Thursday, December 31, 2009
10:37 PM
Common Household Items In Original Packaging 4
Oh my GOSH, do I love this stuff, even today!
10:16 PM
Common Household Items In Original Packaging 3
Original Packaging
We always used Crest until Close-Up came out. My mom started using that and I followed suit not long after. As best I remember, Dad and Bernie used Crest until then, too but I can't remember for certain. Either way, Crest was in our house most every year of my life.
Getting a bendy straw was a very special thing when I was a kid. We weren't allowed to to get them just anytime. Mostly, we just got them when we were sick.
Who doesn't love the multi-colored balloons on the Wonder sack!
My sweet Mama always put Noxzema on my every summer when I got sunburned. I tanned easily and burned slowly but because I lived at the pool every summer of my childhood/teen years. She has always taken such tender loving care of me. The sunburn was always miserable but her gentleness made it bearable. To this day, the smell of Noxzema takes me back to those lazy, carefree summer days of life over on M****** street.
9:48 PM
Common Household Items In Original Packaging 2
I am life-threatningly allergic to peanuts and peanut butter but Bernie loves the stuff so we always had a jar of this in our cabinets at home when we were growing up.
Different sizes! Our mom has always been an economy shopper so we always had the small canister which was just fine because she was always willing to rebuy when we ran out. : )
The original Hostess brand symbol. I heart you, Hostess!!!
9:22 PM
Common Household Items In Original Packaging 1
Aren't you glad you use Dial?
Don't you wish everybody did?
Aren't you glad you use Dial?
Nestle's Quick was ALWAYS on our kitchen counter and I drank it all of my life.
Favorite Memory Relating To Chocolate Milk: When I was really little, I watched Romper Room every single school day morning and the kids on that show always had milk during snack time. (Oh my GOODNESS! did I ever want to drive that cool Romper Room milk truck!) When the kids on the show would have their milk, my sweet mama would mix up a mug of chocolate milk for me so I could have mine with them. How amazingly sweet and precious is that? I can't tell you how many times in my adult life I have thought about those beautiful, innocent days and wished that my mom and I could do them all over again.
I used to love playing with empty deodorant or hair spray cans. My mom would let me have the cans once they were empty and I would use them to play house. I liked pretending that I was using deodorant or hairspray just like my mom.
One day, my mom allowed me to but a mini can of hairspray from Ben Franklin's. She let me play with it and I enjoyed emulating my mom by spraying my hair. I sprayed it over and over and over again that day. By bedtime, I was out of hairspray and in desperate need of a good bath. LOL
I loved storing things in the metal cans once they were emptied. My friend, Lynn and I also loved taking them to the wading pool with us. No idea why. It just seemed like the thing to do. lol
Many of these items are still available in some form or another but the ones you see here are represented in their original packaging and it's that packaging that invokes so many childhood memories for me. These are some of the staple items that you could find in our house (and everyone else's) just about any day of any given year. Who knew that such seemingly insignificant items would be the keepers of so many of my favorite memories?
9:11 PM
Scotch Tape
Also, there were a couple of years wherein they marketed Christmas tape that perfectly matched the wrapping paper that they were selling in the stores. The tape looked exactly like the wrapping paper so when you wrapped a gift using it, the tape was almost impossible to see. My mom and I thought that was super cool so we bought a lot of that and, because she wanted the tape to match all of the packages, we had to make a lot of extra runs to town for more because she ran out often. Looking back, I realize she could have just bought several rolls at once rather than running back to town every time she ran out but I realize she loved going downtown to soak up the Christmas atmosphere as much as I did so she purposely let herself run out so we'd have an excuse to go back to town. No sweeter mom ever walked the face of this earth and that's why Bernie and I always had the msot magical Christmases imaginable, no matter what the family budget looked like on any given year.
If I close my eyes, I can still see the beautiful lights and other decorations and I can hear the sound of music and a ringing bell coming from the Salvation Army booth that always sat in front of Woolworth and Ben Franklin's during Christmas. Mmmm. I miss childhood Christmas and I love, love, LOVE my sweet mama.
8:16 PM
Card Catalogs
I hated these things. Before computers, searching for a book that may or may not be in the library required digging through these annoying card catalogs. The process was not difficult, per say but it was tedious and time-consuming. Technology now allows anyone with a library card to search the library's inventory from the comfort and privacy of their own home. No more waiting for your turn at the bibliography files. No more feeling stressed out because three or four other people are impatiently waiting for you to get out of their way while you struggle to both hold your place in the file drawer AND scribble the referential information down on a piece of paper. No more losing your place in the card catalog, dropping your pencil out of your mouth when you say "Crap!", reaching down to retrieve it, and then hitting your head on a drawer that has been opened by the person waiting behind you. No sir. Today, everything you need is available at your fingertips.
8:10 PM
Tammy and The Doctor
This is the movie I watched that Sunday night. It includes that song that I have always loved, called "Tammy's In Love". I love this movie!
8:07 PM
Tammy
This is the Barbie-inspired "Tammy" doll. I had one of these and loved it just as much as I loved my Barbies.
Tammy movies were amongst my favorite when I was a kid. They weren't specifically geared toward kids but they were funny and family-friendly enough that most kids enjoyed them. My favorite of the series was "Tammy and the Doctor". Now that I'm older, I don't think Peter Fonda was/is very handsome at all, but through my little girl eyes, he looked as dreamy as he could possibly be. I loved Tammy because she was always the underdog who proved to have a special heart of gold at the end of every storyline.
(1st Grade me)
7:06 PM
Spokies
Boy, did we ever LOVE these things. These were specially-designed, multi-colored, plastic tubes that we put onto our bicycle spokes. As far as my friends and I were concerned, they decorated our bikes fabulously and they looked even more fabu when the wheels were in motion. The package I had included more colors than are represented in the photo. They were so bright and pretty. (The ones in this pic look kind of dull) Sadly, they only lasted a few weeks before the sun faded their magnificent hues and the elements caused them to loosen and crack. : (
7:00 PM
Think and Do Book
Another one of our 1st Grade Dick and Jane books. What is it about these simple, outdated little books that breathe something magical into my heart?
6:57 PM
My Mama Loves Red
Our first push button phone looked a lot like this. The only difference was that the buttons on our first one were smaller and round, rather than large and square. Going from rotary to push button phones probably doesn't seem like a very big thing but to most of it, it really was. Just as people marvel at the newest cell phones that are available on the market today, everyone thought these never-before-seen little beauties were exciting additions to their homes.
As with our first rotary wall phone, my mom insisted on getting a red slimline phone. Once again, it didn't match but she loved it so she got it anyway. LOL She's still got a red slimline phone in her house today. Red has always been my mom's favorite color and something about red, shiny phones has always made her eyes dance. : )
6:53 PM
The Magnus Organ
A lot of people had one of these Magnus organs back in the 60's and early 70's. My cousin, Gay had one. I used to like to mess with them when I saw them in stores, or visited someone who had one and I wanted one of my own. However, a part of me was afraid that if I asked for one of these and got it, I might never get the piano that I wanted much more so I never gave my parents the full-court press on this item. lol It's just as well. They were fun but really they were just about one or two steps up from being toys. They certainly didn't offer anything impressive in terms of sound and there weren't enough keys to satisfy serious keyboardists. Still, they were a neat little musical invention in their day and had my parents been willing to buy one of these AND a piano, I would have enjoyed playing with it.
6:41 PM
The familiar pastel-colored Tupperwear bowls. My Granny Mom had them in every available color. Actually, almost all of her dishes were from Tupperwear because my aunt (her daughter) was a Tupperwear dealer for several years. We never had very many of their things at our house because my mom deemed them too expensive. I always liked eating and drinking out of them for some reason, though and so I loved that Granny Mom always used them when we visited. I specifically remember that she always kept ice cream in her freezer for us grandkids and on those unsettling nights when my parents would leave Bernie and me with her while they enjoyed a night out alone, she always dried my tears (at least for as long as it took me to eat it) by serving up a big Tupperwear bowl full of said tasty treat. Those bowls, which I THINK are still available today in one form or another, always remind me of my grandma who I barely knew, but loved anyway, simply because she was my dad's mom and my once-in-awhile caretaker.
Related: I did not like to be left with babysitters, even if the babysitters were family members or friends whom I loved. I used to get physically ill when my parents left me with other people, even for a few hours, and especially when they left me overnight. My grandparents were no exceptions to my babysitter aversion. I loved all of them but I was extraordinarily close to my mom and being away from her for any length of time was almost more than I could handle. Also, we had our own laid-back way of doing things at our house. There were no set bedtimes, the television played 24/7 whether there was anything on it or not, and Bernie and I were allowed to choose when and what we ate for meals and snacks. Staying with other people, especially people on my dad's side of the family meant a depressing visit in homes where there were fairly strict bedtimes, no parental playmates, meal plans that did not take into account my likes/dislikes at ALL, and a house that got way too quiet and boring, way too early in the evening. Just thinking about staying with my relatives brings that devastatingly lonely, depressed feeling back to me. I HATED it. Fortunately, my mom hated being away from us as much as we hated being away from her so she didn't allow my dad to make kidless plans very often.
One thing I did appreciate about my Granny Mom's babysitting habits was that she at LEAST kept a few random toys around, kept the aforementioned ice cream on hand, and was willing to stay up and watch television with us until we tuckered out and fell asleep on our own. I used to think she was pretty cool as far as grandparents go because she would stay up really late on Saturday nights watching "The Twilight Zone" and "Blob" movies with us. Other than our parents, we didn't know any other adult caretakers who were willing to do that. Granny Mom knew that I literally watched the door and and kept one ear on standby, waiting for any sign that my parents had returned to rescue me so she made the extra effort to keep me happy and occupied. I never really got to know her well enough to feel comfortable telling her that but I wish I had. Besides my dad, it was the one bond we had between us and I think she would have liked knowing that something as seemingly insignificant as dairy products and late-night television meant so much to me.
By the way, I mean no offense to my other grandparents in this post. I adored them and I knew them a little better than I knew Granny Mom because I saw them more often and, because they were my mom's folks. I have always been closer to my mom's side of the family. I just didn't like staying with my mom's parents because they were hard-working country people who didn't believe in playing, toys, doting on grandkids, watching television when the news wasn't on, or any of the other comforts to which I was accustomed. They also went to bed at dark and got up before sunrise everyday. Staying with them and trying to keep up with their lifestyle threw my whole emotional and physical equilibrium out of whack. LOL
6:34 PM
Flinstone Collector's Glasses
Cartoon themed jelly glasses. I LOVED these. We were never big jelly eaters so I'm thinking that the ones we had probably came from a friend's garage sale or something akin to that. There is little chance that we consumed enough jelly to collect a shelf full of these fun drinking glasses. Regardless of their origin, I thought they were super fun when I was a kid and I loved any and every opportunity I could find to use them.
6:26 PM
Just Like My Mommy
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I had tons of toy sets like this and I enjoyed playing with them very, very much. They were very fun. . Notice the very "hip and happening" new blow dryer style that is represented here. Nuovo trendy. lol Anything that allowed me to pretend I was just like my mommy was a winner toy in my book. I loved emulating all of her "getting ready to go somrwhere" rituals. Oddly enough, when I finally got old enough to have the real make-up, perfume, etc. I wasn't at all interested. lol It seemed muchado about nothing to me. I just wanted to be free like guys who could just take a shower, wash their hair, throw on some clothes, and roll out the door. Preparations beyond that made me bored and tired. lol
Even more ironic is the truth that when you're a kid, all you want to be is grown up. Yet once you finally get there, all you want to be is young again.