Flashback...down memory lane.

[Paper Roses]

Last edited Sun Dec 15, 2013, 04:22 PM - Edit history (1)

As am old timer, I sometimes find myself doing some funny things. Do you find yourself reverting back to odd stuff from your childhood?
Today again and for the past few weeks, I have been:

Washing out plastic bags for reuse, not the big ones, just the smaller zip lock type.
Drying my clothes on racks and on my radiators,
Making soup and stew,
I just used some old Fels Naptha!!! (Mom had an old wringer washer and used it all the time)
I now use the dust mop as often as the Vacuum
Remember when the milk man came twice a week? I also remember when the bread man came. Cushman's. Whole wheat or cracked oat bread per Mom's orders, none of that white bread stuff. Plastic Bags were introduced in our area in the 1950's over the original wrap.!!! These were the bags she washed and reused.

Today...I sewed a bra strap. Remember the days of cotton bra's, the straps would break all the time and they had to be sewn? I hate the new ones. No bones for this old timer. I miss the old 'Maidenform' cotton numbers from that time.

These things I recall save me money and I'm glad to remember them.

What recollections do you have that we seem to have lost?

I need to save any penny that I can.
I don't shop much since my husband died. Just me and my kitty. She is a fussy eater so she gets what she wants.
Me? Not so fussy. Just trying to be frugal.

In the old days, my mother would shop at rummage sales, no thrift shops then. My sister and I were well dressed. My kids were also well dressed from thrift shops, although no-one ever knew. It was frowned upon in the 60's.I would leave town to buy. Now 'thrifting' is the way to go. How times have changed.
Please fill me in on your recollections. There may be some ideas that have not come back to me yet.

[Warpy]

1. I miss the old cotton ones, too

These plastic jobs make me sweat like a pig in summer (assuming pigs sweat) and the cotton ones have underwires that hit me on an old rib fracture and hurt like hell.

I'm glad that waxed inner bread wrappers got me through my own kidhood, what else could a kid use to wax the playground slide? Just put a bread wrapper on your bum and slide down a few times and that sucker was really slick.

[DURHAM D]

2. LOL so true re: bread wrapper

What do the kids use now to juice up the slide?

[Warpy]

9. Maybe they swipe Mom's can of Pam

Silicone plus cooking oil might do it nicely if they think in such terms. More likely they just think the backyard slide is no fun and germaphobic parents never take them to the local kiddie park.

[KC]

22. Oh my

gosh, I had completely forgotten about waxing the slide! lol

[lamp_shade]

3. Fountain pens. My favorite color was periwinkle blue.

[No Vested Interest]

10. In grade school we were taught to write with straight pens with changeable nibs

on them. We had ink wells in the upper right hand corner of our school desk. We replaced the nibs when the tips lost their sharpness. We also had ink/pen cleaners, which were sort of like little pieces of cloth.

(As an aside, about 20+ yrs ago, I bought my husband a fountain pen for an anniversary gift; paid over 3 figures for it. He apparently didn't think much of it; don't think he ever used it.)

[lamp_shade]

12. Oops

Oops - I meant to post this as a reply to the OP.

[trof]

23. Same for me. Mrs. DeLoach was our writing teacher.

The Palmer Method.
Lefties had a tough time with that.

[lamp_shade]

4. I buy really good paper towels. A whole roll will last me a year or more because I

rinse and re-use over and over again.

[lamp_shade]

5. Years ago I bought a box of SOS pads - Qty 4. I still have them...

I cut each one into 8 pieces. All one ever needs is a small piece anyway.

[MuseRider]

6. I think that also

sharpens your scissors when you do that! I do this too, otherwise you just waste so much.

[malokvale77]

7. I still hang my sheets on the clothes line to dry.

I make pot holders and tote bags out of old ripped or worn jeans. I'm a fairly skilled seamstress so everything gets recycled in one form or another.

And of course, almost all my produce comes from the all season vegetable garden. Tonight I'm making Kielbasa and cabbage soup.

I'm with you on the cotton bras. But it is so hard to find them without those damned underwires. Yuck. I'm from the "burn your bra" generation, so mostly I just don't bother with one.

[RebelOne]

15. I'm also from the "burn your bra" generation,

but I always wore bras because I did not want sagging breasts as I aged. And I love the underwire bra. That is the only type of bra I buy. I am not almost 75 and still do not have sagging breasts.

[libdem4life]

8. A playground teeter-totter that was just an aging plank attached to a fulcrum...no handles, etc.

We would try and "buck" each other off. Or two of us on against another. (complete with splinters, mostly in the hands.) But oh, the glee in watching the "opponent" fall to the ground! Not so much the other way.

No such thing as a Playground Supervisor. Teachers escaped for coffee and such.

Oh, and the girls had to wear dresses. During snow, because we walked to school ... no school buses or parent rides .... we were allowed to wear snow pants underneath. Mine were homemade. Had to take them off and put them over the radiator to dry...the smell of wet wool is still with me.

[No Vested Interest]

11. RE milk delivery - The milk was not homogenized;

The cream was at the top and you had to shake it to get the cream spread throughout the milk. The bottles were glass and were rinsed and put back out side the back door for the milkman to take back.

Peanut butter also was not homogenized, as most is today, although it's still possible to buy in some places the peanut butter with th oil on the top. My kids never liked the oil-on-top kind, so I never bought it.

When oleo-margarine was first introduced, the dairy farmer industry was opposed to the introduction of this "fake" product. So the earliest oleo-margarine was whitish in a soft plastic bag, with a small capsule of yellow coloring in it. You had to break the capsule inside the plastic bag and massage the yellow coloring all throughout the white product to make it resemble butter, which it was supposed to replace.

[Paper Roses]

18. If you live in an area where the weather got below freezing, Remember when:

The bottle froze and the paper top popped. The cream would come to the top and pop out frozen solid. Mom used to let it sit for a while and then skim the cream off and put it in a different jar.
Those were the days.

[Paper Roses]

20. WE used to have a Kennedy's butter and eggs store nearby.

Peanut butter in a big vat. Got home and had to stir the stuff to make it spreadable each time we used it. It was great.
Butter by the pound, cut off a big chunk, wrapped in waxed paper.
Milk was 20 cents a half gallon--or was it a gallon?
Cheddar cheese, the good stuff by the wheel. Point to how much you wanted, cut to order.

Boy, the good old days!

[No Vested Interest]

21. I wasn't as conscious of the price of milk, but bread was 20cents per loaf.

Even when I was raising my kids, bread - the good kind, not mushy - was under 1.00.
I can't get used $3.00 (and more) bread. Have to look for sales or coupons.

[lamp_shade]

13. Remember the bag of oleo with the red belly-button?

[Paper Roses]

14. Boy, do I temember that. It was my job as Mom shopped to keep squeezing the bag.

By the time we finished and drove home in our 1940's Plymouth, the stuff was sort of orange. Can't quite imagine what it must have tasted like.

When we got to the store, Mom would have us of each carry back the empty Clorox glass bottles for a 5 cent refund.

Speaking of laundry, we had a wringer washer. Mom would do sequential loads, starting with whites, then colored clothes. Same water. Then roll the machine to the sink to wring the clothes and add them to the rinse water. Wring again, rinse, wring, then out to the line to dry.

[mainstreetonce]

16. Sandee

Today...I sewed a bra strap. Remember the days of cotton bra's, the straps would break all the time and they had to be sewn? I hate the new ones. No bones for this old timer. I miss the old 'Maidenform' cotton numbers from that time.


I lived in the town where most of the women worked for Maidenform sewing those things.

I like the new genie bra. Comfort is all that matters.

[Paper Roses]

17. Where do you buy the genie bra? I'd look to look into this.

As I post this, I am tugging at the damn underwire to try and be more comfortable!

[mainstreetonce]

19. It is advertised on tv.

It says you can send for it or go to Walmart.

I got mine in a Marshall's store. I have seen it in another local dept store.

[RebelOne]

24. Here's the Website or just Google Genie Bra.

http://www.geniebra.com/?gclid=CJ_Kkvisg7wCFeHm7AodQQgAPA