On 11/23/2014 10:58 AM, George Shirley wrote:
> On 11/23/2014 9:39 AM, wrote:
>> Every now & then I'll say tin foil. The young people look at me like i'm
>> nuts . John
>>
> What other "old timer" words are out there John? A grown grandson was
> smashing some cola cans with his hands the other day, putting them into
> the recycle bin. Asked if I had done that when I was young. Had to tell
> him that we drank our beer and cola out of steel cans or glass bottles
> back then. Another amazing look was given. Ain't it fun confusing
> youngsters.
>
> George
Oh, Lord. Did you tell him you could return bottles to the grocery
store for a refund of 5 cents? And that was enough for a package of gum
or a candy bar? And two bottles was enough for an ice cream cone?
My dad and mom owned a neighborhood grocery store before the days of
supermarkets. There was a back door that was kept closed that led
outdoors and to a stairway to the cellar where the furnace and the
compressors for the freezer, met case, and walk-in coolers. They stored
cases of empty quart soda bottles on the cellar stairs until the
delivery guy picked them up about once a month. One year they
discovered that kids were sneaking in from outside to steal bottles to
get the refund again.
I remember getting cases of eggs from the farm (can't remember, 40 dozen
each,maybe?) and being recruited to transfer them into dozen-sized
cartons. That wasn't nearly as bad as having to divide 50 lb sacks of
potatoes into 5 and 10 lb. bags. That was SUCH a dirty job. And of
course I didn't get paid for either.
Small stores stocked 1-2 kinds of bath and laundry soap, 3-4 kinds of
cold cereal, white and chocolate cake mixes, ~3 flavors of Jello, but a
whole rack labeled for about 40 flavors of LifeSavers! Ground beef, good
quality and ground to order, was $.69/lb Dad bragged he never charged
more than $.99/lb. for steak.
I don't remember eating pizza until the mid 60s, in college. And in New
England where all our Chinese restaurants were Cantonese, chow
mein was about as exotic as it got.
The basement was always called a cellar there, and getting there was
"going down cellar." Neighbors shared telephone service, running back
and forth the announce or answer calls which were few.
Neighbors had coal delivered through a cellar window chute and coal had
to be shoveled into the furnace. We heated for a long time with a
kerosene stove. Our coal furnace had been donated to the WWII effort
for the metal. We finally got an oil furnace and hot water in about
1955. No more heating bath or dish water in big kettles on the stove!
When I was a kid in the late '40s everyone drove old pre-war cars and
the measure of a car was if it could make it up "Weld St. hill"
in second gear!
Early TVs had small, ROUND screens. Our radio had a turntable mounted
under it in a large, ornate wooden cabinet. It had AM and short-wave if
I remember correctly. And records were all 78rpm and fragile.
Flashlights were the only things I remember with batteries.
How did we ever live through it?
gloria p