Had a little email exchange with Reader Brad_in_IL, after he pointed me to this article and asked me if I remembered any or all of the items and products (follow link to see what he was talking about).
I replied that I remembered all of them, and had in fact used all of them, to which he responded: “Okay .. you’ll have to explain how/why you used that hair dryer !! “
And my response:
When I was a pro musician, I used to have highlights put in my hair. Monthly trip to Armando’s, one hour in the dryer. It was the 70s, FFS.
We did a lot of stupid shit like that back then.
I’m going to deny ever using my sister’s hair dryer and I never used a rock to fire off my rolls of Caps. I had a matched pair of Silver Plated Lone Ranger cap guns until they mysteriously disappeared after excessive use. Must have been in the earlier great canoe accident.
I remember most of those things but didn’t use them all. I think I found a hair dryer like that in the attic at my Grandparent’s house.
Either saw them all, in my house or at some relation/friends house.
Used them all but the hair dryer and washtub (we were a boys-crew-cut family whilst those were in style), and we were too cheap to buy Encyclopedia’s, did spend hours reading them at the school library tho.
Memories. Dont be too hard on yourself Kim. We did a lot of stupid shit in the 90’s, 00’s, 10’s, 20’s too, like electing the Clintons, Obama’s, & Biden’s.
THOSE, I’m trying hard to forget.
I wasn’t a musician (I could barely play the radio.) so I didn’t use the hair dryer. I thought mustard was only made by French’s and came in jars not suitable for use as glasses.
Other than those two exceptions, I used them all.
Maybe. Mom had some hospital time in about 1962 and I did the laundry. I think that was after we got an automatic washer, but I definitely saw Mom using the older wringer design. When Mom and Dad got married in 1941 the farm didn’t yet have electricity and they ordered a state of the art wringer type washer powered by a single cylinder gasoline engine. Between the time the they placed the order and when it arrived the REA had installed power lines past the farm, the order for the gasoline model was cancelled, and they got the electric model. If not for that quick action by the REA (Was this the last time a government agency completed a project on time? Might have been.), when I came along in 1943 I’d have seen Mom using the tech that came BEFORE the pictured tech.
I remember seeing all of those as akid, except for the mustard glasses. We had jelly glasses instead, and lots of Tupperware glasses.
Used or saw all of that except the mustard. We has French’s mustard in jars. We kids repurposed the mustard jars by coating them with Elmer’s glue and wrapping twine closely laid around them and turned our ‘art’ into gifts for Christmas.
I remember the ice man chopping out a block in the back of his wooden-floored truck for our ice box, and we kids scrambling for the chips on the floor as he walked off to deliver the ice to the kitchen door in the back of the house, Mr Wetzel the vegetable man in his fedora, the scissors grinder man toting his grinding wheel on his back, swinging his bell as he walked up the alley, Mr. Ashley the insurance man coming by in his suit and tie to collect the monthly premium in cash, the rag-bone man with his overloaded wagon pulled by an old nag laboring up our steep alley, the bread man in his uniform stopping to take next week’s order for the bread he delivered twice a week, the milkman doing the same, and the treat we had when the milk froze in the galvanized tote on the front porch in cold weather, making the cream rise up and out of the bottle, its waxed paperboard cap sitting on top of the column of goodness we kids rushed out to get to first, the Good Humor Man pulling the lanyard to jingle his bell as he eased up the street with a gaggle of kids chasing after until he stopped, and our neighborhood liquor store owned by Colts All-Pro Artie Donovan, who’d set a wooden case of beer in my bicycle basket for me to carry home to Mom.
All gone, replaced by Amazon and autopay schemes. How boring. I miss the human interaction.
#1: I don’t remember that exact model, but I remember transistor radios. Mine had 5! transistors.
Wringer washer: I remember my grandmother doing laundry with one, on a farm in northern Minnesota without running water. First we fetched wood and built up the fire in the kitchen wood stove. Then we hauled all the kettles and buckets out to the well, filled them, and set them on the stove. When the water was hot enough, we carried it out to the barn. I’ve no idea why grandma kept the washer out there instead of closer to the house, but I certainly understand why we didn’t change our clothes everyday out at the farm, and also why bath day was once a week. (I was 7 or 8 at the time, so I’d have been fine with a longer interval.)
And I’ve used one as an adult – when the fancy automatic washer broke down, I found an old Maytag wringer just like Grandma’s and we used that until we gave up on repairs and bought a new washer. With hot and cold running water it was a lot less labor than Grandma’s way, but still pretty labor-intensive compared to a modern clothes washer.