Something from your childhood that you miss

regdog

The Scavengers
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 27, 2008
Messages
58,075
Reaction score
21,013
Location
She/Her
Okay, how many of you old timers remember when we HAD to cover our school text books with brown paper grocery bags.
 

shakeysix

blue eyed floozy
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
10,839
Reaction score
2,426
Location
St. John, Kansas
Website
shakey6wordsmith.webs.com
One year--oohh you guys are going to be so jealous--my parents had cheese cloth left over and we covered our textbooks with white cheesecloth! They really stood out from the grocery bag covered books of our less affluent classmates. Next year we were back to grocery bags but the cheese cloth year stands out in family memory because each one of our teachers used our textbooks as an example of the best covered ! --s6 (I can hear the kids of 30 and 40 mumbling WTF is cheesecloth.)
 
Last edited:

Siri Kirpal

Swan in Process
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 20, 2011
Messages
8,943
Reaction score
3,151
Location
In God I dwell, especially in Eugene OR
Okay, how many of you old timers remember when we HAD to cover our school text books with brown paper grocery bags.

Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Raises hand. Except that our school sold fancy covers to the richer kids. (Mine was the brown paper bag variety.)

Just want to say that all the comments about being able to play wherever you wanted because there were no bad guys makes me a little envious. My mother was molested as a child, and my father was a probation officer, and we lived on an incredibly busy and dangerous street, so believe you me, we had many of the same rules (back in the 1950s and '60s) that kids have today.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal
 

stormie

storm central
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
12,500
Reaction score
7,162
Location
Still three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean
Website
www.anneskal.wordpress.com
fizzies

Things kind of like alka seltzer. You dropped them in a glass of water and had instant cola or root beer or lemon-lime or cherry. I'm sure there were other flavors too.

MM
We found a candy store in Chester, NJ, that has just about any candy you can remember from way back. My husband bought root beer and another flavor of Fizzies. The packaging was the same as we remembered it. He said neither tasted that great. I guess as kids, things tasted so much different!
 

sheadakota

part of the human equation
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
3,956
Reaction score
1,151
Location
The Void
We found a candy store in Chester, NJ, that has just about any candy you can remember from way back. My husband bought root beer and another flavor of Fizzies. The packaging was the same as we remembered it. He said neither tasted that great. I guess as kids, things tasted so much different!

They do! I loved Little Debbie swiss roll cakes as a kid- I could eat an entire box and still want more- they were my absolute favorite. When my kids were little I bought some for them and ate one- Not the same as I remembered at all! I don't think I'll ever eat another one.

ETA: Oh- I remember the paper bag book covers too. We would decorate them with crayons. And Stickers.
 
Last edited:

stormie

storm central
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
12,500
Reaction score
7,162
Location
Still three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean
Website
www.anneskal.wordpress.com
I remember getting paper cuts from those stupid brown paper bag book covers. And in the Catholic school I attended, we were forbidden to put any type of drawing, sticker, whatever, on the covers. Title of book and that was it. Or else the kind nun would rip that cover right off.

I guess I don't fondly remember or miss those covers, huh. :D
 
Last edited:

sheadakota

part of the human equation
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 4, 2007
Messages
3,956
Reaction score
1,151
Location
The Void
wow that was one hard-ass catholic school. I went to one too, but our nuns just humiliated the boys.:D
 

stormie

storm central
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
12,500
Reaction score
7,162
Location
Still three blocks from the Atlantic Ocean
Website
www.anneskal.wordpress.com
wow that was one hard-ass catholic school. I went to one too, but our nuns just humiliated the boys.:D
Those particular nuns were equal opportunity sadists. I kept out of their way as much as possible and didn't have as bad an experience. The ironic thing is, I went back to that school after college to teach second grade. I was determined to make learning fun. There were still a few nuns who bashed a kid or two into the blackboard at random, but finally in the late '70s, that stopped.

I miss the smell of a new bookbag in September (they weren't like backpacks today).
 

regdog

The Scavengers
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 27, 2008
Messages
58,075
Reaction score
21,013
Location
She/Her
Sat Nam! (literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

Raises hand. Except that our school sold fancy covers to the richer kids. (Mine was the brown paper bag variety.)

The rich kids in my school bought fancy book covers. The nuns gloated over those.

wow that was one hard-ass catholic school. I went to one too, but our nuns just humiliated the boys.:D

Ours were awful they were equal opportunity humiliators.
My sister spilled paint on herself in art class, and the nun wouldn't let her call home to get a clean uniform. She made her wash her uniform the restroom sink and wear it wet all day. When the nun's "favorite" spilled milk on herself a week later the nun walked her to the office so she could call home for a clean uniform. My sister's best friend bitched a blue streak about the nun showing favoritism, she got detention.

I miss the smell of a new bookbag in September (they weren't like backpacks today).


1-6 had to have green bookbags, 7-8 got blue.
 

Jersey Chick

Up all night to get Loki
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Mar 9, 2007
Messages
12,320
Reaction score
4,278
Location
in the state of carefully controlled chaos
Website
www.kimberlynee.com
Raises hand - I used to write the names of either the boys I had a crush on, or the cool bands of the day on those paper bag book covers. :D One time in high school, for a particularly difficult class, I wrote a bunch of formulas on the cover so I didn't have to memorize them - there was so much graffiti on that book that the formulas blended right in.

Technically, I guess it was cheating, but I thought I was a genius at the time. :D
 

Vito

Recalled to life
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
6,491
Reaction score
524
Location
California
I always loved going to the drive-in movie theater when I was a kid. This was the usual seating arrangement in my family's station wagon: My parents in the front seat; an extra-large picnic cooler in the middle seat, alongside bags of homemade Jiffy Pop; me and my younger brothers in the very back, wearing our pajamas. We would watch the movie, eat sandwiches and popcorn, and drink Kool-Aid from Dixie Cups.

When the movie double-feature was over and it was time to go home, my younger brother would always be asleep and my youngest brother would always be wide awake with a big Kool-Aid mustache on his face. When it came to Kool-Aid mustaches, he was like Burt Reynolds.
 

Mclesh

It's too hot
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 18, 2010
Messages
4,526
Reaction score
1,804
Location
Southern California
Website
www.storyrhyme.com
Vito, I have soooo many good memories of the drive-in and how my older sisters would try to smuggle our dog Duke in under a blanket. :D

We still have a few drive-ins here in Southern California. We go every summer at least once, eat egg salad sandwiches, Fritos, and chocolate chip cookies from home.

I miss jelly donuts from the Helm's Bakery truck. (Does anyone remember those?)

And my dad and brother. I miss when seven of us lived in our crazy little house. So noisy and chaotic.
 

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 6, 2008
Messages
18,889
Reaction score
5,029
Location
We couldn't possibly do that. Who'd clear up the m
Website
francisknightbooks.co.uk
Bagpuss, dear Bagpuss
Old Fat Furry Catpuss
Wake up and look at this thing that I bring
Wake up, be bright, be golden and light
Bagpuss, oh hear what I sing

<episode>
Someone would bring in a broken thing
Someone would tell a story about it
If lucky, the mice work their mouse organ (we will mend it, we will fix it)
The newly mended thing was then be put in the shop window, so that whoever had lost it would see it as they went past, and could come in and claim it.




And so their work was done.
Bagpuss gave a big yawn and settled down to sleep
And, of course, when Bagpuss goes to sleep,
All his friends go to sleep too.
The mice were ornaments on the mouse organ.
Gabriel and Madeleine were just dolls.
And Professor Yaffle was a carved, wooden bookend in the shape of a woodpecker.
Even Bagpuss himself, once he was asleep, was just an old, saggy cloth cat,
Baggy, and a bit loose at the seams,
But Emily loved him


PS: When I was pregnant with my daughter and watching this with my son, those last two lines would reduce me to blubbering tears.

Also, Clangers. Hands up who knew what they were saying?

PPS Ivor the Engine! Chertikuff, cheeertikuff...
 
Last edited:

Vito

Recalled to life
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
6,491
Reaction score
524
Location
California
Vito, I have soooo many good memories of the drive-in and how my older sisters would try to smuggle our dog Duke in under a blanket. :D

We still have a few drive-ins here in Southern California. We go every summer at least once, eat egg salad sandwiches, Fritos, and chocolate chip cookies from home.

I miss jelly donuts from the Helm's Bakery truck. (Does anyone remember those?)

And my dad and brother. I miss when seven of us lived in our crazy little house. So noisy and chaotic.

I haven't been to a drive-in movie in years -- decades, in fact. Maybe I'll start wearing regular clothes instead of pajamas, so they won't turn me away at the gate. ;)

But seriously, I definitely remember the Helms Bakery truck. The driver would pull up in our driveway and my mom would buy donuts, cakes, pies, etc. I think we were the biggest customers in our neighborhood -- nine people living in our noisy, chaotic, crazy little house! :)
 

regdog

The Scavengers
Staff member
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 27, 2008
Messages
58,075
Reaction score
21,013
Location
She/Her
I remember the drive-in was on the expressway and I would always watch the movies when we were stuck in traffic.
 

Andrea Rittschof

Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 28, 2012
Messages
220
Reaction score
6
Location
Phoenix
Seeing the stars so clearly you could count every one. Sleeping all day long in the summer. Just not having a care in the world and not having to worry about money. I may have worried about other things but not that. I miss watching Saturday cartoons the most I think, just sitting down and finding a good cartoon. I know they still have them but they just aren't the same.
 

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
17,865
Reaction score
4,640
Location
dunking doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts
Vito, I have soooo many good memories of the drive-in and how my older sisters would try to smuggle our dog Duke in under a blanket. :D

We still have a few drive-ins here in Southern California. We go every summer at least once, eat egg salad sandwiches, Fritos, and chocolate chip cookies from home.
My mother would make about three or four batches of popcorn and dump it into a paper grocery bag, then make a batch of Wyler's lemonade in a Coleman jug. And that was it. No pizza, no hamburgers, no Southern BBQ, no candy, no ice cream, no NOTHING from the snack bar.

The last time I went to a drive-in, The Fifth Element was still playing. And I remember I saw my first James Bond movie at a drive-in (Live And Let Die).
 

shakeysix

blue eyed floozy
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 1, 2007
Messages
10,839
Reaction score
2,426
Location
St. John, Kansas
Website
shakey6wordsmith.webs.com
I remember watching Old Yeller at the Drive In with my sibs and my mom. Dad was working so were were on our own. The ending was unexpected--all 4 of us crying. Mom said, later, that it was a good thing Dad wasn't there because he would have cried hardest of all. Just as the movie was ending it started to rain. There was a huge line of cars to leave the Drive In. By the time we got to the gate it was a downpour--thunder, lightning, flooded streets, wind blowing branches across the road, the car lit by flashes of lightning, the three of us kids wailing away. Poor Mom was practically a kid herself. I remember it so well because I was sitting next to her (no child seats in the fifties). The windshield wipers were flailing away. The car was blowing from side to side. Mom's hands were white knuckled, gripping the steering wheel; tears were streaming down her face. The movie was bad enough but the storm was the icing on the cake. We made it into the house, soaking wet and holding hands.

Another time I remember being between Mom and Dad in the front seat, watching some bad guys in a cable car going across a big, deep canyon. There was another guy barely hanging onto the bottom of the car. The bad guys were stepping on his fingers! Mom and Dad weren't overly concerned. They were singing "Good Bye Joe, Me Gotta Go..." Can't remember the movie's name, just Mom and Dad singing. They always had a good time at the Drive In, as long as no animals died. Marvin the Martian would have them in hysterics. Daffy Duck, Taz and Yosemite Sam, too. --s6
 
Last edited:

C.bronco

I have plans...
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
8,015
Reaction score
3,137
Location
Junior Nation
Website
cynthia-bronco.blogspot.com
That story is evil! I had the book as a child, but would only read the first half.



Rollerskating in my best friend's garage to Styx and Barry Manillow while we wore our Dr. Denton's footie pajamas on a Saturday night. You may all throw tomatoes at me now. At the Copa! Copa Cabana!!!!