Life in the Rear-View Mirror Series
by Dick Juhl
“Once upon a time.” Well, that is the way so many fairy tales started for us when we were young kids. Well, once upon a time can also bring up memories of things past, or things no longer used. I thought of some of these bygone things, people, etc. How many of you can remember some of these items? Remember, I grew up in the city, so you may have many more.
- X-ray shoe store machines (really, who thought that was a good idea?
- Margarine in a bag that we had to knead to spread food coloring contained in a small capsule inside the bag.
- Coffee cans with a keyed strip you twisted to open the can.
- Icemen who put huge blocks of ice on their shoulders, to put in our ice boxes. (We followed behind his truck, hoping to beg a small piece.)
- Lawnmowers with no motors (imagine!).
- Bambi bread trucks in Minneapolis. (They came right to our door.)
- Electric eye doors in the late 30s. I think National Tea stores were some of the early users. The doors seemed to be magic.
- Streetcars, which could take us hundreds of miles in the Twin Cities. (Their rails were scary to cross in the winter.)
- Saturday night baths. Yes, unless you had a job that required a bath more than once a week.
- Cookies that were sold out of open bins in the grocery store.
- Milkmen, who also delivered butter and eggs.
- Food rationing during World War II; rationing also included shoes and gasoline.
- Locker plants in small towns that rented freezer space for locals to store their chickens, meat, etc.
- Remember learning to whistle? I do, and I’m sure we were not allowed to whistle at the dinner table.
- Learning to ride a bicycle. Soon I could do it with no hands--how daring!
- AM radio only. Searching for distant cities on the dial, late at night was a pastime even at college.
- Party lines on our telephone. It was a big day when we got a private line because of Dad’s business. Of course, in the country, the wall phone with the crank was still common.
- Cars with no turn signal. An arm out the driver’s window, up meaning right turns, straight out meaning left turns. An ajar driver’s side door just meant a turn in the winter.
- Knickers for boys. Gosh, I hated them, but there was not a choice until about ten years of age.
How about adding yours to my list? rrjuhl@gmail.com
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