Reminiscences

[Paul_H]

You mean,somewhere in the neighborhood,don't ya Stan? :D

I can relate to some of your stories Tom.My hometown,Squamish,is at the head of Howe Sound,40 miles from Vancouver.Until 1958,there was no road into it.Everybody and everything came up on the Union Steamships.Because it was isolated it tended to keep riff raff out,and the town cop knew everybody.

It started to grow fast in the 1970's and with it came the usual crime,drugs and so on when it became a bedroom community to Vancouver.When we were kids,if we did something stupid,my parents knew about it before we got home.

The town I live in now,had no road access until 1965.Prior to that,it was only rail access on the PGE line.Things never changed much here until the early 90's,and it's still a good place to raise kids.

I usually know if they've done something stupid before they get home. ;)

[Tom]

"I usually know if they've done something stupid before they get home. ;) "

That's a tribute to small towns.  Here in Jacksonville, many of the parents find out their children have been into trouble because they don't come home.  It's unbelievable to me the things that kids do today.  Drive-by shootings, robbery, and all manner of "hard" crimes are being performed by under 20 youngsters, many in their early teens. Either the kids are shooting someone or some kid (innocent perhaps) is being shot.  The papers are full of it.

Thank your lucky stars for a small town.

I believe in "Home Before Dark".

[Bibbyman]

When I was a kid in the mid-1950s, there was one wonderful place in town I always liked to visit. It was the 5¢ and 10¢ store.

One aisle in particular had contained everything a young man needed or wanted.  Well, the upper end had things for girls.  On one side were rubber baby doll heads, arms, legs, doll bottles, doll grooming tools, etc.  Cardboard dolls with paper clothes that could be cut out and the tabs folded over to clothe them.  They had rolly-around button eyes to sew onto rag dolls. They had tea sets, jacks and jump ropes.  

But I hardly paid any attention to this useless stuff,  but strutted on past to the other end where the real stuff was.

Open in bins partitioned with glass for every small hand to fondle were,  marbles in bulk, plastic army men, packs of BBs, caps for your pistol, cheap Barlow style pocket knives, play money,  Jew's Harps (or Juice Harps as I knew them),  harmonicas, fake vampire teeth that I always had to fit and show Mom as I'm sure every other kid did also.  

They had small cast iron tractors that looked liked Dad's old Farmall,  but there were those cheap tin cars and trucks made in Japan out of old cans.  You could tell because you could unfold the "tab A into slot B" construction and see what was printed on the inside.  Their axles were just pieces of wire with a rubber button for tires.  Funny, they really didn't look like the cars of the time – all rounded off and all – they look more like the cars of today.  Suppose that's where the car designers of the past 10 years got their ideas?

On the pegboard above, they had Davy Crocket coon skin caps,  bows with suction cup arrows,  cap guns, cork guns,  suction cup guns, and a rack of BB guns.  I had to handle ever BB gun.  I always tested if I had enough strength to cock that Daisy lever action.  Smashed my fingers more than once trying.

On the other side of the aisle were the bicycle parts and maintenance tools – pumps, patches, tubes, etc.  Next to them were the skate items – roller and one set of ice skates. There were Pogo Sticks and later Hula-Hoops.

Further down were school lunch boxes, Big Chief tablets (the ones with the big chunks of wood fiber), Crayons, coloring books, scissors (both round and pointed ended), pencils, pencil sharpeners, glue, paste, etc.

At the far end across from the girl stuff were the games.  There were decks of Old Maid cards, Dominoes, Checkers,  Chinese Marbles, Monopoly, Scrabble, Pickup the Sticks, etc.

Even though the prices must have been minuscule,  I can't remember ever talking Mom into buying me anything from the bounty that was displayed before me.  But I was wealthy in my imagination for a few moments on each visit.

Merry Christmas one and all.. 8)

[Duane_Moore]

 ??? Stan, ya got me there, the Daisy Red Rider, the three fingers on my hand still hurt, pulled the triger before closing the lever,  now that hurts, a tube of B-Bs for a nickel, and you always spilled them on the floor,  then grandma stepped on them, and you got the FLY SWATER, rite on the head, WAP, that hurt, your gonna shoot your eye out, don't point that thing at the cat,  and  Davey was my hero,  king of the wild frontier,    thanks,  Duane    opps,  that was Bibbyman,  no insult intended  Stan.  Duh---  Duane

[beenthere]

Duane
You sure brought back a vivid memory to me too, about those three fingers. I think I still have a swollen knuckle from that 'forgetful' trick of the lever. I vividly see it all swollen and yellow/purple/black/blue color too.   Imagine nowadays they couldn't sell a 'toy' like that with such a dangerous knuckle buster. But it did add to the 'experience' that made one a bit smarter over time. I also relate to the one 'don't point that thing at the cat' .
 ;D ;D ;D   thanks for the recollection.

[Duane_Moore]

 :P  Who Me? well I was Born & Raised and spend 1/2 of a centry on a cattle and wheat ranch  52 miles north and east of cheyenne Wyoming, retired from ranching in 1990, Drove a truck for C.F. for 19 yrs while ranching, or should I say wife & Kids ranching, Moved to Sacramento Ca, in 1995 with C.F. stayed till they Quit in 2002,  Now Drive a Heavy Haul truck, Haul Cat Eqpt, all over the U.S.A.  P.D.Q. transportation,& Canada,  have been off work since 6/16/03  due to a broken wrist, think I will just goahead and retire, Yes  we still have the Ranch in the family, my youngest Son, we have cut back some, down to 5580 acres, But have center pivot Irrigation now, keep him busy.  I have lot's of old time memories,   Have many Hobbies, to keep me busy, Wood, guns,knives, hotrods, fishin, home,old cars, and more junk,   Duane

[Bro. Noble]

Duane,

My son Tom is visiting in Torrington Wyoming right now. That must be near where your place is.  His wife's grandmother lives there.  They farmed and ranched near there until retiring recently.  The Grandfather died of West Nile Virus this summer.  Those irrigation canals are full of mosquitoes.  

[Duane_Moore]

 8) yep between Torrington and Cheyenne , a little town near is  Albin, Wyo, lost a neighbor this summer to the nile also,  Richard Pence, or, CUB as called him,, Hell of a Hand with a rope,  Duane

[Bibbyman]

My son Chris was down the other day and he spotted a hard copy of my 5&dime story and had picked it up and read it.  I asked how he liked it and he replied "Purdy good.  But what's the statement?"  (He's taking college night classes and is writing a lot of paper – thus, he's an expert.)  I told him there was no "statement".  It was just some memories I'd brought together and thought some people would enjoy reading it. "Well." He says,  "The only statement I see is that Grandma was too tight to buy you anything."

He kept pressing me so I told him I'd let the readers find their own statement.  For me,  I think it's remarkable that.. 1)  A retail store could have all these small items out on open display and not have them ripped off.  2) Most all the toys available when I was a kid are now banned, modified, restricted, or politically incorrect.  3)  If I had that inventory of old toys in new condition today,  I would have some real wealth.

It is amazing that the 50 year old memories of the toy aisle would lead to West Nile disease in Wyoming.  

[Paul_H]

Well Bibbyman,I don't know what to tell Chris but your story unlocked old memories well enough that I could even smell the inside of the store.And then I did a bit of my own reminiscing and went into a full scale daydream.

It was just like being back in school.

[Bibbyman]

I enjoy story tellin'.  

Oddly,  or maybe not,  my older sister writes a lot of short stories too.  She got married when she was 15 and dropped out of high school but almost all of her adult life she has written short stories.  

For a few years,  she published her own paper call the "Missouri Strings" and distributed it around the mid-Missouri area.  It was mostly a tabloid of local people and country music events, etc.  

In the last ten years she and her family have been very involved in the church they attend and she has published their monthly news letter.  About half of it is taken up by one of her stories.

We exchange stories now and then and I e-mailed her my 5&Dime story.  She said she could just see the store from my description.

About a year ago I put up on our web site a story about the little one room school we had both attended.  I sent my sister a link to the story and she sent me back a story she had written about her memory of the same school. They were completely independent creations but oddly similar.

School Daze - By Dorothy Lee

Last days of Herring School - By Bibbyman



Bibbyman and sis Dorothy Lee - April, 53 beside one room school in rural Missouri.

[etat]

I posted this on another thread, but I wanted to post it here too.  I hope it's okay.

Tom, It's a really really nice thing you did for me fixing these pictures.  It is very much appreciated.  Charles..

To everybody else, in some previous post I had attempted to post the first picture.  To start with the pictures are old and faded, and my pityful attempts at scanning and  getting them to fit this forum left a lot to be desired.  Out of the goodness of his heart he emailed me and asked me to send him the pictures to fix.  Here are the results.





This is my grandfather and his team at about the time I was born.  His name was Walter Tate. I never in my life saw anybody get mad at him, or have words with him.  So, some of my ways musta come from a darker side of the family! He was a gentle person.  During his lifetime he did a variety of things including  logging,  and at one time worked for the forestry service.  He was a hard worker. Summertime going to Mama's and Granddaddy's was always an adventure both to me and my brother, but also all my cousins looked forward too.  There were red hills to slide down.  There were grape vines to swing on.  There was an old barn to play in.  Mama raised goats in her later years, there was always new 'baby's'  to go see.  His land was almost all hills and hollers, some so steep you couldn't hardly climb.  But you were never told not to, the best place in the absolute world to play cowboys and indians, and army.  And hide and seek!  Or get off in the woods and ride down small trees!  Sometimes he'd cut you a stick for a horse and mama would tie a tail on it.  The well was down a hill and across the road.  You had to let down a bucket.  We always delighted in going to the well, drawing water, and helping tote it back to the house. They'd keep drinking water in a pail with a dipper in it. In the summertime sometimes they'd add ice! Sometimes we'd crank up some homemade icecream!  It was in the late 60's before they had running water.  There was a storm cellar, and a carport he had cut into the side of a bank. For a long time there were bees who made a home in part of this bank. So you had to watch out for bees, and snakes.  He and mama'd teach you what kind of bumble bee's were safe to catch and play with. The ones with the little white triangle on his head.  Don't touch one with a lot of white, or a solid black one!!! Mama'd tie a string to them and you could hold it and let it fly around.  They'd make you cars out of rubber bands, sticks or pencils, and wooden spools.  Put em down, back em up, and they'd take off under their own power.  He'd help you make a stick with a piece of wood attached to the bottom of it, get you a ring off the hub of an old wagon wheel and you could take that stick and drive that hub all over the yard. Or mama'd fix you a button on some thread and once you got the hang of it you could really make that button sing. Mama had every kind of flower you could imagine.  Both in, and out the house.  She could tell you the name of each and every one, how to care for and water it, and when'd it'd bloom, almost to the day.  Also granddaddy made her a flower house, out of old windows, doors, and reclaimed lumber from first one place or another.  He only owned three different cars after I was born.  One was an old 50's black Chevrolet or maybe 40's, I'm not sure, Then an early 60's Chevrolet, the kind with the tail fins, and lastly an older red car.  He was really proud of that red car.  They'd all rust out pretty quick in that car shed cut in that bank, but he took good care of them.  Mama never drove a day in her life unless she did it before I was born. I really think she never got behind the wheel, she was a scared of them things!  They had a swing on the front porch looking down on the road.  Evenings were spent on the porch talking.  They never watched much TV, heck it'd hardly get a picture anyway,  and you went to bed right after dark.  Mama'd always tell you stories.  Mary and her lamb, The big bad wolf, Billy Goat Gruff, and other stories of her own.  In cold weather you slept in a bed high off the floor, with a TON of home made quilts weighting you down, and keeping you warm.  No heat back in them bedrooms.  
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I sometimes wonder if anyone in the world can cook as good as a breakfast as my grandmother.  Fresh eggs, Ham and bacon, sliced fresh from the smoke house, biscuits to die for, ham gravy,  and always, butter and molasseses.  Also home made sausage that'd bite your tongue when you'd bite into one of them red pepper flakes. She'd always cook a bunch of extra biscuits, always.  Kept em sitting in the oven all day and if you wanted a snack you'd about have to settle for cold biscuits with molasses.  Can't think of nothing finer and never in my life did I ever stop by there without heading to the oven!
I even remember helping make homemade hominy out of shelled corn and helping her boil clothes and wash in a ringer type washing machine!  She'd let me stir the clothes while they was a boiling. Wash water was usually caught from rainwater in a barrel. Oh, and mama'd make the prettiest quilts.

Granddaddy always wore a hat.  Never did I see him with a cap, always a hat. He even had a Sunday go to church hat, Mama'd often wear a bonnet when outside tending to her chickens, or flowers.  They never drank, and were very much against drinking.  But granddaddy did dip snuff.  He'd keep a small can in his pocket and when he'd get ready for a dip he'd use his old pocket knife to dip it out and put it in his mouth with.  Mama didn't like it, but let him get by with his dipping.  

Granddaddy could handle an ax, or crosscut saw better than anyone I've ever seen.  My dad was about as good. My dad was driving an old logging truck before he was 13.  My grandpa never owned a chainsaw in them days, I think he might have bought one when he got older, but I don't think it ever worked or ran good.  

Now these pictures were took about the time I was borned.  I do remember this team but barely.Now the oddest thing, I always thought and remembered that they were mules.  My dad says they are horses, and their names are Tony and Dan and they were a heck of a good team.  As I said, I barely remember them, but do treasure these pictures.  Again, Thank you Tom!

Oh, the last picture, that's ME AND MY GRANDADDY!!!

[Bibbyman]

Great memories cktate



Here is a picture of my grandparents and my dad's only sister.  Grandpa was tall and slender all his life.  He was probably cut from nearly the same cloth as your grandpa... but ... he did like his beer,  he liked to go to dances,  and he liked to party.  

In the past few years,   my Dad has started telling more stories about when he was young.  A few years back he told about during the Prohibition, Grandpa had a still hidden on the farm and he disappears for a few hours every day to do his work.  Said a big Buicks, Cadillacs, or Lincolns would pull in from Chicago about once a week and leave out with their bumpers about dragging the dirt road.  Said they'd feed the old hens the used mash from the still and they really get fat.  But they tended to stumble, stager and fall when they tried to walk! ;D  

Dad asked me not to tell about Grandpa being a moonshiner.  As if there would be any repercussions today.   But I know you guys won't tell. ;D

[etat]

This is Mama and Papa Hutchenson, and my mother. He was a farmer, milked a few cows, and a carpenter.  Not quite as easy going as granddaddy, but,...back in the mid 70's I fell in with a crowd and found myself in a spot of trouble.  He had already quit farming by then as they filled his bottom land up with a gov. lake and had went to full time carpentering.  At that time he had already retired from the lumber co. he worked for and him and Paul Hays Kelley was working for them selfs.  Well, they took me in hand, put me back to work, and taught me some pretty good facts of life.  I never enjoyed working anywhere else as I did with him and Mr. Paul.  Mama loved gardening and canning and freezing.  Lord a mercy, that woman could cook them vegetables.  Lots a times I'd eat so much I'd have to wait til later on desert, nah, make that most of the time.  Twas him I bought my land from.  He'd done got up in his 80's and had remarried after mama passed on.  Most all the kin had tried to get his land that was left one way or another, exceptin me.  I knew him too well and that he'd do what he durn well decided HE wanted to do, he didn't take to conning and fussing. One night he called me up late at night and said he thought a skunk and gotten into the crawl space under his house.  Everybody else  told him it was probably a mouse or something and to put out poison.  I figgured if he thought it was a skunk he musta had a Dang good idee it was a skunk.  Asked me what I thought.  I told him that IF it was a skunk and he poisoned it and it died under his house he'd have to move, maybe burn the house.  Told him to sit tight and if it was, I'd catch it with a live trap.  So here I go, set the trap under the house and bait er up with sardines.  Next day I come over, open that door going under the house, AND, there's a dad-DanG skunk in that trap lookin me in the face.  Covered the trap with a blanket, toted that cage way off, and put that skunk outa his misery.  Well, that skunk hadn't sprayed under the house, but after about a week you could smell the musky odor from where he'd been there.  Papa called me again. I went back over, opened that door and all the vents under the house, and set up a big fan pulling air from under the house.  That weekend I took about 40 big cans of tomato juice and I'd fill up a garden hose with a funnel, hook it to the faucet and sprayed everything under that house.  When the hose would start spraying clear water I'd turn her off and reload.  Plumb got rid of that skunk smell.  Sometimes he'd mention the land and the fussin that was going on and ask me what I thought.  Told him it was his, he'd worked for and earned it, and he'd just have to make his own decision.  Over the years I'd told him that a bunch of times.  Late one night he called me to come over.  Here I went again.  Got there and asked what was wrong.  He asked me if I wanted to buy his land, at a bargain, all but one acre and his house.  I jumped on it and within a few days paid him cash.  I bought 17 acres, that's all he had left other than his acre and house.  Later when he became more senile his wife got power of attorney and sold that acre and house, to a stranger.  Papa'd probably never stood for that if he'd know what was happening.  This was only about two years after he sold me the land.  

[Stephen_Wiley]

I do not know if this is a West Coast memory or if it was Nation wide, (one of my fond memories) in the early 60's was milk which was delivered in brown, white or clear glass gallon jars with a pleated lid made of a hard paper cardboard with a poker chip insert for a cap.

We also had different color anodized aluminum glasses. I believe all my relatives had sets of these. May have got them from a gas station promotion.

To me and many others whom I have talked with. Milk always taste better from the brown jars in those metal glasses !! 8) 8)

[beenthere]

Brown if it was chocolate milk, white if it was regular milk, and clear if the jug was empty?   :       ;D ;D

My memory goes a bit further back to when we milked the cow by hand,  put the milk up in quart bottles, and delivered it to the neighbors with each bottle showing a layer of thick cream on top.  She was a jersey cow with the black circles around her eyes (don't know why that comment seemed  important  ??? ).

[etat]

And you could take some of that cream, add a little salt, put it in a quart fruit jar, rock it back and forth for a spell, and churn you up some butter.  That's the way mama done it.  The rest of it they'd sell to the milkman.

[Norm]

We had jerseys when we milked too beenthere, when we quit milking my dad sold off the herd except for two. One had her horns still and was real tame. We could ride her but that backbone was not very comfortable. :D They stayed with us until they died of old age.

Jerseys have the best milk but don't produce like the holsteins do. If Patty ever talks me into a cow on the farm it will have to be a jersey. Boy now that I've said that I hope there aren't any for sale in Iowa. :D

[beenthere]

The holstein farm boys used to tease that the milk a Jersey cow gave wouldn't cover a quarter in the bottom of the milk bucket, but the comeback was that a Holstein would fill the pail, but you could still see the quarter at the bottom of the bucket.  
Just recently tried to explain to two of my grand daughters what churning butter was like (seemed like hours of steady, monotonous work) and how good the cold buttermilk was after churning. And how the butter would suddenly appear in the churn (at 7 and 8, they knew a butter churn as a stick in a wood bucket from pictures and stories, so my description of turning a handle was not very familiar to them  ???). Go figure.

Hadn't heard of the butter making by shaking the cream in the quart jar. Sure do remember that fresh cream poured over a bowl of fresh strawberries though.  Mmmmm!!!

[Stephen_Wiley]

Brown if it was chocolate milk, white if it was regular milk, and clear if the jug was empty?   :       ;D ;D

My memory goes a bit further back to when we milked the cow by hand,  put the milk up in quart bottles, and delivered it to the neighbors with each bottle showing a layer of thick cream on top.  She was a jersey cow with the black circles around her eyes (don't know why that comment seemed  important  ??? ).

For some reason (may have been the company's geographical) my Uncle's home was delivered milk in the brown bottles. We got the white or clear.  Choclate milk only came in clear.

Years later my farm experience came, we had jersey's, gurnsey's and holstiens.  We also had a jersey with black circles around the eyes.  Boy do I remember the cream and the metal milk containers.

Sounds like Norm, is gonna have a cow  :D

[Bibbyman]

Where is Bro. Noble's comments on this subject?  He should be the "udder" expert at milk. :D

[isawlogs]

I remimber going to the barn with my brother and having two glass one spoon and a can of nesley's chocolat milk Milking the cow into the glass and stiring it up ,,, Now that was chocolat milk  you could not duplicat that taste with nothin esle ;)  We don'thave the milkers now but we do still have cows ....Going to dads tomorow maibe I'll take Mr Quick with me .... Must be a cow there thats had her calf that I could get near. ;D ;D

[Frank_Pender]

Wow, you fellas have sure tapped the memory bank for me, tonight.  We did not live on the farm we had but often brought in a cow or two to our two acre parcel.  One, I recall, was an awfull good milker, a Holstin.   She put out 6 gallons + a day.  With five kids in the family you would think we would consume all that milk.  We couldn't keep up with her production.  It got to the point that my mother pulled out the ol' churns.  We had two, the paddle and jar version as well as the deep wooden bucket and handle.  Did we learn how to make butter as well as curds and cheese.  Thanks for the memories.   8) 8)

[CHARLIE]

I remember the milkman delivering milk bottles of milk and leaving them on the front steps. Grandmother would leave the empties and he'd take them and leave full ones.  They had the little cardboard disk inside the top and the pleated paper cover over that.  I also remember milk coming in a dark clear bown bottle and regular clear bottles.  I believe the dark clear brown bottles had milk that had vitamin D in it. The dark bottle kept the sunlight from it.  Something about the sunlight affecting the Vitamin D.  I also remember when the first wax cardboard carton came out. At the time we were having the milk delivered by Vero Beach Dairys. They had two cartons, a blue one and a red one.  The blue one was homogenized and the red one was just pasturized. I reckon the red one still had the cream at the top.  I think all milk is homogenized today.  

[Bro. Noble]

Bibb,

I got to figgering the other day how many times I'd traveled that path between the house and the barn---------about 15,000 and another 15,000 from the barn to the house :D

About half of the trips were in the dark.  Lots of them were in the rain or cold or swealtering heat :-/   More than a few were to face frozen waterlines or providing our own electricity.

Bring back fond memories :---------Makes me think about retiring and doing a little traveling to where it's cold when I'm hot and hot when I'm cold ;D