Days gone by.....

As I sat here watching my little grandbaby playing on the floor, I wondered what things  would she remember from her childhood?  Would she remember the color of the carpet in my livingroom?  Would she remember the fabric of her Mom and Dad's couch?  Would she remember the smell of the grapes being harvested? It started me thinking of things that I remember from my own childhood.  I think my earliest memory is just an image of gray and red speckled 'something'. My Mom tells me that was the linoleum on the floor of the apartment we lived in when I was learning to crawl. 

I also remember my Mom's old electrolux vacuum ckeaner.  It looked alot like this one:

 

 

It blew warm air out the end and I used to follow her around while she vacuumed letting the warm air blow on me. I think I fell asleep sometimes, it was so warm and relaxing. I still have a couple of the attachments to that old cleaner.

 

Another thing I remember is riding our bikes outside, no helmets, in the street. We'd ride for hours, just up and down the street, down the hill through the covered bridge and see how far we could make it back up the hill before we had to get off and walk. This was before the days of gears.  We used leg muscles instead!. I also remember making "motorcycle's" out of our bikes by clipping old playing cards to the frame so they hit against the spokes. We thought we were really cool!

 

I remember helping my Mom sprinkle the clothes in preperation to ironing.  We used one of these:

 

You sprinkled them just enough to dampen them, then rolled them up in a certain way and after a few minutes they were ready to get ironed.  I know what you're thinking, and no, she didn't have to heat the iron on a stove. I'm not THAT old. We did have electricity in the 50's!.

 

Halloween was always a fun, safe time 'back in the day'. We worked for days making our Halloween costumes.  Not many people bought costumes in those days. We painted, cut, glued, sewed, salvaged and scrounged for bits and pieces. In those days it was safe to go trick-or-treating without a grownup along. The worst things we had to look out for were highschoolers throwing eggs or a loose dog or two.  There was one lady on our street that always baked the best cookies and we looked forward to them every year, at least I did.

 

I remember bundling up so much in the winter that you could barely move!  That scene from that Christmas movie was exactly how it felt!  And it never failed that as soon as we got all bundled, buttoned and booted, we had to use the bathroom!

 

I remember going to the dump with my Dad and finding all sorts of treasures.  Yep, in those days there was an area set aside for people to take their garbage and they just 'dumped' it. 

It was stinky and dirty but so much fun! We didn't actually get into the stinky stuff, just the stuff at the fringe. That's where everyone left their bigger junk cause it was too heavy to throw over the edge.  I think my sister still has some of the old metal lawn chairs my Dad found and repainted.  Like these:

 

 

In the summer, during a warm rain, we'd stand under the eave spout and 'take a shower'.  I think we ended up a little dirtier than we started but it sure was fun.

 

This time of year always reminds me of Saturday afternoons spent raking and burning leaves.  Oh, the smell of  those leaves burning.  I miss it. Our job was to keep an eye out for runaway flames while my Dad walked up and down the driveway raking and keeping the leaves in a row.

 

 

Maybe my memories have helped remind you about yours. What things do you remember from your childhood? Leave me a comment with your memories and we'll reminisce together.