On 11/23/2014 4:06 PM, gloria p wrote:
> 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?
Yup, used to walk a mile away down Hwy 90 in Orange, TX and then walk
back. Pulled a little red wagon with homemade sides on it. Picked up
soda and beer bottles to be exchanged for money. Picked up empty whiskey
bottles to sell to the bootlegger down on Cole Creek for two cents each.
Had to be clean so always kept them in a 55 gallon drum full of water
and then rinsed.
>
> 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.
My first job at age 12 was stocking groceries, pumping gas, and changing
tires and/or greasing cars. Had one of those pop coolers outside that
you had to put the nickel in, pick your bottle and then slide it along
until it came out of the rack. Had a lock on it so you could leave it
out at night. Made 25 cents and hour and thought I was rich. Was already
driving as Mom quit driving when I was eleven. Got a hardship license at
12 and a regular license at 14, then, at seventeen got a chauffeur's
license so I could drive a school bus for 50 cents an hour, then I
graduated and went into the Navy for $75 a month and my keep. I still
thought I was rich. <G>
>
> 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.
That was good money for meat back then. We married in 1960 and had two
kids by '63. Could go to the local Weingarten's supermarket and haul two
baskets of groceries out for about $50.00. Of course we grew a lot of
our own vegetables, cow and calf, goats, pigs, chicken, rabbits, and
duck so didn't need to buy much meat.
>
> 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.
I think it was mid-sixties when Pizza Hut came to town and that's the
first time we even knew about pizza. There must be a dozen pizza joints
within two mile of our home now.
>
> 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.
Cellars in my part of Texas were called "indoor swimming pools." Ground
water was down about three feet at most.
>
> 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!
Puir things, we always had electricity and natural gas, lots of gas and
oil in Texas.
>
> 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!
Dad bought a 1942 Dodge four door sedan in September 1942, drove it
until 1953, six cylinder, stick shift, had a heater, opened windows for
cool. Got my first car at 12, 1946 Chevrolet two door, six cylinder,
stick shift, had a radio too. Gave my grandmother $25 hard earned money
for it then fixed the problem that was the reason she sold it, drove it
until I went into the Navy in 1957.
>
> 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
>
Mom bought a 1953 Motorola "portable" TV, took two grown men to pick it
up, had a 21 inch screen, black and white. Dad climbed a tree outside
the back of the house and put the antenna up there. We got channel two
from Houston, well over a hundred miles away and, occasionally, a
channel from Mexico City. Neighbors came over every Saturday night
bringing their own chairs and snacks just to watch "Saturday Night
Wrestling." Like a big party for the neighborhood. Closest neighbors
were about a half mile away.
Regardless of what we did then I enjoy the here and now,modern medicine
saves lives every day, modern transportation is actually cheaper and
last longer than the old stuff, and I love all the modern electronics.
Thanks for the memories though.
George