Scouting



This is a picture of how scouts were supposed to look when I was a girl scout in the 1960's.  I don't know anyone who actually looked like this.  I never did learn how to tie the bow without it listing to one side or the other.  My gloves were always too big and stretched out of shape.  The beanie (and then beret) only stayed on with the help of several bobby pins and I usually wore white ankle socks because after the first washing my uniform socks parted ways.

Renee is upset because she knows that next year she will be a Brownie and will be wearing my hand me down uniform.  Ned obviously has tied his neckerchief too tightly!

Don't even get me started on those sashes!  Most girls tried to earn as many badges as possible.  After my mom sewed on my troop numbers, scout council name, and troop patch, we both realized the less badges I earned the happier we would both be.  My mother actually tried to convince me that the wings are supposed to be crooked to simulate flight. Adjectives such as  lopsided, cockeyed  and careless are not what a serious scout wants to hear when showing up at her first meeting. (Thank God I wasn't a serious scout.)  After a quick trip to Mrs. Shanley, family friend and talented seamstress, I was able to show my face (and sash) at the next meeting.

This is my actual sash

I can't find my keys, but I knew exactly where my 47 year old sash was! (In the attic right next to my David Cassidy poster.)

Memorial Day

When I was growing up, my favorite holiday was Memorial Day!  I know that's weird.  I'm sure if you conduct a poll, 0 out of 100 kids would name Memorial Day as their favorite holiday.  Let me explain why it was so much fun for me.

First of all, we always got a new outfit to wear on Memorial Day - of course, it had to be  red, white and blue.  I would pray for a warm, sunny day because the weather in the Northeast in late May can be cool.  Sweaters and jackets can just ruin a good stars and stripes theme.  (Don't even get me started about what a cold or rainy Halloween night can do to a good scary costume.)

We always watched the Shelton parade sitting on the curb in front of my great grandmother's house surrounded by extended family and friends.  The adults had lawn chairs, but the kids sat on the concrete...not very pleasant when wearing shorts (even if they are a cute navy and white stripe).  Also, not a great spot to be in when the Shelton High Majotettes marching by would throw their batons 15 feet into the air and then try to catch them. (I'm not sure how hard they really tried.)  My mom tells the story that one year  I was looking straight up as the baton came down on my head!  I don't remember this.  I'm not sure if that is because I was too young to recall it or because I had memory loss from a severe head injury.

After the parade, we would walk over to the Aherns' house and eat  donuts and pastry while the crowds and traffic thinned.  Then we would go home and kill a few hours before going to my aunt and uncle's house for a really fun picnic that would last into the night.

There were always cases of bottled Castle soda in a variety of flavors under the tree and we drank as many as we wanted  since the adults were busy with their own beverages.   Birch Beer was my favorite with Cream a close seond.

After hot dogs and hamburgers, salads, ice cream and softball, my cousin Robin and I would usually go up to her room and make prank phone calls.  I never had a phone in my room, so this was very exciting. Today's kids don't realize what they are missing.   Caller ID has ruined one of the most fun and creative activities of our youth.  The thrill of a good prank phone call was about as daring as I ever got and to this day it still makes me smile.

Reading this over, I guess it's impossible to recapture the magic of a great memory.  None of this sounds as exciting as I remember it, but I still recall that feeling of anticipation and excitement and stand by my vote for  Memorial Day as my all time favorite holiday.

My addiction to Barbie

My all-time favorite toy to play with was the Babie doll.  I could play Barbie for hours and usually did, with my sister, Renee.  Mom would buy Barbie clothes for us every time she went downtown.  They cost $2.00 for a whole outfit (including shoes)  and we had all of them.
Our favorite doll was "the white haired Barbie."

We would argue over whose turn it was to play with her.  We had so many variations of Barbies, but only one with the white hair. When Renee would be playing with her,  I would grab Barbie's head and take it off and put it on the Barbie I was playing with.  This happened so many times that she ended up with  a tear in her neck. (Barbie, not Renee.) For some reason we still loved her the best....broken neck and all.

Another thing we argued about were the outfits.  Looking back we may have argued more than we played.  We both loved the black sequined gown with a red rose in the tulle hem. It came with a floor microphone for any nightclub gigs Barbie happened to be playing as she held the pink scarf in her hand.

Of course, we also had all the "hangers on"...Ken, Midge, and Barbie's little sister Skipper.  We always gave these to our friends to play with when they came over.  Barbie was always the star. All was fine until one day Renee decided to cut Skipper's hair. I was so upset!  Of course, it wouldn't be until years later when we learned how much an  original Skipper doll was worth that we realized what an expensive haircut that really was!

My very favorite outfit, without a doubt, was this gold lamee dinner dress and coat with (wait for it) REAL MINK trim.  (PETA wasn't born yet.)  This outfit got so much wear and tear that the gold eventually wore off in most places and the mink became a wisp of a memory.

These photos still bring a smile to my face.  I have never wanted to own a black sequined gown, or sing in a nightclub; never owned a mink trimmed coat ...never even wanted to cut my sister's hair, but maybe that's because I did all these things before I was 10 and got it out of my system. We sure did have fun!

The Dugan's Man

Supper time at our house, without fail, was between 5:00 and 5:30 p.m.  My dad was very involved in various community volunteer organizations and would often have evening meetings, but he would always come home for our family dinner first.  Dad didn't eat much for lunch, usually just a tuna sandwich, so he really looked forward to dinner.  Needless to say, he did not like any interruptions during supper.  The phone ringing would be bad, but a knock on the front door would really send him over the top.  My father would take it as a personal insult that someone would dare come to our house and ruin his dinner. We always ate our weeknight suppers at the kitchen table.  The dining room was only used on Sundays and holidays.  Our kitchen table was only a few feet from the front door, so whoever was there would definitely hear the fireworks started at the sound of the knock.
(My brother, Ned, would sometimes knock on the underside of the table just to get a rise out of Dad.  When no one was at the door,  Dad would be so glad to return to eating  that he didn't bother to question who it could have been.)

The only time Dad didn't mind the interruption was when it was Gus at the door.  Gus was our Dugan's Man.  Dugan's was a bakery that sold its products door-to-door.  We loved Gus!  He wasn't particularly friendly,  but his delicious cakes and desserts made him our man of the hour.  He would put his big metal basket down and we would all grab our favorite treat. (Mine were the apple turnovers sprinkled with gigantic crystals of sugar.)

This is what Gus' truck looked like.

There is the goody basket

    

We were so sad when Dugan's Bakery went out of business in 1967.  Mom would buy us snacks and 

treats from the local bakery and grocery store, but somehow they never tasted quite as sweet.    

                                                               

Good Humor

My sister sent me this photo this morning and it brought back so many memories

   

Our neighborhood was made up of large families.  Our family had five children and we were considered undersized.  There were several families with seven and eight kids, five seemed average.  With such a large population under the age of 10, Judson Circle must have been considered The Promised Land for any self-respecting "Good Humor Man".  The sound of his bell would attract a crowd before he even turned up our street.  This explains why our ice cream truck would come between  8:00- 9:00 in the morning.  Why not start off the day with a bang?  (or a Toasted Almond?)  My older sister always ordered a Creamsicle... I was always the Chocolate Eclair, (although Strawberry Shortcake was hard to pass up.)

The big treat came on Sundays when my grandparents would "take us for a ride" and we would always end up at the overpass on Route 8.  That's where the Good Humor truck was parked for the afternoon.  I don't know why ice cream always tasted better mixed with the traffic fumes wafting from the highway below. 

 My brother and I were fascinated with the Good Humor Man's coin dispenser.  It hung from his belt at our eye level and I couldn't understand why every adult didn't have one.  It was so cool!! 

I am sad to say that I haven't had a Good Humor in years.  I know they still sell them in the freezer department at our local supermarket, but what's the fun in that?  Maybe if it's 8 in the morning and I am standing in a truck stop parking lot I will try one, but I still don't think they will ever taste as good.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Christmas is coming!


When I was growing up, decorating in our home was a lot of work.  Building the Great Pyramids would have been easier than  getting the tree in the door and up the 6 steps to our living room.  At least the way my dad did it.  The amount of swearing was in direct proportion to the height of the tree. It wasn't until I was married and Jack and I were putting up our first Christmas tree when I learned that you don't need to tie the tree to a curtain rod.  That was what my dad always did and it took a lot of convincing for me to believe that a tree could actually stand without additional ropes and ties.  (Although about 10 years ago our decorated tree did fall and crash to the floor for no explainable reason.  I explained it by saying that Jack didn't have it straight in its stand, but Jack insists there was no explainable reason for that tree to fall.)

A spotlight and wreath  on the front door and a decorated tree was all the Christmas cheer my father could muster.  We did sit down and watch the burning of the traditional yule log on Christmas Eve.  It was  on channel 13 on our TV.  We had a fireplace, but the only thing it was used for was a hiding place when my brother, sister and I played Hide 'n Go Seek.

Each year my mom would scotch tape a plastic candle to the window sills of all the front windows  and my father felt like that was going overboard.  I loved the candles and to this day it only feels like Christmas to me if I can fall asleep by  white plastic candlelight.  (Of course, growing up if we ever did fall asleep with the plastic candle still lit we were awakened by my mom screaming and reciting all the latest statistics on the increased incidence of house fires at Christmas.)

More later.  Gotta go....I think I left a plastic candle burning.

Thanksgiving 1968

I started thinking back to what Thanksgiving was like when I was a child and what we ate and what we had to eat.  My great aunt Mary used to make coffee jello.  Never heard of it ?  That's because who would find cold coffee that jiggles appetizing? Well, my mother said we couldn't hurt Aunt Mary's feelings and that we had to eat it.  The thing was if you didn't eat it, and I mean eat it first thing,  it would start to melt into the other warm (and delicious) food around it on your plate. I would somehow manage to swallow it and be  ready to start eating the good stuff when Aunt Mary would notice "how much I must love her coffee jello" and plop a big second helping on my plate!  I think this is why to this day I rarely drink coffee and never on Thanksgiving.

When we were very young, all 6 (later 7,  when my brother Jim was born), of us would pile into the station wagon after school on the day before Thanksgiving and Dad would drive us to Philly for the holiday weekend.  Of course, everyone knows that the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year and expects to take extra time.  But not my dad.  He always seemed surprised that anyone else would be on the Jersey Turnpike and that traffic would slow to a crawl.  I had to sit up front between my parents because I was the one who always got car sick.  I didn't realize until years later that the smoke from my father's cigarette is what made me nauseous....especially when I was  sitting in the thickest part of the smoke. I was always sorry that I didn't get to sit in the back and "fool" with my sisters and brothers. The only time I was glad to not be in the back is when my brother Ned decided to take his shoes off as we were crossing the George Washington Bridge.  As the odor wafted through the car, my sisters' screams of horror and disgust  almost caused my dad to drive us  right into the Hudson River.  I don't think anyone was allowed to make another sound until we entered the state of Pennsylvania.

When God was handing out patience my dad must have gotten tired of waiting in line and missed out entirely, so traffic was not something you wanted to be stuck in with Dad.  By the time we reached my grandparents' house, nobody was speaking and giving thanks was the last thing we were thinking about.  (My dad would immediately go inside and start mapping out the best route to take home on Sunday...which everyone knows is the busiest  travel day of the year.  Somehow no one ever had the nerve to mention this to my dad.)

This picture of my dad was taken many years later when we were all grown and had children of our own.  As you can see from his expression, he never did warm up to the Thanksgiving holiday!