, or triple, or home run.

When those little white balls got old we would cut them in half, and use them to play a type of half-ball stick ball sometimes. (It was easy to pitch a "curve ball" with those half balls!)

Hose ball used small (maybe 4-inch or 5-inch sections) of those old, hard, rubber hoses, and an old broomstick (as in stick ball). Some guys could pitch with the hose flipping in end-over-end, and it was usually difficult to hit them that way very good, but if you hit a line drive, and a person caught it in their face, rather than in their hands, it would really hurt!

[wintertime]

I grew up in Kensington. What was your neighborhood. And...Yes, I remember the pimple ball games.

[Songcraft]

Northeast Philly. When I first got some jobs there (when I was a lot younger), I always rode the El past K & A to downtown. I bet you took the El a lot too, right?

[Jamestown1630]

This is my ‘era’, but they didn’t play this game in my neighborhood. I was curious, and found this:

http://www.phillytrib.com/lifestyles/a-broomstick-a-half-ball-and-a-wall/article_21380c21-446b-57be-b4e9-240121a2357c.html

[Songcraft]

Yes, it was pretty widespread, back in the day. Here's a couple stories I found about it too...

"Growing up in South Philly Italian Style….Pimple Ball"

"The Pimple Ball is back and for sale"

"The Pimple Ball Is Back….Have A Ball Like Back In The Day!"

[oldvirginian]

Now that I think about it, that life was a sort of poetry.
The poetry of common farm life.
It is a pity we never get to live in the world we grow up in.

[cherry]

"Mercurochrome vs iodine"...boy, does that ring true....when you got a big scratch you dreaded the treatment more than the actual injury, until we got some mercurochrome...

we netted live little minnows below our house in the "crik" which was right below a huge dump, now called landfill, and no doubt all of us got dioxin and every other chemical absorbed into us....

maybe we're "odd" but we're still alive...60's and 70's.

[Jamestown1630]

It exists forever in mind and memory. For me, memories often feel much more ‘real’ than the experience was to start with. And with hindsight, you appreciate more.

[Jamestown1630]

Somehow those balls seem familiar; maybe the kids in the District played it, but we were out in the ‘burbs.

[Billthedrill]

Even then we were a high-tech family. We had...BACTINE!

And needed it.

[NewCenturions]

ping!

[wintertime]

Yes, I did.

[oh8eleven]

I grew up in the Philly area ...
My maternal ancestors were very big in Germantown ... two streets named for them ... dozens buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Just think - hundreds of years from now, archaeologists will find all those balls and wonder what they were and how anyone could use them for fun. LOL ...

[oldvirginian]

“And with hindsight, you appreciate more.”

You ain’t just whistling Dixie!!

[Songcraft]

Yeah, they'll probably think they're boring..."Bounce them once...then bounce them again...then bounce them again...then bounce them again...".     :-)

I had some relatives a long time ago in Germantown. They lived on the Germantown section of "Beechwood Street", but they've long since moved too. (I think it's pretty rough around there now.)

[Songcraft]

Are you glowing now?     :-)