I Am Very Lucky

I think I am very lucky born in 1942 and growing up in a small town. When I was small the milk and bread wagons were drawn by horses and the ice for the icebox came by an old truck which us kids would chase after trying to get part of the chips as they cut the ice. On the weekends the children would get together and go down to the creak and fish the water was crystal clear with lots of weeds we would come home with a big stringer of pan fish which mom would cook up. The town still had a large cattle coral at the train tracks for holding cattle until shipped out. Most of the houses on our street never locked the doors and thief was never a problem. We never heard of anyone being sick although it probably happened. My friend had polio and we took him to school in a wagon and brought him home. The factories at the edge of town had no fencing around them and we would look through their scrap out the back to get things to make our toys. Mother would send me to the butcher shop to get chicken winds and they were very cheap because no one eat them and buy bones for the dog but she made soup out of them first. Our first TV was in 1950 we had the only one on the street it was black and white and all the children in the area would gather in my house to watch the TV. My mother would get phone calls to send certain kids home for super. I laugh one day one of the kids said to my dad please Mr. Walters could you turn off the show until I get back because I don’t want to miss anything.

Like I said I have seen horse drawn bread wagon to rockets going into space I have been lucky.

The only sadness is my children will not have the opportunity to see the world as pristine as I have the only way is through my memories

 

You know when I was growing up my Grandfather told me stories and I loved them. Just like you wrote here, you could tell your grandchildren about life when you were growing up. I'd listen for hours to him and sometimes my Mom would tell me stories about when she was growing up too. I like to hear these stories a lot for it was a time like you remember of blissful living. You are lucky and luckier to have wonderful memories to share with your family too.

 

Martin, I could have written your post! I was also born in 1942, not in a small town, but the milkman left the milk outside on the back steps, where it started to freeze in real cold weather, pushing the paper cap up and out.

We got our first TV in 1950 or '51. I learned quite a bit about it from the co-worker my Dad had come to the house to test the tubes, maybe every couple of months, when it quit working.

 

I was born in 1941 and remember the milk being delivered in a churn by a man on a tricycle, also a horse and cart.
Yes we had the polio scares and the first TV in the road in 1952, we never had a phone at home though, because living in a grocery store, my father thought we would be bothered too often by customers, asking to use the phone.
Still do leave the doors unlocked at times but probably not really wise in this day and age.

They were happy times on reflection, but hard as well which our minds tend to forget.

 

Aw, reading your memories, @Martin Alonzo was a great start to my Friday morning... I enjoyed it greatly and I thank you for posting your memories!

I didn't come along until '57, so I don't have memories of some of those same things, and that's sad to me. Our milk and bread came from my daddy stopping at the store on his way home from work or from family trips to the store on Friday nights.

Yes, you are lucky... there are so many changes in the world now. Some good... but many more bad. And I worry for the future generations, I really do.

 

Terry Page thanks for reminding me about the telephone I still remember the number 2718J. You had to pick up the phone to find out if someone else on the party line is using it first before making a call You can easily see how times have changed.

 

Yes we had party lines for quite a while, and to ring outside your town you would have to speak to an operator, and they would connect you.

 

Martin, you and I have many of the same memories. I was born in 1940 and we lived in the south end of town, about a two block walk from the country. Except for the war, those were great times.

 

I looked on your profile and it says you were born in 1951, the same year I was! @Frank Sanoica. If you made a mistake maybe you can change it.

I remember milk being delivered in the 50's but never had a party line.

 

I was born around the same time as you @Mari North ,, just a little before you... and we had milk deliveries, and bread, and fish deliveries right throughout my childhood in Scotland (during the 60;s)..in fact for a few years my father was the Milkman and I had to get up at 3am and work in the dark on his round with him..then come home get breakfast, and go to school at 8am....and we lived in the City..

We also had a party line phone at home..and I too can remember the number more clearly than I can remember my iphone number today lol..

Like you Martin, we used to go rummaging for parts at the back of old factories to make things to play with....we'd make Go-karts and all sorts of things...we'd go down to the 'burn' (Stream) and make swings from old rope and swing across the water..we'd go exploring old ''haunted'' derelict houses and scare ourselves silly ..

I remember going out after breakfast...and being out all day..as young as 9 years old..and being told to be back for 5, and no-one came looking for us and we'd wander for miles sometimes...altho' woe betide us if we didn't get back home on the dot of whatever time we were told.

I'm not as old as @terrypage ..I don't remember ever having to connect to an operator to use the phone...

We got Tv when I was about 7 and we were allowed to watch a couple of early evening children's programmes, before the old man got home, because whatever he wanted to watch on that Black and white TV..(just 2 channels) then that's what my mother had to watch...and never ever, ever was the TV allowed to be on while were sitting at the dinner table...

One last memory before I send @Chrissy Page off to sleep with this long post.. the wirelss was always on during the day ..and I still remember all those old songs from the 50's and 60's that were her favourites ...yup, definitely different days then....

 

Chrissy, thank you for spotting my error........trust me to make mistakes.......sometimes on purpose?

 

I skimmed your post, @Holly Saunders....still awake too!

My childhood was similar though with what I did as a child.....out all day, having fun.

 

The guy that lived across the street delivered bread and bakery stuff to the small neighborhood stores. If any of us kids were out in the yard when he got home, he would give us packages of cookies or whatever he had. Probably older stock, but we didn't care.

 

Just remembered my childhood phone number, LO-10935.

If I remembered right the LO would correspond with numbers, so later we called it 561-0935.

Going to check if that's right with the LO being 5 6. If so I remembered a number from 59 yrs ago.