Mike Rainone
Hammertime
Like so many of you out there I had to bite the bullet last week and put on three layers of clothing during our sudden deep freezes, which included my age old set of long johns.
For some reason it really reminded me of way back when to my first adventures of those good old grade school days when the cardinal cold weather day rules in our house before venturing outside involved bundling up in a stuffy combination that included: a parka with a hood, wool socks, gloves, scarf, ear-muffs, knitted toque, sweater, thick pants, and of course those infamous long johns, which by the way in those days had a flap in the back.
I guess all that and a whole lot of the other strict, but fair rules and ‘tough love’ that goes along with bringing up kids were what was likely best for all of us and likely resulted in our eventual youthful survival and escape into puberty. But unfortunately all their care and understanding would only last until we became teenagers, when most of that ‘ growing up advice’ and pampering was mostly forgotten and the ‘stay warm’ clothing was lost, left in the locker or on the bus, or tucked away in the cupboard along with all of our childhood toys and memories. I guess it was somewhere in there where our mostly patient parents finally backed off just a little, would still love us dearly, but couldn’t wait for the day when we would have to raise our own kids, and then should fondly look back at what were certainly some of the best years of our young lives.
Do you still remember when?
• Our favourite elementary grade school books were full of a family fun group of characters made up of Dick and Jane and Sally and Spot and Puff and Tim and mom and dad? We had real wooden pencils and crayons in our desks, and we sharpened them with a manual twist or crank-me sharpener that had a container to catch all the cut-offs?
• Our parents hardly ever drove us to school, and if we didn’t take the big yellow bus we walked or had a big balloon tired bike with a basket and the top speed was SLOW. We got a meagre allowance by doing chores at home, but we made a little extra money by collecting pop bottles or delivering newspapers?
• As kids we always had lots of friends, one of our best toys and adventures were created in a big cardboard box, which we could use as a house, a hideout, and to slide real fast down the biggest snow hills, but found out the hard way that they do not float. We also lived in an era that included: pea shooters, Howdy Doody, Studebakers, coffee shops with booth side juke-boxes, A & W root beer stands with outdoor delivery to your car by cute waitresses with big trays, as well as those neat wax 45 and 78 RPM records that we spun on the gramophone player and danced to for hours.
• How great it was to go to the corner store and buy treats like candy cigarettes, big lollipops, orange cream push-up pops, and so much more that we would pay for with the change from our squeeze pouch. Many of us didn’t have fast food when we were growing up, because the whole family sat around the home table and ate together, and stayed there until everyone was finished. There actually was as an age when pizza was not delivered to the front door but milk and bread was, Premier crackers came in a tin box, Woolworths was one of the first big ‘box stores’ to have a lunch counter, and if you waited until after 7 p.m. a long distance phone call was much cheaper.
• If you went to the Ponoka Composite High School do you remember home-economics class where you got to cook real neat things, including your favourite cookies, and were allowed to sample them, as long as we shared? I vividly recall that I was a real klutz in the wood-working shop, so I got to flip to home-economics, typing, and drama classes.
• For those of us who were trying to grow up in the ‘roaring ’50s and ’60s in ‘Alberta style’ we took lots of pictures with those small Instamatic camera’s with the snap-on flash cube, there were only three channels to watch on T.V. which only ran shows from morning to early evening and was replaced by a black and white test pattern. Cans of meat (like Spam) were opened by a key that you turned until the top came off, Electrolux was the best vacuum cleaner, you could buy both a pack of cigarettes and a lighter for less than 50 cents each, Quaker State Oil came in a can with a spout to fill our vehicles to the top of the dip stick, and Castor-oil and Buckley’s cough syrup usually made everything feel better, even though they tasted awful.
I really must be getting old because I can remember most of these great original treasures, treats, traits, and tales, many of which don’t even exist anymore.
I have no doubt that all of you have the same and many more favourite memories from over the years, and although we have seen many exciting changes along the way we have learned to adjust, and even though some of us might have to seek help from our grand-children, we need to go with the flow and enjoy every moment of it. It is always a real treat and a chuckle to share those great old stories and pictures, and then go ahead and have a great week, all of you.