What Were We Thinking??

an old-time paddy wagon

Some folks would disagree with this statement: "America has a much more tolerant, less racist society than we had in earlier generations." True or not, at the very least we have eliminated some of the offensive expressions that were once a thoughtless, accepted part of our lexicon.

As children we said the following without emotion, not even a feeling of putting down a race. Some of the terms are pretty bad.

Jew down meant to try to get something for a lower price, a crude form of bargaining.

Chinese fire drill--at a stop sign or stop light someone yells "Chinese fire drill!" A load of teenagers jump out of the car, run around it one time (either direction), then drive away as if nothing happened.

Mexican overdrive: put your car in neutral to see how far you can go without pushing the gas pedal.

Paddy wagon: A term that was once common usage in Eastern cities. It refers to the days before police cars, when criminals or drunks were picked up and locked in an enclosed wagon with barred windows. I guess the cops were used to picking up drunken Irishmen, thus the use of Paddy (nickname for Patrick).

Indian burn: enclose someone's lower arm with your both fists, then twist in opposite directions. This really hurts.

Nips, wops, krauts, chinks, Japs, greasers, and wetbacks are what some called other ethnic groups back in the day, and thought nothing of it, probably because in "whitebread" San Fernando Valley, we knew no one of those ethnicities. The N-word was a more serious offense. I got my mouth washed out with soap for saying it at about age five. I picked it up on the playground having no idea what it meant. We weren't allowed to talk like that at home.

Polish jokes: Poles became the butt of a certain type of joke in the 60s, but I don't know why. The first one I ever heard was, "How do you tell the Polish guy at a wedding? He's the one wearing the clean white t-shirt." Well hahaha. Nothing amazingly funny about that.

Indian giver: a term for someone who gives something, then takes it back. It was an insulting put-down to be called this.

In a museum in Victoria BC, there's a small yet weighty machine once used in fish processing. It is called an "iron chink." In other words, it does the work of several Chinese men.

iron chink

A Chinese haircut: lock one arm around someone's neck to immobilize them, then using the knuckles of the other hand, rub hard on their scalp. Ouch. The Three Stooges were famous for this.

Jap flaps are a name for a special kind of flip-flops that have straw feet and velour straps.

Thankfully, we don't hear these terms any longer.

Bob and His Helms Truck

We had Adohr Dairy home delivery and lucky us, we also had the Helms bakery truck that cruised our neighborhood streets. We just called it the Helms man, as in, "go get your nickel--here comes the Helms man!"

Our Helms man's name was Bob and this is the truck he drove:

The rear was where the goodies were kept:

The Helms truck sold anything bread-ish. As with Adohr, the service was a boon to the families who owned only one car, the car that was absent most of the time with the husband at work.

Kids loved the Helms truck. A hard-earned nickel bought a glazed doughnut smothered in chocolate (my fave). Our Helms guy, Bob, knew the habits of folks on his route, including the school children. It wasn't a coincidence that he inched down the street by the school when the 3:00 bell rang. Any child with a coin in their pocket hit the jackpot.

Bob was the only Helms man we ever knew. I don't know his last name, or where he was from. Did he have a family? Don't know. And how well would a family get by on a Helms bakery truck income, whose products sold for nickels and dimes? Thinking about Helms reminds me what a nice guy Bob was.

Both Adohr and Helms neighborhood delivery began to disappear in the late 60s. A few miles from our house a drive-through place opened that sold the essentials--milk and milk products (even ice cream), eggs, and everything bread-y. We had two cars by then, so Mom could drive through this place any ol' time and tell the attendant what she wanted, without ever lugging all the kids into a grocery store for the essentials.

Adohr Milk Delivery

A favorite quaint memory of mine is that of the Adohr Man. In the 50s and 60s homes in our San Fernando Valley neighborhood had dairy products delivered to our front porch by Adohr dairy. Adohr Farms was at 18000 Ventura Blvd. in Tarzana, California (founded 1916!). Adohr had the largest Guernsey herd in the world, but we didn't know or care about that as kids. I just now read it on the internet.

Here's how home delivery worked: The night before our regular delivery day Mom put last week's empty milk bottles into the wire crate (see photo below) Adohr provided, and set it out on our front porch. A rolled up note was stuck into the neck of a bottle with our order for that day, as to how many bottles of milk we needed. And that was that. The next morning ice cold bottles of fresh milk magically appeared on our porch.

I remember that later you could get eggs, butter, cheese, and other dairy-related items delivered also. Am not sure if Adohr did that, or if another service delivered those items. Adohr milk was deliciously thick and creamy. Once in a while a bottle got knocked over and shattered all over the floor; that was tragic. Milk was more glamorous when it came in bottles.

Home delivery was a boon to families like ours who owned only one car--that was the norm then. In suburbia there was no nearby walk-to corner store selling the daily essentials. Once Dad drove off to work, Mom was stranded at home. Not only could Mom not run to the store any ol' time, but in fact, Mom didn't even drive until I was 5 or 6 years old.  The Adohr Man kept our young, growing family in milk.

Adohr Farms

Adohr milk bottle

Adohr crate

Adohr in the early days

Red Hats

A few weeks ago I took H and S to Kids Town (I think that's the name), a children's museum in Idaho Falls. They had such a blast that we stayed for hours. In the farm / western area was a red cowboy hat in the dress-up box. The light went on in my brain. "Why don't I get a photo of H wearing the hat, to compare with that one of me!" It's my favorite childhood photo of myself.

H was so not into sitting on a chair with this hat on. Her playtime was being sabotaged. Besides, she's a couple of years younger than I am in my photo. It was too much to expect her to be perky in her pose.

She is now 1 1/2. It will be a while before she'll be the right age for me to capture a 'red hat' pose. I hope Kids Town will still have the hat in two years.

Our Friendly Dog Named Sunny

About 1957 my folks brought this puppy into the family. They named him Sunny. Sunny turned out to be a very friendly dog, as evidenced in this film taken probably early 1958. We've had a ton of laughs watching this.  It was filmed in our backyard of our fairly new house in the San Fernando Valley; this was the first house my Mom ever lived in. She grew up in New York City apartments.

Sadly, Sunny misbehaved in so many ways that he eventually had to go live on a "farm," if you're familiar with that euphemism. His greatest sin was shredding my Dad's dress shirts that Mom hung out on the line. Hard to resist for a sprightly puppy dog, those taunting shirts swinging in the breeze.

I have wondered who took this movie. It's possible my grandparents were visiting from New York, and that Grandpa was taking it. But Gram does not appear in it, so I don't know for sure.

That's my brother and me running around.

Elementary School Class Photos

I have been meaning to post my elementary school pictures for a while, so that my kids could see them.  It's kind of fun to look back to see if any of my grandchildren look like me.   

Below the caption for each photo I've put where I am in very tiny print.

Kindergarten was spent at Langdon Avenue School, far from our house, far being 3 miles away on 2-lane roads that flooded when it rained.  There was no school bus, only a carpool with other families in the neighborhood.  Sometimes our group had to wait after school for our ride to show up, and we children did our best to get into trouble on those days.  The school was old, and next to it was an even older house that was abandoned.  It wasn't boarded up and we were convinced it was haunted by a witch.  The brave among took the dare to run through it.  One day we found a dead mouse in the bathtub.  We didn't go back after that.

Kindergarten with Mrs. Bell, 1959-1960

[me, 3rd row, far right]

Brand new Balboa Blvd. School opened in the fall of 1960; that's where I attended first through sixth grades.   Our neighborhood road did not go through to the school so we caught a bus down on Havenhurst Ave. that first year.  After that we walked the half mile. 

First grade: I was sick a lot during elementary, sometimes missing multiple weeks of class.  Mrs. Begly was actually the teacher I began first grade with, then got sick, and when I returned the school had moved me to Mrs. Jackson's class.  So I had 2 first days of first grade.

First Grade with Mrs. Jackson, 1960-1961

[me, 3rd row, second from left]

Second grade: Mr. Parmalee was big on spelling.  We had to learn long hard words, like the word responsibility, for example.  In second grade Jeff Harband (bottom row, center) stabbed my hand with a sharpened pencil.  Nothing was done.  Another boy whose name I forget used to punch me on the playground.  When I complained the duty teacher said, "that's how boys show they like you."   

Second Grade with Mr. Parmalee, 1961-1962

[me, second row, second from left]

Third grade: due to illness I missed learning long-division.  When I returned the teacher didn't catch me up and it took me years to become confident in that skill.

Third Grade with Mrs. Wolfe, 1962-1963

[me, 3rd row, 3rd from left]

Fourth grade: by this time I was a mostly excellent student and found out that was not a popular thing to be.  In the fall of fourth grade, President Kennedy was assassinated.  Mrs. Hamill broke the news to us.

Fourth Grade with Mrs. Hamill, 1963-1964

[me, second row, first on left]

Fifth grade: Mrs. Field let me be her messenger around the campus.  I loved the freedom of walking around the school with an important job to do.  Her confidence in me meant the world.

Fifth Grade with Mrs. Davis; the second term my teacher was Mrs. Field, who I loved, 1964-1965

[me, 3rd row, 3rd from right]

Sixth grade: my friend Sunny (second row, second from right) and I were elected class president and vice president; the second semester we switched roles.  We also were chosen for the most coveted job in the entire school: equipment room monitors.  During recess it was our job to dispense play equipment to the students.  And then play hide-and-seek in the room until recess was over.

Sixth Grade with Mr. Ressler, 1965-1966

[me, 4th row, second from left]

When Smokers Ruled the Earth

How refreshing it is to go into a store or theatre or place of business and not have to hold your breath for the duration of the visit! In restaurants you don't even have to choose anymore, between smoking and non-smoking, fumer or non-fumer. It's a brave new world out there, and I for one am grateful beyond belief. I paid my dues in discomfort, illness, and suffering over decades of breathing second-hand smoke.

Both my parents smoked, and both paid a high price for the privilege, eventually. Mom picked up smoking when she was working in New York City in the late 40s. Her Mom smoked, and her Dad smoked a pipe. If you watch a movie from that era, you'll notice that pretty much everyone inhaled. Dad never smoked until his WW2 Navy years, when cigarettes were distributed to the enlisted for free. On board ship all but a few partook.

I absolutely despised smoking, but was stuck with it in my own house. It was like the unfortunate folks victimized by a coke plant or steel mill going up right next door--it wasn't going away, but since it was home, it became an integral unpleasant part of life. I despised the smell, the smoke, the filthy ashtrays, and the other connected dangers. It was common for the still-burning butts to be thrown on the ground and more than once I stepped on a hot one in my bare feet. When I went away to college at BYU, with not a smoker for miles, I couldn't figure out why the smell of cigarettes permeated my student apartment. Then I realized it was my clothes. Holy mortification!!  Being deeply immersed in cigarette smoke for my whole life, I never knew that my clothes reeked all the time.

Zero rules against smoking existed, so children and other non-smokers were subjected to second-hand smoke everywhere. You ate in a restaurant, you breathed cigarette smoke. You went grocery shopping, you breathed smoke. You wanted to enjoy the beach or movie theatre, you breathed in smoke. And you flew on an airplane, you breathed smoke. Yeah. I don't know when it happened, but smoking sections were created in closed spaces such as theatres and airplanes. Can you guess how effective that was? Smokers might be confined to the last 5 rows, but the air was shared by all.

My folks smoked enough that the cigarette coupons they collected from the back of each package could be redeemed for some good stuff. There was a "cigarette coupon redemption center" somewhere nearby--I vaguely remember going there. My folks gave me a guitar for my birthday and guess how they paid for it?  In cigarette coupons of course. Mom told me never to reveal that fact, but I just did.

About the time I got into high school I grew bolder dealing with smoking. At high school football games my friends and I vocally denounced the smokers in the stands who were polluting the air. They called us rude teenagers. My brother and I began calling cigarettes "cancer sticks" to my folks' faces. They didn't react. Guess they thought it was a passing phase. In my first year of college my Mom hired me to clean house for her weekly. I told her I would make the house spic and span, but I wasn't touching ashtrays, and if I found packs of cigarettes around they were going in the garbage. So, she took care of the ashtrays and my folks began hiding their cigs.

The second-hand smoke damaged my health. I was prone to exercise-induced asthma already, and breathing in three packs of cigs a day didn't help. As a child I couldn't run around the block without gasping for breath. But for my folks it was life and death. On New Years' Eve 1980 my Dad had a heart attack. We rushed him to the hospital emergency room. The first thing they asked him was, "George, do you smoke?" "I used to," he said. "When did you quit,?" the doc asked. Dad's reply: "About 30 minutes ago." And he never smoked again and lived 25 more years. Mom wasn't so lucky. I remember when Daniel was about five years old he said to his Grandma, "Grandma, you shouldn't smoke." She told him he was absolutely right. But she kept on, and died of a heart attack at age 67.

So, why does anyone smoke? They get polluted air, filth, danger of fire, life-threatening illnesses. It's a mystery to me why that appeals to anyone. And now, my favorite Far Side cartoon ever:

Return of the Sinclair Dinosaur!

A couple of months ago my blog featured my childhood love of our kelly green plastic blow-up Sinclair dinosaur.

One of the blog comments that day was from Sinclair itself, inviting me to submit my childhood story to their Sinclair memories contest, which I did.  In appreciation they sent me this soft furry stuffed dino:

Isn't it cute?!   It's even cuter than the blow-up plastic one from the 60s.  It's too small to sit on, but that's ok.  Given my current roly-poly-ness I wouldn't be sitting on the old blow-up one anyway.

The Disappearing Railroad Blues

A favorite childhood memory of mine was listening to the faint sound of a distant train whistle winging through the night and in through my bedroom window, landing on me, who was usually lying sleepless in my bed. The Southern Pacific lines ran in every direction through our San Fernando Valley. One line traveled northwest through San Fernando, over near the old Sunkist orange juice plant.  Another snaked west and north through Van Nuys on its way to Central Valley. And the Coast Line ran a few miles south of our house through the mountains, toward the Pacific Ocean. The whistle, borne to me in the quiet of the evening, piqued my curiosity about what was at the other end of those rails.

Along with listening in the dark for a lonesome whistle was the thrill of being stopped at a railroad crossing. Boxcars from all over the country whizzed past the windshield of our car, our front row seat on the world. Each picturesque boxcar seemed to be throwing out a story of its travels, and of what it had seen. Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Cotton Belt, Pittsburgh and Lake Erie, Baltimore and Ohio, Soo, Norfolk and Western, Wabash, Canadian Pacific, Denver and Rio Grand, and a score of others were as magic carpets, leading me to imaginary places my little brain couldn't even fathom.

San Fernando Valley Train Routes, circa 1930

My number one favorite boxcar to watch for was Great Northern Railway. That mountain goat perched on a cliff just looks cool, that's all. Not  until decades later did I discover that my great-grandfather's brothers all worked for Great Northern. And, three generations of my Mom's ancestors had worked for the Boston and Maine Railroad in the 1800s. Railroading runs in the blood.

My normal childhood activities incorporated railroading. We jumped rope to "Engine engine number 9, rolling down the Chicago line. If the train jumps off the track, do you want your money back?!"  My favorite song in my Dad's repertoire was "I've Been Working on the Railroad." We lined up empty cardboard boxes to form a choo-choo train through the living room. TV westerns were full of stirring railroad scenes. Old railroad stations fascinated me and still do. Visiting Union Station in Portland sends me back to a simpler time. Harry Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) once said the most thrilling words ever are "anchor chains, plane motors and train whistles." Yessiree.

In 1976 Craig and I traveled through the British Isles via rail. In 1981 I took my first ride on an American passenger train, a night ride from Boise to Salt Lake. What a thrill to be ON the train that was blowing the whistle, and passing through scenery where cars couldn't follow. About 5:30 a.m. the conductor softly woke up the passengers to alert each one that the train was passing through Logan Canyon, and we might want to take a look. We looked. Out one window of the train was the flank of a mountain and on the other was . . . nothing.  Just air, as we peered down into the canyon far below.

We have a half dozen of these not far from our house:

I've hiked over a few of these old trestles. Can't help it--I must see what's on the other end. A few of them are still occasionally used by logging trains. One day Steven and I hiked through the mile-long tunnel that runs between Helvetia and Burlington. My sister and I once had to claw our way up a hill to escape from a train that burst out of the mile-long San Fernando tunnel. And in high school my friends and I leaped off the railroad bern behind Bonelli's house when a train suddenly rushed around the bend.

Well, the heydey of railroading is long gone, but I have my treasured memories. Arlo Guthrie sings in his ballad The City of New Orleans, about a doomed railroad system:

And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rail still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
Passengers will please refrain:
This train's got the disappearin' railroad blues.

This train fan's got the disappearin' railroad blues.


Bonus: View this cute little train-related safety clip is posted on YouTube. 

The Sinclair Dinosaur

As I drove through Sugar City Idaho last week I passed an small billboard advertising Sinclair gas; I didn't know those stations were still around.  We certainly don't have any in my neck of the woods. Seeing the sign was a trip down memory lane.

One of my favorite childhood possessions was a Sinclair dinosaur.  The station may have been giving them away; I know my folks wouldn't have paid for one, at least not if it cost over 10 cents!  But free or not, one day Dad brought home a really really extreme green blow-up dinosaur for me and my siblings, which looked something like this.  Only larger.  Big enough to sit on.

And looking through some photos today I found one of the very dinosaur, circa 1960.  That's me on the left with 2 of my younger siblings.  We played with that thing till it gave up the ghost.

I'm posting this for others who might have memories of some silly simple thing that brought them much pleasure.  Perhaps we've forgotten the time very important relatives came to visit, or a special trip out of town, yet we remember meaningless stuff like the Sinclair dinosaur.

Childhood Automobiles

Personally I don't care a lot about the car I drive, only that it isn't butt-ugly [think Citron or Studebaker] and doesn't break down on me. And I've been pretty lucky on both those points with a couple of exceptions. Here's the cars that were part of my life before I got married. Will cover the others later.

Chrysler? green. This car [see below] is one of my vague early memories. Perhaps this is the same car Dad called a Plymouth Deluxe which he bought new for $1800 in 1950. Am not sure except that car was green. Looking at this Plymouth Deluxe I saw on the internet, I would say yes, that's the car.  Only not purple and am pretty sure it did not have whitewall tires.

1956 Buick Super, gray, with those holes in the front side panels. Holes in the front side panels seems like a strange choice of decor. Dad said driving this was like driving a truck. This car could drive off a cliff and land unscathed, it was that massive. Here it is in all its bigness:

1957 Cadillac, blue. Dad bought it used for $800. It was similar to the above photo but the blue was lighter.


1961 Buick Special station wagon we bought brand new for $2500. It was white with red interior. Dad drove us from California to New York and back again in this car in 1962. No seat-belts!  The kids horsed around in the 'way back' which was cold red metal. I learned to drive in this car in 1970 and later ruined the transmission by putting it in park before it was completely stopped. Picture this in white with all 6 of us squished in it:

1962 Pontiac Tempest, creamy yellowish; bought from a VP at Lockheed where Dad worked. It was so sluggish which was annoying and possibly unsafe. Dave used to yell to Mom while she was driving, "look out, you're gonna hit that car/ person/ fire hydrant/ curb/ etc.!" [couldn't find good photo]


1964 Chevy Impala, originally gray until we painted it a sicky blue; a sea-worthy land yacht. I got hit in this car about 1971 and it hardly made a dent. To be fair I have to confess that the car was at a standstill at that moment, but was hit by someone going about 40 mph. We bought it from our friend Bob Price.

1964 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight, light blue, bought from our friends the McCollums (Neil and Pat) who always had way nicer cars than we did. The photo below is that car parked at Mt. Pinos with me at the wheel, but don't worry I wasn't driving at age 14. I was recuperating from a nasty toboggan accident that occurred an hour before.

 


1967 Dodge Dart sedan, dark green. My favorite car because it was the closest to "cool" that we ever owned. It drove well and was responsive. It had a bad habit of getting a stuck choke so I figured out how to remove the lid to the carburetor, stick a pencil in the choke, start the engine, remove pencil, replace lid, close hood, drive away.  It helped to not be in a hurry to go anywhere. Picture this car a deep forest green:

1972 Buick Skylark light creamy tan-yellow. Bought brand new in the San Fernando Valley (from Walter Ruff dealership?) for $3900. Driving home from the dealer it balked going over Newhall Pass and we found it had a crimp in the gas line. We had a devil of a time the next day getting it back up over Newhall Pass so the dealer could repair it. This car was the most "luxurious" we ever owned.

Childhood Used to Be Dangerous (But More Fun)

On Bridget's blog is a video of Magda going down a slide. She scooted her little self forward on the dull plastic ramp until she was able to glide a few feet to the bottom. At that point the slide levels out so that she didn't go flying off into oblivion. Perfect for a 15-month-old.

Unfortunately, slides and other equipment made for kids now days is across-the-board dull. Slides that don't slide, monkey bars too close to the ground, and I rarely see teeter-totters (see-saws) or merry-go-rounds anymore. Kids are safer but they sure miss out on fun.

Teeter-totters were the best. It was a balancing act to get onto them--someone had to hold your seat in mid-air when you climbed on but once you had a roughly equal weight on the other end, how fun it was to push up to the sky, then feel your stomach flop as you hit the ground. On the negative side, a careless or hateful partner on the other end could leap off unexpectedly, slamming you to the ground with enough force to knock your breath out. But that rare misery was worth it for the excitement.

Slides were great. They were made of metal and could be sky-high. Metal slides zoomed you down at top speed and sent you flying off the end onto the asphalt or dirt. On a burning summer day you could increase the thrill of the ride by using a sheet of Mom's wax paper to polish the slide. Then you hurtled down at freeway speed  and shot off the edge, getting scorched by hot metal all the way down. 

A favorite childhood experience was when a neighborhood mom took a group of kids over to a nearby empty hill, with cardboard boxes, and let us hop in and slide down willy-nilly. I guess sometimes we got overturned and ended up with a mouthful of dirt.

I don't doubt that kids got hurt on toys before safety measures were in place. My brother slashed his chest on a rideable fire engine with sharp metal edges. A friend broke her arm when she fell off a skate board in the day when the wheels were inadequately small.  Probably worse than that happened  to kids. But we survived the fun, eventually healed and learned to be tough.