[David]

Does anyone else remember horse drawn milk wagons delivering door to door? It is still a distinct memory for me visiting my grandmother in Saskatoon during the '50s. By the time we moved there in 1963 they had gone the way of the dodo but we still got home delivery!
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

[Erin]

I definetely do not remember that. But when I was growing up our milk man Walt delivered in a truck that would probably remember the horse and carriage. He still drives that thing to this day, I know because he used to deliver to my store a few years back. We could hear that thing chugging along before we even saw the truck. The farm was in the valley and we were on a plateau, it always amazed me the truck made it everyday.
My grandmother was a kid in the 1920's in Sasketchewan she took a horse drawn sleigh to school in the winter.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[David]

Believe it or not Erin, I was born in 1951 and, due to a blizzard blocking the road in to the farm I was taken home by horse drawn sleigh!

And the milk truck also brought eggs and cheese and butter! Don't believe there is any more home delivery here or in Saskatoon, sigh.
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

[Erin]

Ahhh, the good old days. I was taken home in a giant blue Ford with vinyl seats. Those 70's were all about taste.
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[Barbara]

I can remember (when really young in the 50's) my uncle had a business delivering blocks of ice to people without fridges.
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Barbara

[madameshawshank]

I'm a '49 babe...can remember the ice truck in our back lane...my best friend Robyn had an ice fridge...wonders of wonders we had one of the new ones....vaguely can remember the long poles being sold for washing lines...vague...wonder if our children will have vague memories as well

ohhhhhhhhhh the vinyl seats...talk about class..well, speaking of cars and seats..must share this..

was walking to a car park after a visit to the Sydney Fish Markets...my oh my..

a long uphill climb ahead 'n lo 'n behold a Rolls Royce parked ...very fancy Rolls..man in white coat...polishing same...chat time methought...

it was part of a hire fleet...and, wait for this ma dears......this one used to carry Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth!....I was inches away from the leather!...pretty please I asked...I'll take my shoes off...didn't need to although he did check to see they were clean enough..

and in I went...and sat I did...and waved to the man in the white coat I did as well...and laughed ..and oh my it surely was a divine car...

so, Elizabeth and I have shared leather ..so to speak
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"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

[simona]

Shalom,
When I saw topic- Nostalgia, the first thing coming to my mind was the ice box and the ice horse-carriage. First in Bucharest where I was born ( I'm a 49' vintage, like you, madame) , then in Tel Aviv. It's so typical of our childhood.
But what was more exciting about topic-Nostalgia, wa to find out that there were some "oldies" like me in this very very youthful forum. But of course, who is nostalgic at 25?
David, Barbara, Madame, ( and other 50+), lets show the young ones that we are still useful!

No more war, more nostalgia!

[Erin]

At 26 I am nostalgic for Mister Rogers, Walt the milkman, acid wash, splash paint, Poppels, rollerskates and most of all imagination which I don't feel is being fostered as much anymore since it is easier to let kids watch a movie or play a video game.
Oh and I am kidding about the acid wash and splash paint. Some things are better left in the 80's.
I also firmly believe that you only get old when you let yourself. I plan to be like my mother and who are both vintage '48 and see my example. My father's nickname that we gave him around 50 is the Incredible Hulk, and likes to take my husband and brother to task regularly. My mom is a tiny little blonde that is currently tearing it up in the coorporate world. Celebrate your age it is something to be proud of!!
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"It's watery....and yet there's a smack of ham."

"It's hot ham water."

[Jim]

[David]

Wow Jim! That would have been wonderful at 10! where did you grow up?
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

[Debbie]

Good evening!

Wow, some of the memories this triggers. Whilst I am not in the 50 bracket, I am certainly never going to see the 20's bracket again.....

I lived in a fairly cut off area in New South Wales, Australia as a child (it is now a town and people commute from there to go to work every day!) and I can remember the milk truck coming up the mountain to our area twice a week. We also had the vegetable truck and themeat truck would come up once a week and park in a spot near the highway and all the people in the area would meet there to do their groceries. My first kitten was found under the vege truck and I called it Spud (potato for non Aussies).

My Mum used to bake all our bread and cakes and biscuits once a week and we had one of the first big domestic freezers which she used to fill to capacity with all sorts of goodies.

We grew strawberries, figs (very progressive for Scottish descent Australians back then), corn, tomatoes, lettuce, peas, beans, potatoes, pumpkin, cabbage and probably a few other things which I have forgotten now.

Our power supply was not reliable and I can remember my Mum having to throw out all the contents of the fridge if our power was out for too long. I can also remember being told to not touch the fridge or freezer if the power started to flicker, her theory being to leave it as cold as possible as long as possible in the hope of saving food if the power went out.

We always had a supply of candles and oil lamps sitting in a particular part of the kitchen and matches were beside them ready for blackouts. I cannot imagine leaving matches near candles or oil lamps nowdays! We just knew that we couldn't play with them as they could be essential later on.

Our water came from a tank and quite often we had not received enough rain to fill it so my Dad would order water to be delivered and the tank would be topped up with "town water". When the tank was full there were always frogs nearby and in really hot summers the snakes would come to seek the moisture from the tank and to catch the small aimals that also came for a drink. A major rule was to never ever ever go near the tank if the grass was not freshly mown. You could not see the snakes if the grass was even the slightest bit grown above a clipped manicure.

After many years we also had a bakery truck come up the mountain and park beside the vegetable truck and meat truck. I can remember what a treat it was to have white bread that came from the shop!!! My Mum always made healthy brown bread and as kids we craved the white bread that other kids had at school. Nowdays I would love to have her homemade brown bread as you can't get it anymore (either flour or made up bread) and I don't like white sliced bread from the shop. Typical isn't it, you don't appreciate what you've got till its gone.

Wow, I could talk about these things for ages. Also my Grandmothers house which still had an outside Aussie dunny.... full of redback spiders and the odd black snake..... how I hated going to the toilet at her house as a small child. If there were no spiders or snakes you still had to poise over the wooden seat (which always gaveyou splinters in the ...) which was propped on an empty cut down 44gallon drum and over a open hole. To my small self I was convinced that all sorts of horrible monsters lurked down there waiting to bite me or worse (but don't ask what worse was back then because just the thought of something down there was "worse"). My grandparents were quite poor as my Grandfather was a fisherman and some seasons did not make enough. They always had fresh seafood and homegrown veges, but I can remember newspaper in the toilet a few times. Mum would put tissues in our pockets and tell us not to say anything to our Grandmother. She also had a clothesline that was held up with a prop... every time we played chasings in the yard we knocked out the prop and where smacked for dropping the washing in the dirt.

Thank you for this topic. It is alot of fun and it will be interesing to hear about peoples memories in other countries. I am going to email my Mum now and do a little reminiscing with her. It will make me feel like I am back at home and we are all around the dinner table talking about "the time when..."
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If you cannot feel your arteries hardening, eat more cheese. If you can, drink more red wine. Diet is just "die" with a "t" on the end. Exercise is walking into the kitchen.

[Jim]

[David]

Hi Jim!Poughkeepsie! I've always loved that name. Canada has been my home for 40 of my 50+years. I spent 5 delightful years in Australia during the 70's and 5 interesting years in the Cayman Islands during the 80's. And there was a year bumming around Europe. Other than that my life has been spend 1/3 on the west coast of Canada, 1/3 in Saskatchewan and 1/3 here in Central Canada, near the national capital, Ottawa. And here I shall remain.
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Vivant Linguae Mortuae!!

[melinda]

Haha....I am also a '49 vintage...seems like there are a lot of us on this forum (with a subject like nostalgia I guess the "youngsters" don't even click on it) Growing up in new orleans, I remember various patients of my grandfather (he was an md) giving him bundles of just caught catfish, flounder, redfish and sometimes wild ducks (still my favorite but I don't get any wild Louisiana rice-fed ducks in VA).

I also remember picking huge wild dewberries as a family outing (and getting covered with chigger bites) ..we just ate them plain or with sugar. We also gathered pecans and sat for hours shelling them for various uses.....I like em straight from the shell.
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Make me half the person my dog thinks I am.

[Barbara]

...and who remembers sitting in a mulberry tree eating the fruit and throwing it at their brothers (or sisters) and coming home with purple stained fingers and clothes?
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Barbara