A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS

From the chapter "The Gentlest Decade"

A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS

Customized cars and hotrods were all the rage.  The coolest cars that we letched after had V-8 engines, steel or glass-packed mufflers, dual exhausts with chrome extensions, fender skirts, whitewall tires with chrome spinner hub caps, two radio antennas, two outside mirrors, no hood ornament, Frenched headlights, and tucked and rolled Naugahyde upholstery.   The 1949 to 1953 Fords and Mercurys with the flat-head V8 engine were the automobiles of choice for the customized car aficionado. 

This was the era of the 1955 Thunderbird and the 1957 Chevy.  Cars back then were made from steel and chrome with the focus on style, not economy.  They were certainly not made out of plastic and rubber, like today’s autos.  Cars didn’t have seat belts and kids could stand in the front seat between their parents because there were no child safety seats.  Most cars had seat covers that could be replaced if they wore out.  The body style of the new cars changed each year, allowing you to keep track of a car’s year by what it looked like.  That was relatively easy to do as Pontiacs , for example, were made in one size.  They had different models, like the Catalina or the Star Chief, but there was no mistaking a 1955 Pontiac Catalina for a 1955 Hudson Hornet.  Most folks who lived back in the fifties can probably correctly identify a 1957 Chevrolet, or 1955 Thunderbird.  Do you know any Generation X’ers who can pick a 1985 Camry out of an automobile lineup?  The highway to progress is littered with automobiles that have been sent to the great junkyard in the sky, including some old favorites like the Studebaker, Kaiser-Frazier, Nash Rambler, DeSoto, Imperial and Hudson, to name a few.

Milk was packaged in glass bottles with cardboard lids, and delivered cold and fresh to your front door.  These milk bottles contained milk that was so rich the top fifth of the milk was pure cream.  That probably spawned the saying, “The cream always rises to the top.”  There did come a time when you could order “homogenized milk.”  This was milk that had the cream mixed in with the milk, and not separated from it. 

Shredded Wheat was packaged in a rectangular box, three layers deep, with four pieces of shredded wheat per layer.  The layers were separated by cardboard cards that had a complete Lone Ranger episode drawn on the cards.  You had to get down to the last layer to know if Kemo Sabe survived the bad men or not.  (Back then, all boxes of cereal came with some sort of prize at the bottom of the box.  We usually cut the bottom of the box open first, to get to the prize.  The rest of the cereal in the box generally went stale before we got around to eating it).  A piece of shredded wheat, several spoons of sugar, and some ice cold milk meant you were about to enjoy the real breakfast of champions. 

Another treat that involved milk, that was wonderful any time of the day or night, was to crumble several Graham Crackers up into a large mason jar and add milk.  Just the right amount of mixing turned the cookies and milk into a wonderful taste treat that was slowly eaten with an iced-tea spoon.  Substituting Vanilla Wafers for the Graham Crackers gave you an even sweeter version.  Either way, you were assured of getting your daily allotment of calories and carbohydrates with one glass of the ambrosial treat.  Today you can buy a factory-made bar of “Graham crackers and milk.” Duh; I don’t think so.

Oleo, a white chemical substitute for butter, came in a plastic bag that had a clump of orange coloring.  It took ten minutes of squeezing and kneading the bag to mix the white oleo with the orange coloring, resulting in a pale yellow mixture that bore just a slight resemblance to real butter.  Actually, there was no way real butter and oleo margarine would ever be mistaken for each other.  If you have been lead to believe that margarine is a food, leave some outside on a dish.  The flies won’t even bother with it.

Aspirin tablets came packaged in a 2” by 2” flat tin container that fit in your pocket; it was easily opened by pinching one corner of the tin between your thumb and forefinger.  There were no “child-proof,” meaning no grownup can open them, containers in existence back then.  Merchandise was displayed and sold, as a rule, without any sort of protective packaging.  You can buy very few things today that do not require the use of a sharp knife, cold chisel, or Skilsaw® to open.  I recently bought a new razor, and try as I might, I could not get the hard plastic package opened.  I took it back to the drug store and demanded they open the package so I could get to my new razor.  They couldn’t, although the manager broke a pair of scissors and almost cut off a finger trying.  I finally freed my new four-bladed razor by using a hacksaw and a pair of vise grip pliers.  I believe it would be cheaper to let shoplifters steal a couple of razors and save the extra money the hard plastic packaging must be costing.

The daily newspaper, a pack of chewing gum, candy bars, popcorn, a loaf of light bread, funny books, and five pieces of Bazooka bubblegum were some of the things that cost just a nickel.  But, as a wise old sage once asked, “What good is a railroad that costs a nickel if you don’t have a nickel?”  Throughout history, the price of things has always been relative, just as Einstein taught. 

Americus was prosperous enough to have two “dime stores.”  You might have called them “five and dime” stores, although they sold things that cost more than a dime.  One year I bought for my mom at Christmas a bottle of genuine imported French perfume that cost a whole quarter at “Kresses.”  The other dime store was named, “McClellan’s.”  They both sold fresh roasted nuts and freshly popped popcorn for a nickel a bag; roasted cashews could be procured for a dime.  These types of stores were probably the precursors of the Wal-Mart’s and Kmart’s of today.  They would turn over in their graves if they could see what they have wrought.

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