Memorial Day

Memorial Day weekend was always and still is a big week end for me. I liked to say it was because I am super patriotic, but the real reason is more personal. My birthday almost always falls on that weekend. Having your birthday on a holiday has its advantages and disadvantages. You are almost guaranteed not to have school that day. I have a personal belief that no one should go to school or work on their birthday. However you do miss out on having birthday cards from friends and birthday parties at school. People tend to forget that it’s your birthday because of the holiday.

In our family the rule was you could have only one birthday party where you could invite all your friends, I think I must have been 7 or 8 when I had mine. It was nothing fancy, we didn’t go to Chuck E. Cheese or anything like that. (of course Chuck E. Cheese didn’t exist at that time). The party was at home, we played pin the tail on the donkey, a game where you try to roll a peanut across the floor, egg on a spoon, and Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk, also known as find the thimble. The egg or potato on the spoon game is an outdoor game. The way I remember it you divide into two or more groups. Half of the group goes to one end of the yard and half to the other. Those groups are again divided into half, so you have at least two groups at each end. You start at one end of the yard with an egg on a tablespoon and at go, you race toward the other end without dropping the egg or potato. If you drop the item you have to go back and start again. Once you reached the other end successfully the next person in line at that end goes. The game continues until everyone is at the opposite end they started at.

One of my favorite indoor game was Huckle Buckle Bean stalk. Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk involves everyone but the hider leaving the room. The hider then hides a small object the size of a thimble somewhere in the room. The object must be visible and can’t be hidden in drawers or another object. Everyone else comes backs in and tries to find the object once the object is found the person yells Huckle Buckle Bean Stalk. The hider can help people by saying you are getting hotter or colder as they get closer or farther away from the object. The way would play it is you would yell huckle buckle bean stalk when you found the object but you wouldn’t touch it. The game would go on until everyone found the object. Those who had found the object could help or hinder those who haven’t. Because I don’t like white or yellow cake I am sure the birthday cake was a homemade chocolate with chocolate icing my mom would make the best chocolate cake ever.

After that when your birthday rolled around it was family only, although you did get to pick what you wanted for dinner, mine was always oven fried chicken, corn on the cob , tomatoes and a home made cherry or blackberry pie. You got to pick the dinner, but not always when it was going to happen. Often my birthday was moved to mid June. My brother was born in April and one year we were camping in Florida on his birthday, so for his birthday cake we had Hostess Cup Cakes with birthday candles. It is the one birthday of his that I remember.

It is funny, we spend a lot of money on presents and parties we give and the people who come to the parties don’t remember these things. What they remember is the great time they had and the people they got together with.

Radio Time

If you grew up in the 60’s or early 70’s you most likely had a transistor radio and if you are like me you probably listen to it late at night. Back then there were no portable cassette players. Although in high school I can remember having a cassette deck which was the size of a Kindle only 3 times as thick. On the front were the Play, Record, Stop Rewind and Fast Forward keys. You had to press the keys down to get anything to work. A microphone came with it you plugged into the side so you could use it to interview someone. It wasn’t until later they became worth listening to music on. There were also no cd playersand definitely no mp3 players. That left the transistor radio to listen to.

At night I would make my self a little tent under the cover and bring a small flash light and the transistor radio. I would move the dials on the side and the red line would move up and down the front of the radio until I got the station I wanted Sometimes I could barely hear it so than I would move the antenna from side to side and radio around until I found the sweet spot. The headphone that came with it had one end for your ear, everything was mono, so you never wore it. I had to keep the sound down low, so I would get caught. Unlike the daytime when AM radio ruled at night I would listen to FM radio. On a clear summer night I could hear stations from as far away as Boston or North Carolina. FM stations would play full albums from bands like Zeppelin, the Who or the Doors. They would have no problem playing songs that last any length of time. I can remember listening for songs that lasted 15 minutes. The DJ’s were great also there were characters like Wolfman Jack who had this great voice for late night radio. I don’t remember as many advertisements as there are now either. Although there were probably more than I remember. Do you remember listening to the radio late at night growing up, what was your favorite station and DJ.

Walking to the Bus Stop

This week in episode 10 I talk about walking to the school bus stop about a quarter of a mile. I would be wearing penny loafers, knee highs and a dress. In the winter the coat I was wearing would have been passed down from my older sisters. There was one blue coat with sheep wool lining that all of us wore, even my younger brother. I would have mittens pinned to the coat because I would be constantly loosing them. In my lunch box would be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a [Yodel] and a dime for a carton of milk.
About 15 kids would be standing at the bus stop. The winter time the wind would blow around the corner and it would get really cold. There would be the occasional horse play but nothing ever got out of hand. The school bus for the youngest kids grades first through 3rd and then the bus for the 4th and 5th graders would come and so on. There was only one bus stop for our street, so you always knew who was going to be late and who was sick. Did you ride a school bus to school and did you have to walk to the bus stop?

Moving Day

Moving Day

In 1965 we moved from Flanders, NJ to Basking Ridge NJ about 40 miles up the road. The town of Basking Ridge is probably know best today as where one of the AT&T corp offices is. Back then it’s only claim to fame was the fact it was where [General Charles Lee](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Lee_(general) was captured during the American revolution. We moved into a ranch house in a neighborhood called Heather Farms. It had five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a living room and dinning room, kitchen/family room and a large basement. It sat on an acre and a half piece of property with a cul-de-sac in the front and a brook that ran to a pond on one side and a neighbors house on the other. I talk about being tomboys and meeting our neighbors. How I had one doll a Chatty Cathy and lots of stuff animals. I hope you enjoy the episode.

Birch Beer

This episode 8 of Remembrances Back in the Day, Birch Beer, a story about the Larsen Turkey Farm and the Volunteer Fireman 4th of July Picnic. Where the birch beer came in kegs and was cold and foamy and tickled your nose. Please listen and I hope you enjoy.

Remembering Easter

Growing up Easter was a big holiday in our family, although not as big as Christmas or Thanksgiving. It really started earlier in the week with the decoration of the eggs. My mother would buy a dozen eggs and we would dip them in dye. Trying to dip them perfectly into various colors, usually ending up with eggs of undefined colors. One year my mother decided to try to make Ukrainian eggs which worked out fine, except she used hard boiled eggs. Once they were done they were too pretty eat or throw away, so we had these eggs for years that everyone was afraid to move in fear we would break them and release rotten egg smell. On Easter morning my mom would get us up so we could get ready for church. There would be a dress laid out for each of us. My mom would make the dresses either from a Butterick or Simplicity pattern on a Singer sewing machine. There were very few clothes that we had that were store brought other then sweaters, sweatshirts and jeans until we reached late junior high. She would use the same pattern and make three different color dresses. Occasionally there would be an alteration in the pattern like one dress would have a collar, while the other be scoop neck or v neck. I have a vague memory of one year when she made dresses for us that were baby blue, peach and a light green. I am pretty sure the material was chiffon. With the dress there was a new pair of tights and new shoes for spring. If Easter was early we might also put on a spring coat and hat. 

Once we got back from church it was time for the Easter baskets. Which we first had to find. My mother was very good at hiding things and no one could touch their Easter basket until all Easter baskets were found. My two older sisters Easter basket were both old and large. I remember them as being black with greenish hue. If I remember the story correctly they were inherited from a great aunt, My Easter basket brown and slightly smaller. My brother’s basket was more modern and multicolored. Usually in each Easter basket were some colored hard boiled eggs, some jelly beans, peeps, a solid chocolate Easter bunny and one gift. 

Once the gift was opened it was about time for our cousins, my paternal grandmother and Jake to arrive. Jake was no relationship to me at all, but I always remember him with my grandmother. I never met my maternal grandfather he left my mother and grandmother sometime during the depression. My paternal grandparents were divorced before I was born and I only met my paternal grandfather about four times in my life. So Jake was the closes thing to a grandfather I had. We would have either roast leg of lamb with garlic and oregano or much to my horror a ham. Although I did love the crackling which is the coating of fat on top of the ham which would get really crispy. There were always two table at dinner, the adult table in the dinning room and the kids table in the kitchen. Once you reached the age of 14 if I remember correctly you got to eat with the adults, that was a big deal for all the kids. Through the afternoon we would play games like penny ante poker or Pig (also known as Spoons). In Pig each person gets four cards and you pass a card to your right until someone gets four of a kind and then they yell pig and our family you all grab for a spoon. There is always one less spoon then there are people playing, so the person who doesn’t get a spoon gets a P once a person spells pig they are out. Our family is quite competitive so almost anything went including the occasional use of finger nails. One year a game got so competitive that we broke my aunt;s coffee table. Usually either during or after a game of Pig, we would be told to go outside and play until super was ready. For super we would have sandwiches made up of the left overs from lunch and a piece of home made pie. Both my Uncle Joe and Jake liked their beer and usually by early evening they had had one too many and my aunt and grandmother would collect them for the trip home. Occasionally we would get calls later about the antics going home including trying to put up an umbrella in the car. My parents would send us to bed and soon we would drift off to sleep with dreams of candy dancing in our heads

TV Time

 Growing up we only had one TV and until the mid 60’s it was in black and white. We only received six channels and on a good day maybe seven, there was ABC, CBS and NBC along with channel 11 and 5 which were local stations out of New York City and the NET station, which was a precursor to PBS. There was no remote control or vhs or dvr, so if you missed a show you missed it. Among the kids it was first come first serve also known as I am bigger than you so I get the TV. In our family you could only watch an hour of TV at night. To be honest most of the time in the summer time we would be outside playing late until the evening when my mother would call us in. By the time we got inside it was time for a bath and then bed. There were some shows I remember growing up that either came on before school or on Saturday morning. The first one was Romper Room which came on during lunch time and you would watch it before you went to kindergarten or coming home. Early in the morning before school there was Captain Kangaroo. Then on Saturday morning you had comedies like the Three Stooges or the Little Rascals and action adventures like My Friend Flicka. Slowly those shows got replaced by cartoons. My favorite cartoon when I was really little was Mighty Mouse, a super mouse who would protect the town of Mouseville from various villains including Oil Can Harry a Cat. I also loved watching Richochet Rabbit and Droop-along on the Magilla Gorilla Show. And if you grew up at that time who can forget the Huckleberry Hound Show, with Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear and Pixie and Dixie All these shows were simple and you knew who was going to win and loose. The animations was crude and simple, but they all had great theme songs and whenever I hear one on Youtube I have to smile remembering a time when everything was much simpler.