Like Ellen Webster, my favorite research subject who lived in two different centuries, I have done the same, and today seems like a good day to think about some of the changes I have seen. In my “day,” I did not own a lot of plastic toys made in China. My mother would give me a metal pie pan and send me to the back yard to play in dirt. I’d mix chokecherries, water from a stream running through our property, and mud, and call it a “pie.” Alternately, she would throw blankets over the backyard clothesline, an aluminum affair with a central pole, to enclose a space where I could “play house,”
with my little friend.
Patti with “Jill, the Walking Doll,” and brother, Stevie Grace on Christmas 1956
The teacher in me came out at a very early age. I’d line up my dolls and stuffed animals in the cellar of our north end home in Manchester, NH, when I was about five years old, and while writing on a freestanding chalkboard, a gift to my mother from her (3rd grade?) teacher, I would instruct my willing audience in letters and numbers.
My brothers would be upstairs, watching Rin Tin Tin, Hop-along Cassidy, or some other cowboy show on a Black and White TV. A piano sat in the same room that had belonged to my grandmother. Whenever I knew that the piano tuner would be coming over, I would ask my mom for “Rolos” chocolate candy so that I could give him some as a treat. My Dad liked to sit in that same “family room” on Saturday afternoon, for a break, and he would ask me to bring him a cup of coffee. I felt so grown up in mixing a level teaspoon of Sanka and a level teaspoon of sugar in a cup, and then mother poured in the hot water and milk.
The Fuller Brush man, the milkman, the bakery truck, and the ice cream truck were frequent visitors to our home. The milk came in glass bottles and mother always poured off the cream that would rise to the top and saved it in a little pitcher for coffee. She belonged to the Stanley Club, whatever that was. It may have been a place to order clothes by mail. We are talking 1950s here. Woolworth’s department store was in full force. I loved to go there because they had big packets of cancelled postage stamps for just a thin dime that I could mount in a big postage stamp book; AND they had the best hot fudge sundaes ever! Postage on first class mail was only 4 cents, if memory serves. Mother would buy me little dry goods, doilies, bureau scarves, etc., that I could embroider.
If I was “good,” my aunt would buy me a book like this one. Pierre Bear is my all-time favorite!
My Aunt Ginny would take me with her to the supermarket on Saturday, and “if I was good,” she’d buy me a Little Golden Book. There was a big kiosk of them and I always had a hard time choosing one because I wanted them all! They were still selling “Coke” in bottles. Occasionally, the family would drive to Concord, NH on a Sunday to go to the A&W outdoor restaurant. If I remember correctly, one placed an order through a microphone and the food was brought out to the car – the usual fare being hamburgers. There were metal trays that swung into the car on both sides, as I recall.
I had a small record player on which I played 45 RPM records, including “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and the first Beatle record. My brother, Jack, had all of Elvis Presley’s 78 RPM records. My favorite song was, “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog.”
Once the family had moved to Deerfield in the 1960s, a new era had been entered. Jack now preferred Joan Baez, and inspired by his adoration of her, I learned to play guitar. Whilst the twins were touting Doublemint Gum in TV commercials, Kruschev was banging his shoe on the table at the United Nations, saying, “We, (Russia),will bury you!” In honor of the first dog in space, my father changed my dog’s name to “Sputnik.” I think I liked “Scampy” better.
Drive-in movies were still in place in the sixties and “fun” for those who liked mosquito bites, suffering in cars without a-c, or teenagers who wanted to be alone, at any cost! Birth control was unheard of and more than a few girls I know got “caught,” in a most visible way. Certain feminine products had not yet been invented, and training bras and garter belts with pull-up nylons were the order of the day – no pantyhose!
When the family first lived in Deerfield, NH in 1963, the telephone service still had a live operator and 4-party lines. Anyone in the network could eavesdrop on telephone conversations. Creepy. Of course, it was more expedient than the Telegraph, a way in which many important messages were transmitted during the 1940s. I still have copies of some of those family communications.
When I look back, I realize how much young people of today have missed. I feel like a relic, and yet, I am still here to tell the story of these things. I lived through the dark days of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of great men who stood for political and social justice, and I saw the first man “walk on the Moon.” I have yet to catch up to such things as i-phones, i-Pads, or i-Tunes. Many days, I feel limited, technologically-speaking. Yet, I feel at an advantage having lived through these many years, having experienced the advances of the 20th century, first hand.
James Gorham, my son, in 1979, standing in Deerfield, in front of the barn I painted, and using the “Scooter” that was a toy of mine when I was a kid, passed down from yet another generation, original owner unknown. No dirt bikes on the scene. The barn is now torn down, the “boy” is grown up and is a father of two! Happy Father’s Day, James!
I recall playing “Tinkertoys” with my nieces and nephew on the floor of the family home in Deerfield. I remember picking fresh peaches in my father’s orchard, and grapes from the roadside, and collecting Black Walnuts from the tree in our front yard. I remember swinging on a swing that my father made for an old Maple Tree, no longer there. I remember my horses, my rabbit, my chickens, and growing houseplants… and getting in hay… and painting the barn. The past is never truly gone, as long as we have recollections of it. I can truly tell you that I have lived a life! So far, it’s been a journey I wouldn’t trade!
Patricia Cummings
Quilter’s Muse Publications
