Shopping in the 1950's

Just a few words on the radio when I was half asleep took me back over sixty years ago to remind me that I used to enjoy shopping.  At the time I was living in Maryland, and on some occasions I went into Baltimore to shop for clothing.

What was being discussed on the radio was a movie which had a scene in a high end clothing store.  The activities of that scene were all new to the speaker as it is not done any more in clothing stores.  The following is what I remember.

My mother was visiting from Kentucky and we went into the city to shop for something special.  The store we visited had a nice cafe where one could have a leisurely lunch.  While enjoying our lunch we noticed that we were being entertained with a soft sell approach to the nicer clothing sold there.  Pretty models were walking through the tables modeling the ladies clothing which was sold in that store.  I had never seen that done before so it was all very interesting to me, and to my  mother also.

This memory jog caused me to pull out my journal from 1954. I found it very interesting to see the prices of things at that time. A washcloth was 27cents, thread 29 cents, and sailcloth $1.98 per yard.  My husband needed a lamp and I found a wrought iron "bird cage" type of lamp, for $ 2.29 plus 5 cents tax.  That lamp stayed in my family for many years and may still be in a den somewhere.

My husband was supplementing his teaching job by driving charter buses.  The chauffeur's license was $3.00.  I had made a note of the fact that a friend had bought a 1950 Chevy for $800.

A movie cost 75 cents.  During this time I was expecting our first child so I purchased two dozen announcement cards for 72 cents.

My father had died the fall before and in a letter from my mother she had told me she bought a granite grave marker for him with room for her name on it later.  The cost was $103.

Movies of that time were revealing.  One was The Glenn Miller Story.  Audry Hepburn was in Roman Holiday and William Holden in Stalag 17.  The best picture of that year was From Here to Eternity.

This was long before the time of discount stores.  Walmart has revolutionized shopping for everyone.  I well remember the first time I was in a Walmart.

My daughter and I were on  a mother/daughter week-end and we found a motel for the night.  She was so excited when she saw a Walmart next to our motel.  She knew what I did not, everything you could want is under the roof at Walmart. We had our evening entertainment all mapped out, we spent it in Walmart!  It was a far cry from lunch in a high end department store where one could see the latest fashions float by on a comely model. But it does point out that our culture has changed in many ways.  In general we have  much more relaxed lifestyles.  When I was a young lady I had one drawer in my bedroom devoted to dress gloves.  It was what one wore when dressing up.  I had white in many different styles, one pair came up to my elbows.  My favorite pair had pearls all around the wrist.  You just do not see them worn very often.  Everyone is busy and taking the easy route.  Still it is fun to think of  a leisurely lunch while  the latest fashions walk past you.

The Analogy of a Broken Bone

In an earlier Blog I explained how I happened to be confined to my home with a broken bone.  When I visited the Sports doctor the day after the incident  I was fitted with a proper size boot and instructed on how to deal with the problem of getting well.

When I went in two weeks later for an x-ray to see how the break was healing, I had some questions, one of which was how he could tell on the x-ray that the break  was healing. I will paraphrase but essentially he said that the break looked wider and that indicated that healing had begun.  He said the blood comes in and takes away the debris from the break, after this has occurred then the healing can really take hold.  That thought had been resting in my mind and this morning it came back to me while I was meditating quietly at my breakfast table.

The blood taking away the debris  seemed like a good comparison to how other types of breaks go about the healing process also.  Be it a hair line fracture, a complete break or a personal relationship.  Neither will begin to heal until the fragments surrounding the incident have been removed.  It may take some repairing in the form of forgiveness, some acts of contrition, or other manifestations of clearing and cleansing.  Each break will have its unique earmarks. But, whatever it is, complete healing will not take place until a new slate is available for building up again.

My mother had a saying "a good scream clears the air".  With eight children to deal with that way worked for her.  A good scream from her put us all on notice that a change was taking place.  We all have to find what "a good scream" means for us in any given situation.  Perhaps recognizing the need for it is a good way to begin.

My Compliments to the Chef

For the past few weeks my family has been ready to lend a helping hand in my temporary confinement.  Staying off of a fractured ankle has been my goal and I do believe it is helping to heal a very inconvenient  injury.  One of those who has lightened my load is my son-in-law Jim.  Jim is a natural born cook.

As he tells the story he and my daughter were in Savannah, Georgia over Thanksgiving holidays.  They found that good restaurants were hard to find.  They did however locate a Greek restaurant on the waterfront called The Olympia Cafe.  From the evening that they dined there I have become the beneficiary of a delightful dish called "Shrimp Scampi".  I was aware that Jim knew what to do to enhance the flavor of anything edible but he outdid himself on this treat.  His rendering of that recipe is what I am pleased to share with you now.  Bear in mind that the seasoning is proportional to your taste.

In his own words:

While they didn't give us the recipe, this recipe captures the taste of their dish. You know the way I cook, I really don't measure anything, but really do it by appearance and taste, but this is approximately what I did on Monday.

1. 1lb of shrimp, after peeling shrimp dust them with Cajun Season (about 3/4 - 1 tablespoon of Cajun Seasoning). As you dust the shrimp with the Cajun Seasoning keep tossing shrimp by hand to make sure the seasoning is equally distributed on all of the shrimp.

2. 1 - 8 oz can of petite diced tomatoes

3. 1 Large tablespoon of crushed garlic

4. 1 healthy dash of Italian Seasoning to taste. (about 1/4 tablespoon )

5. 3 to 4 tablespoon of butter or a combination of butter and olive oil.

Peel shrimp, and season shrimp with Cajun Seasoning. Put tomatoes, garlic, butter and Italian Seasoning in wok. Heat until it is a slow boil. At this point taste the tomato sauce and add any additional garlic, Italian Seasoning or pepper to personal taste. Once the mixture has simmered for a few minutes, turn up heat to high, add shrimp and stir. Cook shrimp just until they just turn pink, it should be 1 or 2 minutes. Be careful not to overcook shrimp or it will be tough. Remember the shrimp will continue to cook after it is removed from the heat, so you just want the shrimp to turn pink.

Spoon over pasta and salivate.

You can add onions and/or white wine to recipe, if you have that available. The white wine will make the sauce a little lighter and give it a subtle little something extra.

 

Jim does not eat wheat so he brought for me a baguette which topped off the tastiest meal ever!

 

I just hope that when (if) I get to heaven they have shrimp and Jim will be there to prepare this dish.  If not then I have already had a little taste of heaven.

 

 

Pig Latin, and Other Oldies

With all of the changes taking place in the lives of young children, I was remembering how we had fun speaking Pig Latin when I was a child.  We had no electronic toys to capture our attention and our play was mostly invented on the spot.

For any who are not familiar with Pig Latin, here is what my online source had to say about it:

(n.) Form of language, used esp. by children, that is derived from ordinary English by moving the first consonant or consonant cluster of each word to the end of the word and adding the sound (ā), as in Eakspay igpay atinlay for “Speak Pig Latin”

Dictionary.com .

 

Somewhere in our playful speaking I remember a silly ditty where a different persons name could be inserted, such as "Sam de ham, alla ka fam, te legged, ti legged bow legged Sam".  No one was ever offended by this, you just got it right back in good measure.

 

We had board games such as "India".  The foreign looking figures decorating the board showed bejeweled, colorful figures which conjured up all sorts of thoughts of the mysterious country of India.  Today the same game can be found at stores like Target, Walmart, etc by the name of  "Parchise"

 

Before we had graduated to "India" we imitated the behavior of our mother by cooking up a meal using the leaves of a weed called "plantain".  This weed is still around and may be called by a different name.  the leaves are long, broad and deep veined with long stems coming from the middle with seed pods at the end, which reminded us of rat tails.  Using two rocks, one as a table and one as a pounder we beat on the leaf and pretended each was a pork chop.  Probably my mother had done this to flatten a pork chop to make it easier to fry.

 

When clover was in bloom we made "daisy" chains by splitting near the end of the stem on a clover bloom and inserting another clover stem in it, and pulling it through we soon had a long necklace to adorn ourselves.

 

When it was June Bug time, catching a green June Bug became a fun thing to do.  If you were agile enough to tie a string to the leg of this flying insect you had entertainment enough to keep you out of trouble for a while observing him fly. 

 

Group games like Tag, Blind Man's Bluff and Red Rover were also used to keep us engaged and safe in our own back yards.

 

On a very hot day if your mother had a huge wash tub and she wanted to help us cool off, she filled it with water and we happily splashed away under her watchful eye at her kitchen window.  When I was a little older and had learned to swim our town built a swimming pool and we were old enough  to travel there on our own and for a small fee we could swim and dive and have a  wonderful time.  I kept a skinned big toe on my right foot all summer long for several summers trying to learn to dive.

 

Once each summer our parents took a two week vacation at a park on Lake Herrington, Ky., where they rented a cabin big enough to accommodate our large family.  My father loved to fish and this was one way he could get away from work and take the entire family.  The pool for swimming was a floating, wooden structure built out into the lake.  It was fenced in under the walk around it and it had a slide at the deep end.  My father would stand at the bottom of the slide and encourage us to slide down to his waiting arms, thus I learned to swim.  I also got the worse sunburn of my life doing this.  I don't think we had ever heard of sun cream to protect us from burn.  As a little girl my shoulders were so badly blistered that I could not wear anything on the top.  My dad wanted a Sunday paper and I was sent to buy it at the little dock side store.  I was embarrassed to go but was told it was okay as I was just a little girl.

 

Our Sunday activities were pretty much the same each week.  The entire family attended Sunday School and Worship service.  Our mother put our Sunday dinner on the stove to cook while we were gone.  When we reached home she had our big meal on the table in no time.  Almost every Sunday we had someone join us for dinner (lunch).  In the afternoon it was funny paper time.  Then come Sunday evening back we went to Sunday evening services at church.  It is no wonder I remember all the old hymns - if not all the lyrics.

 

For some time there has been a public argument going on about children spending too much time in front of the television.  This discussion has evolved into more electronic toys as they had been invented and reinvented and expanded on .  Studies bring out the danger of too much repetitive use of the hands in using these modern day toys.

 

Children can benefit from many different kinds of childhood play.  The games are as unlimited as the imagination of the children (hopefully guided by older, wiser supervision).  One of my mother's favorite sayings was "necessity is the mother of invention".  In my experience as a teacher of young children I have learned that in the classroom , if you do not give children something to do, within two minutes, they will invent something to do.  So, it behooved us to have something ready before those young feet made their way into the classroom.

Don't Entertain the Queen in Your Sleep

Recently there have been a lot of programs on Public Television about the Windsors, and specifically Prince Philip.  One brief clip showed a barbecue traveling set up  that he had designed, after being introduced to the concept on one of his trips.  It also showed the royal family on a picnic and the informality of the group setting up to eat on a picnic table.  The idea that the ruling house of England could unbend and enjoy an informal outing must have stuck in my mind, for I revisited it in my sleep last night.

How it happened to come about I do not remember but Queen Elizabeth and her family were visiting my home.  There were capers going on concerning the younger ones in her party, but otherwise we were all a congenial group.  For some reason I thought they might enjoy a visit to a fancy doughnut shop as it was Valentines day so we ventured out and sure enough the shop was all decorated for Valentines day shoppers.  The doughnuts were lavishing displayed and we all expressed our pleasure with Oohs and Aahs.  As some wandered about I ordered a box of doughnuts with all sorts of elegant toppings, and some decorated paper plates to serve these dainties on.  Plenty of whipped cream and unusual decorations met my eyes as I asked for the bill to pay for them, and take home as a later snack.  When the bill was offered it far passed my expectations and when I looked shocked, the clerk explained that the  Queen had ordered some candies  that contained liquors which made it all very expensive.  The Queen never carries money so I knew it was my duty to pay for it all.  However my credit card was not to be found in my wallet and panic struck.  I searched through every little zippered pocket in my purse and after a while I found it.  I was so shocked by the bill I had trouble checking the total but finally it was accomplished.  Then since we were in a Mall I was gathering up the group to go home and learned the Queen had already left.  I was busy trying to find the rest of he party and noticed it was raining and us with no umbrellas.  Shortly after that I awakened, much relieved that it all happened while I was sleeping.

I suppose that the films I had seen made it seem possible to my subconscious mind that she might just drop by some day.  And I conjured up an activity for her which might be a bit different from her ordinary rounds at the castle.  All of this brings up the old adage "do all things in moderation" and I really have been watching too much British television lately.

Minimal Words

I am a member of the Northeast Georgia Writers Group, and we have a very able lady among us, one of our officers, and published author.  She is ever alert to send us interesting information from which she feels we could benefit.

Recently she sent the web site of one of the authors who had visited our group.  She is Loretta Hannon,  author of "Cracker Queen" and she had so many helpful things to say to our group.  On her web site she challenged us to write our memoir in six words, and send it to her.  I did just that.  Since it is appropriate to what I am writing today, I am sharing it with you now:

Perpetual motion, not a good notion

Many years ago I was in a teachers writing group.  It was a fun thing for me as I enjoy writing and was at the time teaching creative writing to my first graders.  Early on in the year I introduced my class to the idea of writing their own newspaper.  They were very enthusiastic about this project and it became a daily activity for them as part of their seat work.  To describe how I did this is not the point of my writing today, suffice it to say that  my students loved doing it and became quite accomplished in working on their own to make their individual daily newspapers.

In the teacher writing group sponsored by the Gwinnett County Board of Education, we met and shared our writing.  We had a very supportive leader;  She read our writings and commented on our papers. One of the things I wrote was "Smell the Roses".

In essence I wrote about being a Type A person and how a quick sniff of the proverbial rose was enough for me, as I had other things to explore.

This idea of a quick sniff came back to haunt me on January 30th.  At my age I have slowed down considerably and my family insists that I put away my pick ax and act my age.  My son-in-law had come up to prune in my vineyard on the Monday in question and he instructed me to sit in the golf cart and keep him company with conversation.  I obeyed him for about thirty minutes and then thought that it would be safe enough for me to gather the vines he had pruned and carry them to the edge of the woods.  All went well for a good while, then on one trek I noticed a Forsythia in bloom.  I was intrigued as it was uncommon to see this in January.  My sons and grandson had helped me plant a row of Forsythia along the woods but I did not think they were this far over.  I took a step into the woods for a better view and immediately slipped on some leaves and began to fall back.  Trying to protect my head I put out my left arm to break the fall.  All would have worked according to my plan except for one thing.  My right foot did not get the message that I was changing directions and it refused to come along. As my body twisted to the left I wondered why my right foot was staying upright when the rest of me was falling.  Then I felt it, excruciating pain in that right foot, then it obliged me and came with me to the ground!

Immediately Jim, my son-in-law took me  to the Urgent Care center for medical attention.  Yes it was a fractured ankle and yes it was painful and yes it will be a lengthy recovery.  So much for my perpetual motion DNA.  My motions have been scaled down to a slow shuffle with a walker and a lovely black boot to hold my foot still. Beating myself over the head was not helping one bit so I settled down to reading some very good books which my son brought to me.  Also I am able to prop up my right foot and use the computer for short periods.

My fast pace has been severely halted.  Now I have plenty of time to smell the roses.  It has not stopped my brain from racing however.  Now, I am counting my blessings and biding my time with plenty of time to look out the windows and wish I could smell the daffodils out front nodding and swaying with the coming of spring.