Remember?

Things I remember on this still frigid morning in the Northeast:

Having school clothes and play clothes.

Having to get up from the chair to change the television channel.

The Fuller Brush man.

Green stamps.

Five and Dime stores.

Coffee at five-cents a cup.

ESSO not EXXON.

Three channel televisions in black and white.

When summers seemed endless.

78 rpm and 45 rpm records.

When penny candy was a penny.

When movies began with cartoons and a serial.

You could repair your own car.

Teachers had the authority of parents.

Most houses didn’t have garages.

Space travel was science fiction.

Men wore hats everywhere.

Pennies were steel.

The washing machine had rollers on top.

Each house had a clothesline.

Helping my Mother with a curtain stretcher.

Air conditioning was open windows and screen doors in the summer. Fly paper hung  from the ceiling.

Alaska and Hawaii were territories.

People dressed up to travel.

You walked or rode your bike to school.

One gear bikes with big tires.

Each house had a coal bin.

Doctors made house calls.

You picked up the phone and an operator said, “number please”.

Route 66 was the main road across America.

The refrigerator was called an icebox.

Lawns were mowed with push mowers.

Camping in a Baker tent.

Paint was lead based and nobody knew it was harmful.

My Mother would say, “Think of all the starving kids in China”.

Al Jolson, Orson Wells, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Lowell Thomas and Howdy Doody, Captain Video, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson and Ken Maynard.

Leftovers were always eaten.

Out-houses at my uncle’s farm.

Radio drama programs of the Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, The Green Hornet and the Grand Ole Opry.

John Cameron Swayzy news, Walter Lippman, and What’s My line.

Mass in Latin.

Milk delivered daily at home. Penny Post Cards and three-cent stamps.

Courtesy to neighbors and knowing their names.

Congress being respected.

Congress being respected. Oh!  I said that!