On the morning of Dec. 9, I took a trip down Memory Lane, thanks to a series of images and words emailed to me and others by St. Joseph resident Richard Schwegel.
The series was called “Collection of Memories from 1950s, 1960s, 1970s.”
I grinned and laughed, brimming with good cheer and nostalgia as those images brought me swiftly back into my early years. But afterward, I frowned, thinking “Can I really be THAT old?” Alas, the mathematical verdict is . . . YES.
Here are some of the photos and captions:
A man stands by a car, its trunk open with five stowaways crammed in the trunk. “1950s. When you bought a car, you asked how many you could fit in the trunk so you would know how many you could sneak into the drive-in theater.”
(Oh yes, we delinquents pulled that stunt quite a few times at the Cloud and 10-Hi, two outdoor theaters in the St. Cloud area.)
A little boy sits on the floor right in front of a TV set with its cool slanted space-age legs. “Saturday morning cartoons and a bowl of cereal, without a care in the world. I miss days like that.”
(I do too. We kids ate huge bowls of cereal always with the TV blaring: Wheaties (Breakfast of Champions), Cheerios (topped with sliced bananas), Malt-o-Meal (mushy but good), corn flakes, shredded wheat.
A father sits on a floor with his young son and says, “When you said the dishwasher was loaded, I thought you meant your mom was drunk.”
(Funny. But true in a sense. In the 1950s, moms (including mine) always washed the dishes by hand. It, was – like most house chores – considered “woman’s work.”)
Two photos, one of them showing three kids playing happily at the edge of a creek, the other showing three teen girls on a city street all staring down at their own smart phones.
(So true. In the 1950s, we kids loved to play outside, down by the river across from college, in alleys and vacant lots, and at Barden Park a block from home. We played “Cowboys ‘n’ Indians,” Starlight-Moonlight, Pom-Pom-Pullaway and sand-lot softball. Oh, the fun we had!)
Who remembers Five and Dime stores?
(Duh! We kids would often take the rickety Fifth Avenue bus to downtown. At Kresge’s or Woolworth’s, we’d buy plastic models to glue together, burgers at the lunch counters, and we loved to mug for snapshots inside the Woolworth photo booth.)
A radio hits list from June 9, 1969 shows
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising” at number-one. Some others are “Get Back” (the Beatles), “In the Ghetto” (Elvis) and “These Eyes” (The Guess Who).
(Ah, yes, the Golden Age of Great Songs).
A granny stands at a wood-fired cast-iron stove getting a meal ready. “The original slow cooker. The food was the best.”
(Well, sometimes, unless it was fried liver (ick!) or “healthy foods” we kids hated.)
A 1950s newspaper ad. “2 bedrooms, one bath, screened porch, car port. Total price $7,450. Monthly payment $47.92.”
(Where’s my time machine so I can put it in reverse? I’m paying $450 a month for my mortgage, plus $475 for monthly mobile-home lot rent. Highway robbery!)
A photo shows a woman ironing. “Did your mother iron EVERYTHING?”
(Answer: yes. She would iron for hours while listening to soap operas, like ‘The Guiding Light” on the radio. I can still smell in memory the starch solution from the hot iron.)
A woman is kneeling, looking through cards in a library’s card catalogue. “Prehistoric Googling.”
(Well, finally something I don’t miss: card catalogues.)
A photo of an old rotary dial phone. “I miss being able to slap my phone down when I hang up on somebody. Violently pressing ‘end call’ just doesn’t do it for me.”
(Especially when enduring robot voices or call waiting.)
Richard Schwegel, thanks for sharing. It all made me feel young again for a few brief, shining moments.
