Am I the only one who frequently receives those "remember when?" e-mails – you know, the ones that are meant to make you feel older than Methuselah? Depending on my mood, they either can evoke fond memories, painful memories, make me laugh, or make me feel as if I should be out shopping for a headstone.
I received such
an e-mail just the other day, and it swiftly transported me back to the 1960s.
For example, one question asked if I remembered televisions that took five minutes to warm up and didn't have remote controls. I remember them well, especially the night the Beatles first performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. I stood there screeching, "Hurry up!" at the TV while pounding on the top of it to make it warm up faster. I would have been in heaven if the TVs back then had come with the remotes we have nowadays, where you can freeze the picture or watch the same scene over and over again.
I also remember
the TV at my friend Janet's house. It had an indoor antenna called “rabbit
ears” sitting on top of it, which her father had wrapped in foil because he
said it made the reception better. If you ask me, the picture on the
screen, in glorious black and white, still always looked fuzzy. The only thing
the rabbit ears did was make the TV look like some kind of square-headed space
alien.
Another question
on the list asked if I remembered when I would reach into a muddy gutter just
to pick up a penny. Sure, but that was when a penny would buy a big chunk of
Bazooka Joe bubble gum wrapped in a comic strip, a piece of Mary Jane taffy or
a fireball. The other day, as I was coming out of a local pharmacy, I
spotted two pennies lying next to each other in the parking lot. I walked right
past them. At my age, the smallest thing that would entice me to bend down that
far would be a dollar bill.
"Do you
remember when your mother wore nylon stockings that came in two separate
pieces?" the next question asked.
Never mind my
mother, I remember wearing them myself! In fact, I spent most of my
high-school years squirming from the discomfort of the metal hooks (that held
up the nylons) digging into the backs of my legs as I sat through what seemed
like endless hours of classes. To this day, I think I still have the outlines
of those hooks embedded in my thighs.
I wasn't thrilled
with my first pair of pantyhose either. When I put them on, they were nice and
snug and clung in all the right places. But by the end of the day, the crotch
was hanging down to my knees and the stockings had so many wrinkles in them, I
looked as if my legs were made of elephant skin. I never could figure out if I
was supposed to wear my underwear over the pantyhose or underneath...or not
wear any at all. Luckily, one of the manufacturers finally came up with the
idea of attaching actual panties to the pantyhose and solving that dilemma.
The next question
on the list asked if I remembered when nobody owned a purebred dog.
Well, I think
some of the dogs in my neighborhood might have been purebreds, but none of us
really knew what one looked like anyway, so they all were just mutts to us. And
the only "papers" associated with dogs back then were the ones we
spread all over the floor for housebreaking purposes.
"Do you
remember when you could buy a double Popsicle for five cents?" the
questions continued.
I immediately
thought of Stuart's Market, a tiny corner store in the back alley behind our
old house in West Manchester. In the summer, my friends and I would head over
there every day for a Popsicle.
My favorite
flavors were root beer and blue raspberry. The owner of the store actually had
a metal strip nailed along the edge of the counter for the sole purpose of
neatly breaking Popsicles in half. After we'd hand our nickels to him, he'd
always ask, "Want your Popsicle cut in half?" We'd nod and
he would take the Popsicle, line up the middle of it with the edge of the metal
strip, then slam his hand down on the Popsicle and voila!...two
perfect halves. I don't remember him ever ruining one of our precious
Popsicles. The man truly was a magician.
The next question
asked if I remembered when gas-station attendants not only pumped gas but also
washed windshields and handed out free trading stamps or gifts.
I definitely
remember those days, mainly because not a day passes when I don’t wish the
full-serve gas stations weren’t on the verge of total
extinction. I’m ashamed to admit I currently drive over 15 miles
each way to one of the very rare full-serve stations left in the state because
I absolutely loathe pumping my own gas. It makes no sense to me that back when
gas was only 30 cents per gallon, we were treated like royalty. And now that it
costs 10 times that much, we are expected to do everything
ourselves? So to me, it’s worth driving the extra miles just to be
able to remain comfortably seated in my car, get my windshield washed and also
say, “Can you check the oil, please?” even if my car doesn’t need either one.
It’s the principle of the thing.
And last but not
least, the list asked if I remembered playing with my friends after school and
being told to be sure to head back home when the streetlights popped on.
Definitely. And I
grew up in Manchester, where there were plenty of streetlights, so there was no
excuse for my being late for supper.
Now, however, I
live way out in the country. But I actually had a regulation streetlight
installed halfway down my driveway. The minute the sun goes down, it pops on
without fail.
Thank goodness, because at my age, I probably would get lost trying to find my way back from my mailbox without it.
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
