Month: January 2010

How did we survive?

This was received in an e-mail and I am passing it on.

To Those of  Us  Born   between  1930 – 1965  

At the end of this blog is a quote of the month by Jay Leno.. If you don’t read anything else, please 
read what he said.  Very well stated, Mr. Leno.
 
TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE
                   1930’s, 40’s, 50’s,   60’s and 70’s!! 
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.
 
They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.
 
Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered  with bright colored lead-base paints.
 
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes,  we had baseball caps  not helmets on our heads..
 
As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes.
 
Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat.
 
We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.
 
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and no one actually died from this.
  
We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And, we weren’t overweight..   WHY?  
Because we were always outside playing….that’s why!
 
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on…  
No one was able to reach us all day. And, we were OKAY.
 
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps  and then ride them down the hill,  only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem
 
We did not have Play stations, Nintendo’s and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s,  no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones,  no personal computers,  no Internet and no chat rooms.
 
WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
 
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
 
We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, ping pong paddles, or just a bare hand and no one would call child services to report abuse.  
 
We ate worms and mud pies  made from dirt, and  the worms did not live in us forever.
 
We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.
  
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.
 
 Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.  Those who didn’t had to learn  to deal with disappointment.  Imagine that!! 
 
 The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! 
 
These generations have produced some of the best  risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever.
 
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
 
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
 
If YOU are one of them, CONGRATULATIONS!  
 
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good.
 
While you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were.
 
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it ?  I just did and Look…I’m stil here….
~
The quote of the month is by
Jay Leno:
 
‘With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu, swine flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?’ 
 
For those that prefer to think that God is not watching over us..go ahead and ignore this. 
For the rest of us….pass this on.    https://2tts.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/how-did-we-survive/

 

Saturday afternoon movie matinees

Not too long ago I happened to drive through the intersection of West 1st Ave. and Knox Court. After driving through the intersection I pulled over to the curb and reminisced for a while. I was remembering how this intersection looked like in the late forties and early fifties. On the southwest corner were a small drug store and few small shops. Today the buildings are still there but the drug store and original shops are long gone. On the northwest corner a filling station and a Piggly Wiggly grocery store filled that corner. I think there was a small hardware store on the northeast corner. I do remember the Saturday auctions held by a Japanese auctioneer dressed in a pair of coveralls. The building that had the most memories for me was on the southeast corner and that was the Comet Theatre.

The Saturday afternoon matinees were the big event through the summer months. The entire neighborhood kids would go to this weekly big event. We would try to get there an hour before the movie opened. The line became quite long before the theatre finally opened. Finally the movie opened and it was mass chaos rushing in and getting our favorite seats. Yes, the theatre would be jammed packed.

The concession room was jammed and full with all these kids trying to get their treats before the movie started. Screaming yelling and waving hands to get the attention of the concession attendant was the norm. No lines here, you just got up to the counter and hoped you could be served quickly.

It was finally movie time. There was always a cartoon and a serial before the movie. Oh, those serials they were the greatest. You had to be sure and come back the next Saturday and find out how the dramatic highlight ended. This was our first exposure to science fiction with Buster Crabb and his space adventures. The graphics in those times were really bad. You could actually see the string holding the space ship in front of the painted wall of outer space. The serials were the best attraction of these matinees. If the movie was bad we would leave early. We could not miss the serial though.

This brought memories of another theatre in our younger years. This was the Webber Theatre on Broadway just north of Alameda Ave a couple of blocks. Their attraction was a birthday club and a drawing every Saturday for a prize. When you had a birthday in the week the Webber Theatre would give you a cake from Volmer’s Bakery. They would call out your name, you would go up on the stage, receive your cake and the audience would sing happy birthday.

One time my brother won the Saturday drawing. It was a single shot BB gun. You would cock the gun and then drop a single BB down the barrel. If you happen to lower the barrel, the BB would roll out. Oh well, it was free and it was won. My parents were not too happy when this BB gun came home. They did not take it away from my brother though.

I don’t have any pictures of these enjoyable days. All I have are the memories stored in the back of my brain.

As time went by we grew up and our interests changed. The Comet Theatre closed and after a period of time being empty and unused the building blew up one night. The report was a natural gas leak. Today The Webber Theatre is now a porn theatre. I don’t know what happened to Vollmer’s Bakery.

Now is so much different than then. I am different now than what I was then. Memories of then continue to crop up now. However, memories bring back good and enjoyable times of the past.