Select Page
Top Ten Things to Love about Growing Up in the 1960s

Top Ten Things to Love about Growing Up in the 1960s

Parade-Hoey-StrattonI am a child of the 1960s. Not the hippie, flowerchild variety. But an actual my-elementary-school-years-spanned-the-decade variety. Thinking back on those years, here are 10 things that made those great years to be a kid.

10. Year after year, food manufacturers created amazing, space-age convenience foods like Tang, Pringles, Tab, and Dream Whip.

9.  Walt Disney on Sunday nights. American kids were sure Uncle Walt was talking directly to them when he introduced The Walt Disney Show every Sunday evening.

8. NASA’s space program was a wonder to behold. I was in kindergarten or first grade when John Glenn orbited. By junior high, men were walking on the moon.

7. In the 1960s, the whole town showed up for high school basketball and football games, music concerts, and school plays. Without the distraction of cell phones, iPods, and tablets, the audience’s entire attention was focused on the kids.

6. A nickel bought a big candy bar. A quarter bought a bagful.

5. All the kids in the neighborhood gathered on summer evenings to pay Kick the Can until porch lights came on–the signal that it was time to go home.

4. Summer slumber parties in the backyard. The thought of child abductions or other dangers never crossed our minds. Or our parents’.

3. Weddings. The most glamorous wedding was my ballet teacher’s because her bridesmaids wore gold lame gowns. But the most fun weddings were when my older cousins got married and our parents were so busy talking that we younger cousins could gorge on cake, mints, and nuts to our hearts’ content.

2. Real letters from friends and family in the mail. Long ones. Several times a week.

1. Living within 90 miles of all of Mom’s family and within 150 miles of Dad’s and knowing I belonged to something bigger than me, bigger than the people who lived in our house, something big enough to keep all of us safe.

Did you grow up in the 1960s? What did you love about being a kid in that decade? And be sure to stop by next week for a look at what wasn’t so great about growing up during those years.

Save

This Fantastic Friday, I’m Becoming My Grandma Hess

This Fantastic Friday, I’m Becoming My Grandma Hess

At our family reunion, our generation will realize once again that we are becoming our parents and stalwart grandparents, Vernon & Josephine Hess.Tomorrow the Man of Steel and I are taking Mom to a family reunion where many cousins will gather to catch up on each other’s lives and to reminisce about our parents and grandparents. As we talk, the realization will come upon many of us, myself included, that we are becoming more and more like our parents and our stalwart grandparents, Vernon and Josephine Hess. This Fantastic Friday post from June of 2009 offers a picture of what that means.

A few years ago my older sister, who hit fifty long before I did, said she was getting more like our Grandma Hess (our mother’s mother) every year. “Maybe it’s happening to you,” I thought, “but it won’t happen to me.” I was so wrong! Since turning fifty almost three years ago, I have developed some strange quirks that can be traced directly to Grandma. The most notable of these traits are:

  • A growing belief that oatmeal deserves its own food group, should be eaten for every breakfast and added to all baked goods.
  • A penchant for big, flower-patterned, cover-up aprons.
  • Snoring.
  • The habit of spitting on a tissue (though Grandma used a hankie) and using it to wash the dirty face of any child related to me.
  • Wintering over my geraniums, rooting geraniums, planting geraniums in my garden, etc.
  • Ditto for asparagus ferns, vinca vines, and philodendrons.
  • Not wanting to spend money unless it’s really necessary, and nothing is really all that necessary.
  • A need to check my flower gardens every day, pick flowers for bouquets whenever possible, and put the flowers in the vase (see photograph above) that belonged to Grandma’s mother.
  • Thinking the best way to celebrate any winter event is to cram everyone into my house and serve a heavy meal.
  • Thinking the best way to celebrate any summer event is to have a family picnic.

Some of Grandma’s traits I haven’t picked up yet and hope the Man of Steel or my kids chain me to a wall before I do are:

  • Taking all the sugar, creamer, catsup, mustard, and any other condiment packets, along with as many straws and napkins that will fit in a purse, from restaurant booths.
  • Buying cheap clothes, worthy of wearing at my own funeral, at Crazy Daze and putting them in the back of the closet until the big day arrives.
  • Belching.
  • Watching Lawrence Welk every Saturday night.
  • Knowing the life story of every entertainer on Lawrence Welk and relating them to my grandchildren.
  • Asking my kids to cut my toenails when I can afford a podiatrist.
  • Requiring kids to wait thirty minutes after a meal before they go swimming.

Unfortunately, a few years ago I would have told my family to chain me to a wall if I snored, spit on a tissue or wore a flower-patterned apron. So I’m probably doomed to pick up a few more Grandma quirks every few years. But if the Lawrence Welk oddities come last, I’ll be eternally grateful.

A-one, and a-two, and a….

Petal Dancing This Fantastic Friday

Petal Dancing This Fantastic Friday

crab apple petal danceThe Man of Steel cut down the dying crab apple tree outside our bedroom window 6 years ago. But the memory of its beauty and my sweet, laughing children remain fresh in my mind, thanks to the post below. I hope it makes you smile.

Earlier this week, the crabapple tree that guards our bedroom window began to flower. Yesterday, in the soft, warm breeze, it began to sluff off it’s blossoms petal by petal in a slow and lovely dance. They looped and twirled and floated along until the west wind set them, ever so gently, between the waiting blades of green, green grass.

I watched them dance, fresh and pink, and thought of my children. One May day years ago, Allen and Anne stood beneath the tree while Hiram shook the branches and petals rained upon their hair and shoulders. Our children danced, their hands raised high to catch the soft flood. Hiram’s mother, here for Mother’s Day, laughed as she snapped picture after picture. Finally the kids, tired and sweaty, flopped onto the greenish-pink, trampled grass.

The tree is dying, has been dying for years, was dying while Hiram shook the branches. All that’s left is one large limb, and we know that this year, after many seasons of procrastination, the tree must come down. “But wait,” I asked my husband, “until it blooms again, until after the petal dance.”

Yesterday, when the breeze arose, I took my mother-in-law’s place behind the camera and took picture after picture of the petal dance. If you look closely, beyond the wind-shaken branch, you can see them falling, – tiny, hazy, pink raindrops. And I think if you are still enough, patient enough, then perhaps you will see what I do: two precious children, arms raised high in a springtime dance, so happy, so young, so loved.

Fantastic Friday: Our Boys are Still Men

Fantastic Friday: Our Boys are Still Men

AdrianWatching our children mature and strike out on their own is a great joy of parenting. This Fantastic Friday post first appeared in April of 2009, but our delight in the way the boys who once graced our home have become men continues. And our memories of them are still as strong and sweet as ever.

Our Boys Are Men

One of our favorite people in the whole world ate supper with us last night. Adrian, a Romanian foreign exchange student who lived with us for several months in 2001, was back in Iowa for a week before starting his new job in Singapore. He walked in the kitchen, and it was as if he’d never left, as if we were still an integral part of his life.

The best things about Adrian remained unchanged – his enthusiasm for adventure and travel, his love for his family and his delight in the people who have been part of his life. But, as we caught up on each other’s lives, we could see how our boy has changed. His story of landing his first job showed us how determined he’s become, how serious he is about contributing to society, how sober he is about the present financial downturn.

Allen’s attitude on the phone last weekend was a duplicate of Adrian’s. He was serious about life, grateful to have found his dream job in a down economy, responsible and optimistic, apprehensive about the future, but determined to move forward.

I reflected on their similar attitudes and realized what has happened to them since 2001. In spite of the times, or perhaps because of them, our boys have become men. Unless I am mistaken, they will be fine men, the kind who not only make the world a better place, but also find joy while doing so, even when times are hard.

Our boys are men, and my heart is glad.

Top Ten Memories of a Bedroom Set

Top Ten Memories of a Bedroom Set

This old bedroom set has been part of my life as long as I can remember. It once belonged to Dad’s mom, who died the year before I was born. It was promised to me, even though my sister and I shared it and a bedroom when we were kids. It moved with the Man of Steel and me when we married. When we outgrew it, it moved to our daughter’s bedroom. Last weekend it moved again, to the home she and her husband just purchased. But a few days beforehand, I used my camera to record some favorite memories about it.

bedroom set 110. My sister and I were quite territorial. We frequently measured the headboard and traced a line at it’s exact middle with our fingers and threatened, “If you cross this line, I’m gonna scratch your eyes out.” Then, if either of us poked so much as a toenail onto the other sister’s side, we scratched like wild cats, though our eyes are intact.

bedroom set 29.  We were also quite territorial about whose got which drawers in the bureau. As I recall, Mom had to come in to assign them. She was good at assigning things since she was a teacher.

bedroom set 38.  During junior high, I broke the bell of a plastic oboe on this bed post. It’s an ugly story. Trust me, you don’t want to hear it.

Bedroom set 47. Also in junior high, I set our new hot roller set, with special steaming feature, on the mirror dresser and plugged it in. Mere minutes later, the rollers were hot and steamy, the dresser top’s finish was gone, and Mom was livid. In case your wondering, my junior high years were the nadir of my existence.

Bedroom Set 56. Also during my junior high years in the 1960s, Mom and her sister scored some free, discontinued wall paper sample books from a local paint store and used them to line every dresser drawer in both their houses. Don’t ask me why they did it or why I can’t bear to take the liners out and throw them away.

Bedroom Set 65. The first time the Man of Steel and I changed the sheets on the bed, about a week after we got home from our honeymoon, we found strings of jingle bells tucked between the fitted sheet corners and the mattress. Turned out my mother and grandmother, neither of whom ever said the word s-e-x out loud in my presence, pulled the prank. “Did you hear them jingle (insert significant eyebrow wiggle here) now and then?” Mom asked.

Bedroom Set 74. One night, when I was 7 months pregnant, 5-year-old Allen dived in between the Man of Steel and me during a thunderstorm. With the Man of Steel clinging to his side of the mattress and my stomach dangling dangerously over mine, we looked over Allen’s head and said, “We have got to get a bigger bed.”

Bedroom Set 83. When we moved into our house along the gravel road, our elderly neighbor, Marnie Goeppinger, brought housewarming gifts for our kids. She gave Allen a framed print of a Scottish soldier in a tall hat and kilt. Anne received these ceramic birds, Kay Fitch collectables, which graced the top of the mirror dresser for years.

Bedroom set 92. Around age 4, Anne discovered that sharp metal objects could be used to “write” on wood. She practiced writing the first letter of her name numerous times and drew a self-portrait before she was caught in the act.

Bedroom set 101. A year or so late, we heard a dreadful racket from Anne’s bedroom. We went upstairs and found her standing on the top of the mirror dressers, wearing her tap shoes, and practicing tap steps. When we told her to get down, she said, “But all the floors have carpets. This is the only place that makes the right noise.”

Oh, the memories. Here’s looking forward to more of them as Anne and her husband prepare for the birth of their first child in April. Do you have a piece of furniture with good memories attached? Share them in the comment box if you like.