I remember each summer a local dairy owner would rent an airplane and drop the cardboard stoppers from the plane. If the stopper had a red X on it the kid got a free ice cream cone.
AHH!!! The good old days. :-)
Morning, Nita.
I grew up in a house (a Chicago bungalow, built by my grandfather in 1925) that had a real ice box. I think when I was little we had a refrigerator, but I do remember getting ice delivered to a summer cabin on vacation at Lake Geneva. BTW, I still call the refrigerator "the ice box."
Telephone prefix? Ours was AMbassador 2-. . . . (Our postal zone was "Chicago 45, Ill.")
My mom was born in 1915. Her mother, who lived with us, was born in 1883. My dad died when I was one year old, but his parents, who lived next door, were born in 1883 and 1884. So the people who raised me, and from whom I got my values and learned their ways, were real old!
Thanks for the memory.
ARGHhhhh!
Please God, I'm only 41! :)
(I have seen ads for Butch Wax in an old car magazine collection I picked up.)
And as a kid, I remember the wringer washer down in the basement...and how mom had to crank the handle on the wringer, and pull the clothes through...and then hang the clothes outside(Because who had a dryer)...if it was raining outside, or the snows of Chicago had rolled in, the wash was hung down in the basement where the menfolk had strung the clothes lines...
Its no wonder that in those days, women had a day reserved for washing, and a day reserved for ironing...my moms washday was Tuesday, and she spent all day washing clothes..then Wednesday was ironing day and all day was spent ironing...
When you think back on it, we have it easy today...we have our automatic washing machines, and our automatic dryers, and permanent clothes and bedding..we can throw our laundry into the washer, whenever we wish, dry it quickly, and voila, before you know it, the wash is done...we dont have to reserve whole days for laundry and ironing...
And our moms did all that laundry and ironing business, while still preparing homemade from scratch meals, and from scratch baking...
Now on to the telephones...we had name prefixes...there was 'AL for Albany, 'SP' for Spaulding, 'BE" for Belmont,and on and on..we were AL2-6381...my parents kept that phone number until they moved to California in 1983, and it was hard to remember to say in later years, that our phone number was now 252-6381...one time I slipped, and called it AL2-6381, and my kids thought I was nuts...they had never realized that phone numbers had name prefixes in the beginning...
We also had a party line...shared with my aunt and uncles family who lived downstairs from us...sometimes when you wanted to make a phone call, you picked up the phone, and there was no dial tone, because someone else downstairs was on the phone...if you were real careful and quiet, you could listen in to to other peoples conversations...
Iceboxes? Well for some reason we always had an electric refrigerator...we never had an icebox...but when I was a very little girl, we lived in a three story apartment bldg, and some of the other tenants had iceboxes...I always remember waiting on the front stoop and watching for the iceman, and his cart and horse...altho we did not get ice, the iceman always nicked a small chunk of ice off a block for me, and gave it to me in my little hankie...nothing was sweeter in the summer than to suck on a piece of shiny piece of ice from the iceman...
I dont recall seeing the 'ragman' on this list...does anyone else remember the ragman? When my parents and aunt and uncle first bought their first house together(A big two story, two apartment house), there was a barn, yes a barn, in our backyard...and this was in the middle of inner city Chicago...apparently in earlier days, this barn was home to a local dairy, and there were stalls for the cows...and upstairs in the barn, pigeon coops, and all manner of stuff...
So my dad and uncle wanted to tear down that barn, and build a garage(Not that we had a car yet, but the menfolk were hopeful and optimistic)...well, there was so much stuff in that garage, which would be useful for someone, not us tho...so they contacted the 'ragman' and his services...
Once about every two weeks, this little old man came down the alley with his horse and cart...earlier in the day, the womenfolk went out and bought some sort of smoked fish, and good bread, and boxes of jam filled, sugar coated doughnuts...The ragman was invited in, to the first floor, and our family piled in as well, and there were my aunt and uncle, my mom and dad, me and little brother and my two cousins and the ragman all jammed up to my aunts kitchen table, and we would share a breakfast of smoked fish, good bread, jelly donuts, and milk and coffe...then we would all pile out into the barn, the ragman would make his selections for shipping off that day, the menfolk would load the stuff up, us kids would play with the horse, the women would do the dishes...finally the ragman and the adults would conduct business, and money changed hands...
We just thought this was the greatest of Saturday mornings, because we got to play with that horse, and have what we considered a luxury breakfast..to this day, I call jelly, sugar coated donuts, 'ragman' donuts...
Butch Wax? I asked my hubby about that a few weeks ago, and he did explain it to me, it was an important implement of his grooming his hair, and looking snappy...
Glass Milk Bottles, and Home Delivered Milk? We always had out milk delivered in the glass bottles, and as a little girl, I was in love with the milkman, he was a cutie...
I also remember milk break in school....mid-morning, after recess, we came in, and in each classroom, there would be wooden crates, which contained small bottles of milk with the paper tear tab...our parents paid for the milk, I think it was like a dime a week(really poor kids got theirs for free)...If our parents were feeling overgenerous, we got to pay extra, and got to have chocolate milk...
I remember just about everything on the list, so yes indeed, I am older than dirt...
I actually did that while watching my momma and Aunt doing laundry on the back porch in Mississippi. They took me to the outhouse to clean me up afterwards.It scared the ....well you know, out of me
1. Blackjack chewing gum
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed a bottle
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Telephone Party lines
14. 45 RPM records
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper (is this the blue dittos?)
19. Blue flashbulb
21. Roller skate keys
23. Drive-ins
AND ALSO
~Waiting for the picture tube to warm up when you turned on the TV