Memory Lane

A  friend sent me a string of images that scream out "1950s" or "1960s." Unfortunately, I can't get the photos to copy to this website.I've chatted briefly with my cousins about them, and among us, we can identify most, and some, "Hey! We had that in our household."Sam, who is a natty dresser, wishes for those pants stretchers for his jeans so they look freshly pressed.

     The artifacts include baby chicks dyed for Easter; baby-doll pajamas; a croquet set; tinker toys; a lady's tiny analogue wristwatch with a slim, jewelry-like bracelet; a brown paper lunch sack; a pressed 4-leaf clover; Sugar Daddies; bronzed baby shoes; Smith Brothers Cough Drops; a school blackboard exemplifying cursive handwriting in upper and lower case letters; an 8-track tape deck; Merthiolate; aluminum drinking cups in various metallic colors; Libby glasses decorated with fogged glass and fold-colored leaves; pot-holders made of woven rings of knit fabric; report cards; wax bottles that were about 3" high (max) filled with colored sugar-water; a mimeograph machine; a hairdryer with a bonnet and inflation hose; logo for Art Linkletter's TV program, "Kids Say the Darndest Things;" an outhouse; a bottle of Dippity-Doo; Rock-n-Roll shoes (white saddle oxfords with black saddles); transistor radio; the card that slips into the front pocket of a library book; a vinyl and chrome dining set; Mabelline mascara in a tray with a brush;inserts for plugging the broad hole in a 45 rpm record so it could be played on a 78 or 33 rpm spindle; nylons with garter belts, and stockings with seams; a wringer washer; a milk man; jacks; drive-in restaurant tray; diaper pins and plastic pants; pic-up sticks; LePage mucilage glue with a pink rubber snout on the top of a glass bottle; rental roller skates; a drive-in movie theater; Evening in Paris perfume; real and aluminum Christmas trees;  electronic pinball machines; pin curls for a hairdo; rolls of caps, ammo for a cap gun;  a library card file with cards for author, subject, or title; and an ad for Old Gold cigarettes. 

 

 Dyed chicks were a fad once, but by the time I was practicing law, they were illegal "cruelty to animals." Uncle Buck told me once that Audrey brought home a duckling which, like chicks, was a prize at the carnival.  He left it on a porch, never expecting it to live.  Instead, it cozied up to a mama cat with new kittens, and grew up with the kittens.  Aunt Sylvia said that the cats and duck followed Buck to the mailbox each day, except that the duck never made the whole trip.  It always stopped to stare at a puddle, like it knew it should have something to do with water. 

We had tinker toys, but Mom hated them because they allowed a child to leave a stick sticking up, and a child mild fall on it and poke her eye out.

Vake gave Milly a slender watch in a rose gold case and bracelet. When she was in the Philippines, merchants wanted to buy it from her, but she declined to sell it, because it was a gift from Vake.  I think Kaia has it now, and it's still pretty, but it wasn't working when Kaia inherited it. I'm sure it could be fixed. But when I put it on once, it immediately stopped running.  I still screw up machines.  I've been known to do no more than walk past a copy machine that started flashing a message, "Fatal Error." Milly claimed that when she held the watch up to the TV when Uri Geller, magician, was performing, it started running again, and was set to the right time of day.

I remember Sugar Daddies. When I got all maximum grades on my report card I was allowed to spend $.25 on candy.  When I bought a Sugar Daddy, a hard caramel sucker, I couldn't finish it during my lunch hour, so I stuck it in my desk, where it glued itself to the ceiling inside my desk.  At the end of the school year when we had to clean out our desks, I pried it loose, and what the heck, I finished eating it.

Old Gold Cigarettes?  There were plenty more brands."  I'd walk a mile for a Camel."  "Call for Phillip Morris!"  "LSMFT--Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco."  Tarryton, "I'd Rather Fight than Switch."  "Winston Tastes Good Like a Cigarette Should." 
 

Pic-up sticks?  Patty taught me the hard way to play 52 Pick-up. Darn her! She always had an edge, having  older brothers.