Fun Times

We had many hours of fun on our swingset. There was a bit of an accident on this fun piece of equipment that I can never forget. I was hanging from the bar between the ladder of the swingset and the swing my sister Michele was on; I fell to the ground landing under her swing. Protruding from beneath her swing was a long screw that scrapped across my left eyebrow leaving me with a scar to this day.
Daddy build a brick barbeque that was fired up many times for picnics with groups of children coming to our house from our Brownie and Girl Scout troups, as well as the church Girls Auxilary (G.As). My favorite food from the barbeque was Sam'ores (graham crackers, chocolate and toasted marshmallows). After eating we would play hours of badminton. Going to the Girls Auxilary camp in the summer was a treat. Being away from home was fun but it was also a disciplined time; including assigned chores. I did not like cleaning the latrine (Sunshine House is what they called it).
We attended the Berwyn Baptist Church every Sunday and Michele and I were very active in G.As. I have memories of activities such as sewing, making potato stamps and growing sweet potato plants. We learned Bible verses and passed the "Forward Steps" program. Michele and I only made it to "Princess".
Mr. Schinner would pick us up and take us to Sunday school and Mrs. Schinner was my teacher. I always told her I wanted to be a missionary when I grew up. We were shone many movies about mission work in other countries and I thought it would be adventurous.
I grew up in the suburbs and when I had an opportunity to go to a church picnic on a farm, I discovered a new way of having fun; we played in the hay loft for hours.
When I was twelve, I was baptized. Mother said that when Reverend Koch lowered me back into the water she thought that he held me down there too long. Maybe I needed an extra long dunk.
My mother used to always tell the story about going on the overnight camping trip at the Girl Scout lodge. We were all settled in our sleeping bags when the sound of the whipporwill made me feel scared. I some how reached over to my mother's air mattress and proceeded to let the air out bringing my mother to the hard wood floor beneath her.
Mother worked for The Hot Shoppe restaurant company. Each year they held their family picnic at Glen Echo Amusement Park. We all got on the Whip ride after eating ice cream and soon discovered that was not a very smart thing to do.
My uncle was a Shriner and always got us tickets to see the circus. That was really a very exciting time. The music, the costumes and all the funny clowns were a very special treat for me to experience. The circus took you out of reality and into a fantasy world.
My favorite type of movies were musicals. After each movie I would pretend to be the character who had done all the wonderful singing. I remember seeing a movie with Anna Maria Alberghetti and thought she had the most beautiful voice. However, I do not remember what the name of the movie was.

Our Yard

Daddy had rabbits in a pen in our back yard. I was never sure if they were supposed to be pets or food. I am pretty sure we did eat them. However, we also played with them.

My father had a really nice backyard made for us by having the area at the point of walking out of or basement to be flat. This is where our games of Croquet were played; my sister Pam's swimming pool was placed there. Pam says she remembers Croquet balls ending up in her swimming pool. On the flat area was installed our clothesline. I can remember taking down many a frozen diaper from the line in the winter.

Daddy had the next part of the yard terraced. Where he planted many varieties of flowers. The beauty of Tiger lilies, Iris and Lily of the valley are visions in my head as I type this. Other visions come to mind about Tulips, Azaleas and a beautiful Mamosa tree in full bloom with pink feathery flowers.

SEE PAM RUN-WAWAY

What possessed this child to run-a-way to Smith Lake? Could life have been that bad? Smith Lake had a huge gravel pit. We, as older kids, Michele, Lynn and I would go there and slide down those pits. That was dangerous since at the bottom of the mountain of gravel was the lake--kerplop, splash.
There was Pam and Andy sitting at the bottom, (on the safe side of the pit), thinking about their life. Pam started getting a little concerned about the fact that the Easter Bunny would never find her here. This tells us that the time of year must have been very close to Easter. As it began to get dark, the two adventurers headed home to hide in a safer place; that being the basement of our next door neighbors, (the Demmicks). Mother, as a last resort, before calling the police decided to check the Demmick's house. Pam was not greeted with a scolding--she received hugs, a grilled cheese sandwich and a glass of milk. The Banner WELCOME HOME PAM might as well have been hanging over the front door!

Part 2-FUN WITH LYNN AND PAM

The One That Got Away

No, it was not a fish--it was a duck. The setting was Greenbelt Lake. Lynn peddled over there with her fishing rod. After casting her line she heard a horrendous sound. This sound was coming from a very distraught duck with fishing line entangling his feet. The wellbeing of this duck was now in the hands of one very embarrassed little girl. Everyone in the park was now looking in the direction of the squawking duck. The duck rescue squad came to free the duck and Lynn's fingers from the jaws of the duck.

QUAAAAK, QUAAAAK, QUAAAAK

(Duck screaming)

FUN WITH LYNN AND PAM PART I-LYNN HAD NO TOYS

These stories could never be told in just one part; my fingers would fall off from typing. I was not around when most of these antics were going on or I was not a part of them. While sitting around a table with a recorder the size of a cigarette lighter, my two sisters told their stories. As they their stories were unfolding, I kept saying "where was I"? and they would say, "yes, where were you. I am four years older than Lynn and ten years older than Pam; so I could have been at work or my boyfriends house.

Lynn had no toys---well, that is the story that she tells in order to justify torturing her little sister, Pam.

Take the day that Lynn took Pam's sandbox and put it in a tree. The idea in her little brain was to made it like a tree house. The ladder was placed at the tree and they climbed up to the waiting sandbox. Lynn must have had to leave for a moment. At the bottom of the tree she removed the ladder; therefore leaving her little sister stranded in the sandbox-tree house. Hmmm, I wonder how long she left that poor kid up there and how long was it before Pam began screaming.

The bees in our yard were not safe from the scientific mind of Lynn. that would probably be better stated as the torturous mind of Lynn. She caught the yellow jackets in a jar, fired up the barbeque in the back yard and proceeded to boil them alive. I guess you could say that she had inovative ideas for entertaining herself.

Grandma Hayes

My grandmother lived in a big house next to a funeral home. There was a wall that separated my grandparents property and the funeral. All kids like to climb and I managed to get up on that wall and was in the process of walking on it when my grandfather came out of the house and scare me by telling me to get off the wall or the dead people would come and get me. I never climbed that wall again. Having had children and grandchildren myself; I now know that he was protecting me from falling off the wall.

I have memories of blue hydrangea growing on either side of the stairs that led to the large screened in porch that went all the way across the front of the house. We called them "snowball flowers" because they were so large and fluffy looking.

When I think of grandma's living room; I can see a couch that was made of a course material, ( I believe it was horsehair). There was a curio cabinet that held her collection of all kins of elephants. No one seems to know why grandma collected elephants. A very strange type of bird was also in the cabinet. It was a "drinking bird". Grandma would place a glass of water in front of it and it would bend over to drink from the glass. As a child, I thought it was real; it fascinated me.

All grandma's give out milk and cookies; and ours did also. I see the pretty blue glass cup that she would pour my milk into. What made the cup a little special was the picture of Shirley Temple on it.

Sunday would have been the day that we visited grandma's; probably after attending church. She would give us paper dolls that she had cut out from magazines or the funny papers. The one from the magazine was "Betsy McCall", from the McCall magazine.

There were many granddaughters that these paper dolls were given to; and I am pretty sure that my cousin Ruthie also received some of them. Ruthie's mother, Aunt Ruth was the oldest of my grandmother's twelve children.

I saw most of my cousins at Christmas or when we would have family get-togethers in the summer time. Most of us lived in the Washington Metropolitan area; however there were two of grandma's children living out of state. Uncle John lived in Georgia and Aunt Doris lived in Florida. We did not see them as often as the other aunts and uncles. There was a special gathering of all of us whenever either one of these aunts or uncles would come to see grandma.

Country Store and Family Time

There was a small store that we would walk to; and it was there that we purchased treats such as Lick-M-Aid. This was a very ooey, gooey and sticky, pleasure. The product was packaged in an envelope (like Kool Aid), we would lick our fingers and stick them into the envelope to retrieve our powdery treat. I remember grape and cherry were my favorite flavors---any one have a wipe---oh, never mind, they were not invented yet. Other delectables I remember were Rock Candy and the ever popular Tootsie Pops.

Let's see who can blow the biggest bubble with our Double Bubble gum. Along with the gum, you got a comic that featured a character named Pud.

Many of our groceries were bought at this store. We did not have large grocery stores on every corner. We took a bus to the only one that I can remember; so a lot of times we walked to the local country store.

When it is hot outside; you head for the beach. Daddy would have us all get into his paneled truck that he used for work. There were three of us at the time and not enough seating in this old truck; so daddy would take a bench style seat out of another vehicle to accomadate us.
There was no Air Conditoning or seat belts in those days; but we all arrived safely and probably a little sweaty.

Along the way, we kept entertained by reading the signs placed along the road. These signs were called Burma Shave signs because that is the product that they advertised; an example is: "It has a tingle and a tang that starts the day off with a bang.

My father liked to play the slot machines in the arcade at the beach and that is probably where he was when my sister, Lynn, got lost looking for him. She followed a man wearing a yellow bathing suit because that is the color of the suit daddy always wore. I am sure she must have been scared not knowing where her daddy was. Eventually she was reunited with her daddy and the rest of the family.

Another trip I remember going on was a ride to Sugar Loaf mountain. This is where my mother's side of the family had some of their family get togethers in the summer.

The other place for us to see our aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents was at uncle Tom's on the 4th of July. Grandmother's birthday was very close to that date so we always got together.

And Then There Were Four

One morning I awoke to find that my father had left my three sisters and I alone in the house. I became frightened and called my Uncle Bud. He came and got all of us and took us to his house for a week.

I knew that my mother was in the hospital having a baby. However; I did not know what had happened to my father. I was happy with my aunt and uncle and my cousins. I secretly wished that I could live with them forever.

Mother had another girl; she was given the name Pamela, we called her Pam. My sister, Lynn, had been the youngest for five years and was not happy to have this new little person in our house. Lynn said Pam was ugly and my uncle Bud gave her a bit of a smack. I and Michele, on the other hand, wanted to be little mothers. Lynn had always been my father's favorite. She was a "Tom Boy" and the closest daddy would ever get to having a boy in the house of four girls.

Troubles Were to Be Kept Private

We were a dysfunctional family growing up. Of course, that word was not part of any one's vocabulary in those days. We always thought that we were the only family that went through the trauma of living with the sad times that resulted from Alcoholism. However, as we grew up; we realized that we were not alone. My mother told me that she had a brother that also suffered from this disease.

My mother had several emotional breakdowns and I also was effected emotionally by the events that were taking place in our home. I was in elementary school at the time and can remember hearing the very loud arguments between my parents. This would cause me great anxiety and feeling of fear would still be with me the next day when I went to school. I would think about my home life and cry. The teacher would find out why I was crying and then my parents were contacted.

My parents were not happy about having their troubles known. I was told to keep or private life private. That is the way it was then; you dealt with your problems and did not involve outsiders.

CHRISTMAS

Memories of Christmas were centered around activities. The Christmas sugar cookies that were cut into various shapes with the colored icing ( made from food coloring, powdered sugar and water) covering the tops. To finish off our masterpiece of culinary design, we used colored sprinkles. As I think back on it now, those cookies really did not taste that good; but we sure had fun making them together.


Another creative activity was placing the Christmas stencils against the windows and daubing them with glass wax to make them look frosty. Every window in the house, upstairs and down stairs was decorated. The application of the glass wax took a while to do and no one wanted to remove the stencils right after the holidays. Therefore, the art work could still be there until it was time for Spring Cleaning.

After daddy and Lynn or Michele would go down the street to the woods in our neighborhood to cut down our tree; it was time for daddy to climb up into the attic and bring down the Christmas ornaments that had been very carefully placed in their boxes the year before. There was a great deal of anticipation as each box was opened revealing the treasured Christmas tree ornaments; some of which had belonged to our mother's mother.

With the tree now in it's stand and positioned by the window in the living room; it was time to place the Bubble Lights on the branches. These lights were shaped like candles and had a liquid in them that bubbled when they got warm. Each ornament placed on the tree was different from the next. With all the ornaments in place; we were given strands of shiny, silver tinsel that we placed on the branches.

The last boxes to be opened were the train tracks and the train that daddy placed around the bottom of the tree. We all loved watching the train going around and around the tree and often placed small objects in the open cars.

The above picture shows three of the train cars that have survived the years. They are place around my sister Michele's tree in home every year.

Before we went to bed. all the lights were turned out and we all sat and watched in wonder at the magical, colorful Bubble Lights as they glowed and bubbled; what a sight to see!

It was a tradition in our house to secure a large sock to the window sill in the dinning room; we did not have a fire place. Each year we received: oranges, apples, nuts and hard candy. Peeking out of the top of the sock would be a small gift with a candy cane.

It was nearly a guarantee that you would be given new pajamas and underwear. We found out later that our Aunt Libby was the one who bought the underwear from a Dutch Maid party she had attended.

I think my favorite gift was the "Roberta Bride Doll: that I received. I often wondered why my sister, Michele, and I got the same doll; I thought that because it was called "Roberta" it was only for me. Recently, I found out that the dolls were made by The Roberta Doll Company in New York. That company is no longer in business and if I had the doll today, it would be a collectable.

THANKSGIVING

Mother taught us how to make homemade bread stuffing for the turkey. We all gathered around the dinning room table and began cubing the stale bread and chopping the celery; the preparing of the onion was given to mother. To this day, I do not chop onions.

Mother would be cooking the heart, gizzard and neck of the turkey in the kitchen that would later be picked and used in the homemade gravy that she would be serving. The left over turkey would be made into turkey soup. No matter how well you picked the meat from the bone on that turkey; there always seemed to be a bone in the soup that always ended up in my bowl.

When I was a teenager, the heart of the turkey became the focus of interest to me. Before it was given to mother to cook; I decide to dissect it like we had learned to do in Biology class; I wanted to show my mother what I had learned.

Culinary Memories

Pop corn was not made then as it is now. Daddy would get a very big cast iron pot, put oil in it and when the oil got to the right temperature, he would pore the kernels of corn into it and place the lid on top. Daddy would began shaking the pot and pretty soon you would hear the popping corn pinging the lid.

Instant hot chocolate?---never heard of it. Mother used Hershey's cocoa, sugar and milk. If we had whipped cream in the house that was quite a treat.

When there was new fallen snow, we made snow-ice-cream with vanilla, carnation condensed milk, sugar and salt. Daddy taught us how to do that and we always looked forward to that first snow fall.

Other foods I remember were meatloaf. The meat was bought in chunks and then it was ground up in a meat grinder that was attached to the kitchen table. Daddy also made a dish called Spanish Rice using the ground beef.

In our refrigerator was always a pitcher of Kook-aid. Mother liked to drink Pepsi and had the Kool-aid for us. However, every now and then we were treated to having Pepsi.

The two lunch meats I remember the most were bologna and pimento olive loaf. I was not that fond of either one and would rather eat lettuce and mayonnaise sandwiches on toast.

The one dinner item that mother made that none of us were happy about was squash. I also did not like spinach; but Michele did. Daddy fooled me once by putting a turnip on my plate---it did not take long to discover it was not a potato like he said.

My sisters like to remind me about the day I made them pancakes from Bisquick for breakfast. The pancakes were cooked---so I thought--and ready to eat. The color on both sides was a golden brown. They began eating them and discovered that the middle was raw. The pancakes were put into the dog's dish by Lynn and even the dog did not want to eat them. If the griddle is too hot the only thing that is going to cook is the top and bottom---lesson learned. I would like to think today if I announced that I was going to make them pancakes; they would not all get in their cars and drive to I-Hop.

CLOTHES ADVENTURES

Michele and I shared many things; a bike, a portable radio, a room and clothes. Sharing clothes as teenagers did not go very smoothly. Lynn and Pam remember an incident involving us fighting over a skirt we both wanted to wear. We really got into it! The rumble was at the top landing of the second floor. Lynn and Pam were standing on the bottom landing. They say that they wondered what was going to come flying down the stairs next; already papers and notebooks had descended down. We were in a serious battle and they fully expected it was going to be one of us that would be hurled down the stairs. If you ask me today which one of us ended up wearing the skirt; I could not tell you. Michele's memory is better than mine and she might be able to remember---some day I will ask her.

I do not remember when we got our automatic washing machine; but I do remember the one we had before that was a wringer washing machine. We were always told to be careful feeding clothes through it. Lynn actually got her arm caught in it. She and Michele began fighting over who was going to put daddy's shirt through the wringer. Lynn grabbed the shirt. It was daddy's shirt and she was going to be the one who wrung it out. She shoved it into the wringer; the shirt went in very fast and so did Lynn's hand and part of her arm. A scream from Michele was heard by daddy and he flipped the switch off at the top of the basement stairs and saved Lynn from having an arm like Gumby, (a dark green flat humanoid character on T.V. in the 50s).

All of us remember the big box the new washing machine came in. It was placed in a corner of the basement and whenever we received second hand clothes from our cousins, the clothes were stored in this giant box. The box was so deep that you literally had to dive or climb into the box to retrieve the article of clothing; like dumpster diving. After you found the clothes they needed to be washed; after all they had been stored in the basement and had a bit of a musty odor. The smell of "musty" on my chosen garment was not my favorite fragrance.

Dress patterns were often seen laid out on our dinning room table. Mother would make dresses for Michele and I and then make us purses to match our dresses. They were drawstring purses that had a cottage cheese container placed into the bottom for stability. Mother also made clothes for Lynn and Pam. The frilly dresses that were made by mother were not Lynn's favorite frock---she would much prefer to live in her jeans.

Hot Summer days And Nights

Summer was very hot. We cooled off outside by draping a hose over a mimosa tree and running under the hose. There was a family, the Whelan's, who had a large vinyl pool and they would invite us up to their house to swim sometimes. My sister Pam had been in the pool and got out to lie on her towel; when she was stung by a wasp on her back. That was the end of her day in the pool.

A built in pool in ones backyard was not a very common thing to have. I do remember that my cousins Judy and Nancy had one in their back yard. Most children we knew had wading pools or the big round family pool that the Whealan family had. Other options for swimming were to go to a public pool or to the beach.

Inside activities in the summer included mother teaching us how to embroider. I decided to trace a very large rooster on to a pillow case. This was a summer project and when it was complete I was so proud of my handiwork. I chose the rooster because I knew I could use a lot of different colors. The rooster picture was placed in the middle of my pillow case and I soon found out that you can not sleep on the embroidered side of a pillow.

After dinner, we would waite anxiously for the Good Humor Ice Cream man. We were given a nickel for a popsicle. If we saved our allowance or skipped one night of a popsicle, we could buy a ten cent item. My favorite was the toasted almond bar.

The Good Humor man drove a bright white truck with a larger than life Good Humor Ice Cream bar painted on the side of it. He wore a crisp professional looking white uniform with a white cap. Usually it was always the same person and all the parents and children got to know him. We knew just about what time we were going to see that truck and hear that bell.

The Good Humor man was a part of my mother's memory and mine as children; but by the time that my daughter was old enough to buy ice cream from a truck, everything had changed drastically. I would not allow my daughter or later my grandchildren to buy from this street vendor in the ratty looking truck and the less than professional looking person driving it. A piece of one of my childhood memories had turned into something unpleasant to be around.

When it got dark, we caught lightning bugs. God made these little creatures unique by giving them a glow-in-the-dark tail light. The lightning bugs were fascinating to us as children. We would race around catching them and placing them in a jar, this brought many hours of laughter and joy.
Lightning bugs were as much a part of summer as fireworks and cold pieces of watermelon. God created the lightning bugs just to make a child smile. I wonder, do children still enjoy God's little creature, the lightning bug?

Innovative Entertainment

Lynn was a "Tomboy"and liked to play cowboys and Indians with our neighbors, Rocky and Michael. She made a horse out of socks and a stick and used a rope for the bridal. I am pretty sure she had a western gun and holster and wore a cowboy hat.

Michele and I liked to play with paper dolls. We acquired some of these from a babysitter; made others from the Sears and Spiegel catalogs. Grandma would save the "Betsy McCall" paper dolls from the McCall's magazine. When we visited her on Sundays, she would give them to us.
Grandma had twelve children and that meant a lot of grandchildren. She had to divide up the paper dolls between her granddaughters; I am sure that my cousin Ruthie also got some of the paper dolls.

One of my favorite past times, was playing "office" in our basement. Little did I know then that my career choice would afford me the opportunity to play "office" for a very long time. Daddy's old carbon paper was fascinating to play with; also very dirty. We would play for hours and be very entertained.

Lynn invented the skateboard. Take a book and put a roller skate under it and you have a toy that had not been invented yet. However, you must sit; standing could result in disaster.

Glamorous movie star pictures were in all the magazines. I had to wait for mother to finish reading the magazine and then I would attack it with my scissors. Collecting the pictures of the movie stars and putting them in an album was fun; Lynn would sometimes help me paste them in. Just as the boys would trade baseball cards; the girls would trade movie star pictures. The lid of Dixie cup ice cream had pictures of stars and that was another way of collecting them to put into your album. The best way to get pictures was the Movie Star magazines; that was not always an option for me. I wish I had saved that ablum; it would be fun to look at it today.

Mother would give us a bar of Ivory soap and an empty thread spool to make our own way of blowing soap bubbles. It worked very well and was another inexpensive way of having hours of fun.

I never remember being bored.

Snowy Reflections

Snow, Snow everywhere, except here in FL, Hawii and Louisiana. That is what is being said today---unbelievable!! Never have I experienced what some of my family and several of my friends are going through right now. The records have been broken for the amount of snow that has fallen. My sister, Pam, in Texas is getting snow as I write this. She says she will make a snowman and post her pictures on "FaceBook".

I have two big snow stories to tell. These did not happen when I was a little girl, but took place when I was a grandmother.

My grandson, Christopher, was four years old when we made a trip to Arkansas in December 1989. We knew it would be cold and had prepared with warm clothes. The trip was very long and Christopher was sick with a stomach virus on the way. When we finally arrived at our destination, we were greeted with an unexpected snowfall.

The people we traveled with had family that owned a "Bed and Breakfast" in the mountains of Arkansas. The cottage was warm and cozy while outside became a blanket of white wonder.

The next morning, as we were walking in the snow to the main house for breakfast, Christopher saw his first glimpse of snow. He reached his bare hand down into it and discovered it was very cold. We had so many clothes on, that it took a while to get ready to sit down to a gourmet country breakfast. The temperature outside was the coldest I have ever experienced in my life. I beleive it was 13 degrees below freezing. This was one of several vacations that were very memorable.

My other snow story was when my family got together in December, 1993. This is a story that many of my family also remembers, each one having their own story.

My husband and I drove to Maryland with our two grandchildren, Christopher was eight and Amber was three. We stayed with my niece Christine. My sister, Michele, had a Christmas party at her house on Christmas night. My sister, Pam and her husband and seven children drove from Texas to be with the family that year. We had not all been together in a very long time.

Christine, her husband and little girl, Calina, had left the party before we did. We got a call from Christine saying it was snowing really hard. She had managed to get home and thought we should all leave before it got any worse on the roads. It was too late.

We rode around for hours trying to find roads that could be traveled leading us back to Christine's and Lynn's. At one point, Lynn and Pam's family had bladders about to burst. What a sight seeing all these people running out behind a school. Feeling better, we continued our journey. We reached a main road, Rockville Pike, Stewart and I knew where we were because we used to live in the town of Rockville. We decided to find a hotel and said goodbye to my sisters who continued on their journey and did make it home.

We were given the last room available in that hotel and very grateful to be off the road. Christopher was so happy and said he was afraid that he was going to wet his pants if we had to stay in the car any longer.

Sleeping in my sequined sweater was not my favorite thing to do. The fact that I did not have any clean under clothing did not make me happy either. We were able to get back to Christine's the next day and made our plans to leave and go back to Florida.

The trip back was an experience also. The traffic crawled down the highway due to the treacherous condidtions of the roads. We were unable to get to the hotel we had a reservation for. Stewart called and got us into a hotel that was not too far from where we were. Again, it was the last room available. We were all very glad to get home to bright and sunny Florida.

I have not seen snow since.

Winter

What a perfect time to be writing about winter. At this time, many of my family are facing conditions of record breaking snowfall and all the inconvenience that it brings. I am pretty sure it is the adults that are feeling the adverse results of such a snowfall and not the children.

I remember that when we got snow that our phones did not always work. However, it was our parents that used the phones and not us. Winter snowfall meant for us days off from school and having fun.

As soon as the new snow was lying on the ground, daddy would go out and gather up a big bowl of it and make "snow ice-cream" by adding carnation condensed milk, vanilla, sugar and salt.


All the neightborhood kids would gather at the top of Hollywood Blvd. or Lackawanna St. Those who had sleighs would take those of of us who did not for rides. There was always a fire burning to keep us warm.

One of the very dangerous activities that some of the kids took part in, was to grab the back bumper of the cars going up and down the main road of Rhode Island Ave. The cars were going fairly slow because of the snow, but it was still dangerous. I was never brave enough to try anything like that!

When we could no longer feel our toes anymore and our fingers were numb from wet gloves, we knew it was time to go home and have grilled cheese sandwiches and Campbell's tomato soup.

Another delight in the winter was hot cocoa. Instant hot chocolate----never heard of it. Mother would place Hershey's cocoa, sugar and milk in a pan on top of the stove.

Yes, winter snow was fun; just as I am sure it is for the children of today.

Playing Outside

When we played outside, the games were Hopscotch, (we would attack mother's jewelry box for chains to throw into the blocks), Dodge Ball, Mother May I, Red Rover-Come Over, Simon Says, Blind Man's Bluff, red Light-Green Light and of course Hide and Seek.

I have to wonder, how many children even heard of these games or ever play them today. It seems this generation of children entertain themselves with the electronic wizardry of such games that are provided by advanced technology such as Wii and Video games. My first introduction to a Video game was when Julie was a little girl and we had Atari and Pac Man.

Riding our bikes was fun and probably the best exercise we could get. Michele and I shared a bike; I seem to remember the bike being green. It was on that bike that Lynn and Michele had a bad accident. They both were in the hospital and missed the first week of school that year.

On the stoop of our house, we played jacks. I will never forget when we had decided to play jacks in our house at the bottom landing of the stairs. We did not get them all picked up at the end of the game and that night my father stepped on one of them in his bare feet. His howl of pain could be heard a block away.

Putting on a pair of skates and rolling down the street, was one of my favorite outdoor activities. You had to wear proper shoes or your skates were not going to stay on. Tennis shoes were too soft. The skate key that tightened your skates was hung around your neck on a shoe string. The best place to skate was not on our street but the street that continued from our street across the main road. This street was smoother than our street and you could get up a lot more speed.

Television

As I said before, the selection of children's programs were limited. The ones we watched were "Ding Dong School", "Romper Room", "Circus Boy", "Sky King" and of course "Lassie" and "The Mickey Mouse Club". Lynn was a die hard fan of "The Mickey Mouse Club".

My sister, Lynn, enjoyed watching "PickTemple", a western themed program. Lynn would watch the show from her saddle made by putting a blanket and pillow on the arm of an over stuffed chair----giddy up horsy.

The first dance show on T.V. that my family watched was "Lawrence Welk". Once while dancing with my father I clipped him under his chin when I tried to go under his arm. I do not think he thought of me as a very good dance partner----Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire we were not.

When "Roll Out The Barrel" began to play, mother would take Lynn's hand and begin to teach her how to dance to the polka. I am not sure how Lynn felt about that, but I do not think she dances the polka today.

New Year's Eve we would gather around the T.V. to watch the "Guy Lombardo show. We would anticipate the stroke of midnight and hug and kiss each other to bring in the New Year.

There were two teen dance shows that my sister Michele and I would watch. One was a local show, "Milt Grant" and the other was a show out of Philadelphia, "American Band Stand" We learned many a dance step watching that program. My sister, Michele, would dance the "Jitter Bug" with me and she liked to flip me over her back. I guess she thought she was Mickey Rooney and I was Judy Garland.

My How Times Have Changed

We grew up in an era, that when compared to the time in which my daughter, Julie and all her cousins were growing up; was a simple life. If taken back in time to live as we did; Julie would find it as difficult as we would, should we be hurled back to when our mother lived. The generation of today would absolutely never survive any of these eras.

Our mode of communication a phone, that sat on a desk in our dinning room. This phone was shared by everyone in the house. Today, there are phones in every room and each person in the house has their own cell phone. Julie had her own phone number with a phone in her room. That in itself was unheard of in the 50's.

You know how kids are always saying they are bored; well they certainly would be, but we were not. I spent many evenings with my dad listening to such radio shows as "Henry Aldrich" and the "Shadow". We had one T.V. nestled in a corner under a window in our living room. There were very few channels to watch. There were only a few children's programs. My earliest memories are watching "Howdy Doody", "Kukla Fran and Ollie" and "Beannie & Cecil". My sisters remember a program called "Winky-Dink and You". This was an interactive program that children could participate in by sending away for a kit that included a plastic screen that stuck to the T.V. screen with static electricity. Crayons were used to draw on the screen to assist the character out of his predicament. If a character needed to cross a river with no bridge, the viewer would draw a line so a crossing could be made to escape trouble.

Watching T.V. was a family event. The Colgate Comedy Hour was one of my favorites. I especially remember Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis as well as Martha Rea. I think mother liked Ed Sullivan a lot. Who can forget Senior Wences-ventriloquist with Pedro, (head in a box), and Johnny the hand puppet. I loved to dance. I took ballet for a while and enjoyed watching The Marge and Gower Champion show. I was fascinated by the artistic dancing of these two people.

There were no electronic gizmos to download your music on to and listen with a head set or ear buds. I spent many hours listening to my parents' 78 RPM records on a phonograph. Music has always been my passion. The slow dance music of the 40s had a rich mellow quality about it. I enjoy watching the old movies today that have that music. They dressed so elegantly when they went out dancing. While listening to the records, I often would imagine wearing those satin gowns. My sisters, Michele and Lynn and I, would put on performances in our up stairs hallway. We sang the songs we had learned from the records. One of our favorites was "Sisters", Rosemary Clooney. She also sang "This Old House"; and so did we.

Our Home

My three sisters, Michele, Lynn, Pam and I grew up in a house purchased by our parents in 1949 in a subdivision called "Old Hollywood". The address was:
9603 49th Place, College Park, MD.
Our town was not too far from The University of Maryland. My father was an electrician and had worked with the contractor and builder on the houses in that subdivision. The price of the house at that time was $6,500; rencently that house was sold for $350,000.

In January of 1950 we moved into our home. Pam was not born until later. Previously, my two sisters and I had been living in an apartment at Garfield Courts in Hyattsville, MD. I went to kindergarten and for half a year attended first grade there.

Project of Love for my Sisters

Over the past few years I have been writing the story of my childhood. This was a project about growing up with my three sisters. While writing my story, so many memories came flooding into my head.

At one point, I met with my sisters to have them tell me the things that they remembered about the years we spent as children. My husband bought me a very small tape recorder, (the size and shape of a cigarette lighter). We all sat down to the table and I placed the tape recorder in the middle of the table. This tape recorder was later downloaded to my computer as a file and I was able to listen to it when I began writing my story.

December 2009, I had my book printed by our local printing company and mailed copies of our story to all my sisters for Christmas.

I started thinking the other day that other family members might enjoy reading our story as well. That is when I talked to my husband about setting up my blog.

The following entries, over time, will be not only reflections of our past, but also entries about the present.