Old fashioned things

You kids probably think we old folks are nuts thinking about the good old days -- days when, yes, we had school when it snowed, and we walked to school in snow up to our waists, for miles and miles. NOT!

Actually, we did go to school, at least through grade school, through every snowstorm but one, and that day, the snow was up to my waist. I was in fifth grade, probably had grown to a height of 4 feet 7 or 8. I tried to get to school, got as far as the corner, and Mr. Kline (he was the janitor at the school across the street, where I didn't attend at that time) told me school was canceled due to the snow -- oh, yeah, it was still snowing, hard. And if I had walked it would only have been one mile, not five or six, and while some of it was up-hill, most of it was level ground. One thought, coming home would have been downhill. Too bad I couldn't take a sled with me to school!

Anyway, I was thinking about some things you kids know nothing about, or haven't had the pleasure to experience. One thing is a typewriter -- a typewriter was a mechanical machine that had a keyboard, like today's computer keyboard, but you had to press a little harder on the keys to get them to mechanically moved to hit a ribbon that was inked that pressed into the paper and made a letter. I have two typewriters on my plant shelf, which are being used as decoration. In fact, we bought one (a Remington) this summer when we were in Wyoming. It works better than any old manual typewriter I had (not electric typewriter, that came later, after I was in high school) I ever had when I was using the old fashioned typewriters.

In those days, there were no copiers. If you wanted copies of something you had to make a carbon copy. And if you made a mistake, the backup key didn't automatically erase the mistake, you had to use a special eraser, which never worked. Basically, it put a hole in the paper. When I got into my mid-teens, some enterprising person invented white-out (most of you don't know that that is either). It was white goop that you put over the mistake you made, then you backspaced, and retyped the correct letter into that place. You had to be there.

I remember working for a lawyer in Philadelphia when I was in my early 20s. In a law firm, you could make no mistakes, because there were multiple copies of everything, usually five, and if you made a mistake you had to start over, because the copies could have no erasures on them. I learned to be very accurate in my typing, and until I had my stroke back in 2001, I was a very good typist (keyboardist?). Believe me, I'm very thankful for computers and the ability to make a mistake, and just backup and do it again, correctly.

Another item that I didn't have when I grew up was something as simple as a "highlighter." You know, those yellow or pink pens that you use in textbooks to let you know that what your making yellow or pink is something you think you need to remember. They came out my second year in college (1962) and I bought a box of them. I thought they were the neatest invention ever.

I already mentioned xerox copies or photocopies. Since Xerox made the first copiers that worked well, when you wanted something copied, you said, "Get me a xerox of that document."

No microwaves. Radios had tubes, then transistors, then circuit boards. The smallest radio I owned pre-1970 was about the size of a box of tissues (the smaller box). When we wore stockings, we didn't have panty hose, we had to wear garters or garter belts or girdles (yes, even we skinny girls wore girdles) that had hookie things on them to hold up the stockings. Pantyhose came out in 1972, I believe. And, I have to tell you, the stockings that were held up with garters disappeared quickly, and we were given no choice. I personally never liked pantyhose. Have I given you too much information? Well, be thankful I don't go into personal hygiene, for men or women. That's another area where so much has changed since I was a girl.

There were no ice makers, except for mom, who took ice cube trays and filled them with water and made ice that way -- and not those plastic things, either. They were metal trays. And until Tupperware invented them in the mid-60s- the plastic ones -- that's all we had, and when you took them out of the freezer, your hand stuck to them, like your tongue would stick to a flagpole on a cold day in February. Tupperware wasn't around when I was growing up either, but when it came out my mom stocked up. I mean, she had more Tupperware than Tupperware had, I think. It was so hard to store, so it sort of took over the small kitchen she had. But she used it.

Tupperware use to get real sticky -- tacky -- but it always did keep the bugs out of the flour and sugar, and those jello molds worked so much better than the metal ones mom used to have.

Supermarkets were very small, maybe six aisles, nothing like what we have today. You maybe had a choice of three kinds of cereal, no Pillsbury cookie dough, few fresh veggies and fruits out of season. You kids are blessed to have so much.

Just think of my growing up years as "pioneer" years -- not as early as those settlers of our great country, but pioneer years, just the same.