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.