We were green back then

[JaPes]

I was the snow blower. Cleared it with a shovel. Then mom would send me over to my grand parents house, a few blocks away, to clear their sidewalks too. Usually I would be hailed by more than one retiree while on the way and hired to clear their walks for for the princely sum of a quarter! Usually made a dollar or two on those trips back and forth to grandmas. In the summer I cut grass with a reel mower. Too often the lawn won so dad bought a small gas powered mower. What's this green thing the younger crowd's talking about anyway?
John

LOL. I was the snow blower up until a couple years ago. "We don't need a snowblower! Get out there!" ... it stuck with me for such a long time. And yes... I'd get done with ours, then walk up the street to help the neighbors.

Dad taught me to mow the lawn, and I did it every week. Dad let me be around while he fixed things. He explained what he was doing and why.

We did what we were told, no back-talking.

 

[arjay]

Same life here too,but skiing rather than hockey.It was much cheaper then.

 

[Old cop]

Very well said. I remember all those things and it seems to me that clerk was rude to her customer.

 

[sheepdawg]

Remember when you found a good size stick and made it your gun, bat, cane, sword, shovel, lever, spear, fishing pole, golf club, hockey stick, etc, etc. etc? Do you reckon kids these days have that kind of imagination?

 

[vytoland]

we DID have the GREEN thing.......................

out in the back yard was a garden and we grew................
onions, corn, strawberries, asparagus, dill, cucumbers, grapes , tomatoes.
also along the fence lines were raspberry bushes, apple, pear and peach trees.
NOTHING today can match the taste of that just picked produce we had back then.

and it was all organic…..LOL

 

[Onomea]

We lived in the countryside of northern Virginia, with a creek flowing through our property. We'd fish with safety pins as mom wouldn't let us have fishhooks when we were real little. In the summers the creek would dry up, and we'd go after the fish with a baseball bat. Kept our cats well fed!

It was great BB gun country. Used to shoot the water bugs that skimmed across the surface of the creek. Or the neighbors pigs! My big brother shot a water moccasin with his BB gun, though he must have finished it off with a rock or similar. It made momma scream when he dragged it around the kitchen on the end of a string! I remember when I got older, maybe 10 or 11, I got a Daisy 1911 that I used to practice point shooting bottle caps with. Wore it in a plastic holster around the place. When the dog was in heat I'd sleep on the porch and blast her beaus when they came by.

I recall in winter I would cinch on my Dad's WWII Marine Corps wool pants -- why he even had those I have no idea as he was in the Pacific theater -- and get the axe and trek out into the woods for firewood. I'd tie a rope around the logs I cut and drag 'em back through the snow to the house. Sometimes it would get so cold the pipes would freeze so we'd have to melt snow on the stove for water.

Mom and dad are both gone now, and we've all grown old ourselves. It was a good life, and I miss it.... But we've all had our own kids, and watching them grow into adulthood, and embark on their own lives, gives me pleasure.

Just hope I get some grandkids one of these days!

 

[rburg]

The Park Board would flood the rinks and plow after a big snow, but between times, we shoveled the rinks ourselves.

You must have lived in a rich area. Around here, our "rinks" were things called ponds and lakes. If you wanted to go ice skating, you knew the route to hike with the skates tied together over your shoulder. You started by going past the smallest pond. If they were skating on it, you did too. Or you tried the larger one that took longer to freeze. No one there but it was frozen could only mean the big lake was safe. More space, more fun.

And we had a lake side heater set up for everyone. We called it a fire.

 

[Marshwheeling]

We started skating on the city lakes long before they were open. An inch of black ice was safe, and great to skate on. It could be pretty spooky to be half a mile from shore when the ice would boom as the temperature dropped. By the time the park board rinks opened, the ice would be snowed over and you could only skate where it was plowed.

Minneapolis has always had a good park system. There were ice rinks in every neighborhood. There may still be, but everybody seems to want to play hockey indoors. They will pay for ice arena time at 3:00 a.m., and be glad to get it.

 

[carpriver]

I am a kid of the 1950's. Milk delivered to the front door, having to mix the cream back into the milk. walking to school, rain or shine or snow. We cut grass, racked leaves, washed windows> I remember one summer telling my mother I was bored (friends were away visiting their grandparents) I ended up scrubbing the front walk way with a bucket of soapy water and a broom; I only said that once. Playing outside until dark. sand lot baseball, football. Trick or treating. 7cent Cokes nickle candy bars, 50 cents would get you into a matinées popcorn and ice cream for the trip home. repairing bike inner tubs, board games. kool aid. swimming naked at the gravel pit. working in the garden in the back yard. helping pick berries and apples so my mom could can them for the winter. hauling in fire wood. I was starting high school when I got my first new clothes. Oh I wore patched clothes and didn't think antthing about it. if you got a hole on your clothes mom patched it it was not a fashion statement.

 

[charlie sherrill]

I remember getting everything Louisiana Joe outgrew.

 

[Onomea]

I remember getting everything Louisiana Joe outgrew.

Yeah, our house was like that, too. My big brother's clothing went first to my older cousin, then back to me, then on to my younger cousin.

My mom and aunt always had a basket with mending items in it, and would mend stuff while sitting in the living room or kitchen or on the porch having conversations with family and friends.

And as the poster above said, kids didn't think of clothes as fashion statements, and everyone's clothes had patches or signs of mending. Well, except for Sunday go-to-church clothes. They were hand-me-downs, too, but well cared for.

I think it funny nowadays when I see kids or fashionable ladies in deliberately torn jeans. When I wore a hole in the knee of some old cargo pants recently I told my wife's friend, who was wearing jeans like that, that I, too, was making a fashion statement! Don't think she liked my joke much...)

 

[RightArm]

Not cuz I'm that old, but because we were poor, I'd see a toy a friend had and I'd try to make one of my own. My Dad's tools got a lot of use. Making things with a big tree saw and some files is pretty hard, but it would take up a couple of days before I either did it or gave up and started something else.
Did you know that in Austin and a few other Texas towns, you have to bring your own bag, or carry armloads of groceries out.