Blog Post –May 2015
People, places and things all played a part in our growing up years. In Trisha Moriarty’s memoir, The Secrets She Kept, she describes pulling up the wet sheets from the washing machine as she and her mother prepared to put them through the ringer. A scene I can relate to. Those ringer/washers were the only machines that cleaned our clothes until the Maytag repairman came along.
Growing up in the fifties and sixties brings memories like the ringer/washer to mind. For instance, I’ll never forget the first television set my parents bought. That 21-inch console sat in a place of honor in our parlor. The wood was blond maple and it was raised above the carpeting by four twelve-inch legs. The 8 X 12 inch family photo was the only thing allowed on top.
My sisters and I would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the set for hours watching I Love Lucy and Leave It To Beaver. A few years later I would race home from school to see what new dance steps Justine and Bob were doing on American Bandstand.
After my best friend, Dolores, got a 45-RPM record player for her 15th birthday, we spent most afternoons playing the latest 7-inch records. But, before we even got to her house, we would stop at the local drug store, sit at the soda fountain, and drink vanilla cokes.
Those memories will always find a warm place in my soul. One only has to mention their first car, and my yellow ‘57 Chevy appears front and center. That lemon was always in the repair shop. Not like the ‘58 Dodge my parents bought that had wings flaring out over each back tire. Everyone on our street thought it was going to leave the ground when Dad got it on the highway.
In my soon-to-be-published mystery, Village Voices, Abigail and Jack enjoy sitting at their brand new aqua and white Formica kitchen table with their morning coffee. She bought it with the green stamps she saved for three years. I remember my mother looking through the catalog, trying to decide which set of pots and pans she would get with her books. Pasting those stamps in the books each week after getting the groceries was a job my sisters despised. I felt the same way until I started saving them for my very own trousseau.
The sixties brought us hot dogs and root beer on roller skates. Those drive-in restaurants were all the rage. The Beetles came from London and we listened to them on our new transistor radios. We elected a new young president and his wife introduced us to shorter skirts and an entirely new fashion scene. Eventually morphing into hot pants and boots.
Whether it’s the meals we crave when we’re not feeling well; the clothes in the attic we can’t seem to part with; or, the that favorite piece of china we only use on special occasions, what we remember becomes part of our legacy.
What do you remember?