Middle Aged Memories

Vegemite and cucumber sounds yummy.  I think Vegemite is an aquired taste.  I guess if you tell a guy what it is derived from,they might give it a try.

DH pulls that on me all the time.  Do you likeXXX?  No.  Have you ever tried it? No.  He has found out that he likes a lot of things.

I also remember the space stix and pixie stix. How about the TV would go off after the 11:30 news and the test pattern would come up.  I remember seeing my first window air conditioner. My grandparents had gotten one about 1965. I hated it. They always had it so cold. My grandmother would drink "metrical" to help her lose weight. It was like a thick chocolate milkshake. The pearl in Prell shampoo. Back them you could probably count on both hands all the different brands of shampoo, deo, soap. Now there are so many brands. I remember my mom would buy a quart of chocolate milk every Friday and after supper we would all get a glass. There was just enough for 4 glasses. That was a real treat. I remember when tasteycakes were $.12 - $.15 a pack and bread was $.35/loaf. On Saturdays my mom my brother and myself would go downtown shopping and we would stop and eat lunch at a 5 & 10. They had balloons you could pop to see how much a banana split would be if you ordered one. I always wanted to get one, but my mom would never let us because the price was $.01 - .$.59 (depending on how lucky your balloon was).She always that we might get the $.59 and that was too much.

The old Woolworth's here has turned into an antique mall, but the restored the lunch counter.  When I worked downtown, DH would meet me for lunch there.  Sort of nostalgic.

My mother had Ayd's to help her lose weight.  Oh, they tasted so good (probably because I had to sneak them).

Remember when shampoo came in glass bottles? They got slippery in the shower!   And the Breck girls?

Saturday morning was grocery time.  We went to three different stores, one for the meat counter, and the other two for the best bargains.  We would pick up my Grandma, my mom would honk the horn for her, and sometimes she would let us.  It was easier than letting three kids out of the car and then try to get us back in.  We could pick out the cereal for the week, we had to share but we each got a choice, as long as it was under .59!

No, our first of the three station wagons was a white Ford, then a gold Plymouth Fury III, and then a copper colored Chevrolet.  Luckily by the time I started driving, one sibling was out of the house and we were a sedan family.

We have Super K-Mart and Big K-Marts.  Not many though.  Several Walmarts, including two Super Walmarts.

I remember using Wella Balsam to wash my Farrah Fawcett hairdo!

I remember the hairspray called Psssssst!   I didn't Google it, so who knows how many S's were in that spelling!

Aqua net is still around.  That's the heavy duty stuff.

How long has Aqua Net been around?  I gave it a quick Google, but could not find the answer.  Know it was around in the 1960's holding those teased up flips, and had it's glory days in the Big Hair Decade of the 1980's, but I'm pretty sure it was also holding the beehives and spit curls in place back in the 1950's also.  Anybody know?

We had a lemonade stand on a regular basis, and raked in the money on hot days. 

We lived on a bus stop and could count on commuters from NYC getting off the non air-conditioned bus after a half hour or longer ride and just before a several block walk up the hill to their houses and apartments.  The buses arrived with new customers about every 20 minutes for a couple of hours.

The worst part was having to hold your breath as the bus pulled out to avoid breathing in all those black fumes.

You could see the NYC skyline from the end of the block where I grew up.  I watched them build those towers that looked too tall, and just so out of place, kind of like a gawky teenager.  Then I watched as a whole city of tall buildings grew up around them, and they became an integral part of the city. 

After years of traveling through the PATH station and lobby, frequently just before 9 AM on my way to college classes, we finally did the sightseeing tour of the observation deck in August 2001.  By the time we finished the roll and got the pictures developed, the towers were gone.

My thought the first time I saw the "new" NYC skyline was how lonely the Empire State Building looks.  I still think that every time we head up the Turnpike. 

I was lucky.  No one I knew was killed.  My brother wasn't so lucky.  He had worked for the Port Authority for a number of years, and several of his friends and former co-workers were killed. 

I am still always struck by how few people died that day.  I know that seems like an odd statement, but having seen and been part of the absolute sea of people traveling through there at that hour, seeing the sheer size of the buildings and knowing the huge number of people who worked there, I expected to hear a number that was closer to 40 or 50 thousand.  Those firefighters and police did an unbelievable job getting so many people to safety.

Speaking of terrorists...I've destroyed some ant infrastructure in my time.  Ooops!  The ant farm I had looked exactly like this, but I am sure it was called Uncle Milton's Ant Farm.  You could send away for the ants with a certificate, but I always just captured my little farm workers out on the pavement.  Come to think of it, that was a very bad idea because the small ones could squeeze through the air holes on the top of the farm.

Nobody's had a memory for a few days?  Me, I'm always having them...I was just thinking about those old photos booths.  I remember them being in dime stores and at the train and bus stations.  Four pictures for .25, the last time I got in one of those booths.  I think there are still some in existence, for retro-coolness, but with camera phones there not much of a need anymore, is there?

Those pics are of Andy Warhol.  I remember pop art from the 1960's too.