4/18/2024... Dumb Things Of The Sixties!

Flipping though the pages of  the paper yesterday brought back a lot of memories. 

Here are some  things I haven’t thought about in years:

Smoking

When I was a little girl growing up in the 60’s, my father smoked some generic cigarette and of course we were bought candy cigarettes.

Everybody smoked everywhere... In the house, in the car, before, during and after meals, in movie theaters, airplanes, buses and department stores and probably even at death-bed vigils.

Men used to hold cigarettes on the side of their mouths and smoke them hands free while they mowed the lawn or pumped gas. (It was the 60’s version of multi-tasking.)  If there wasn’t an ashtray people would just drop their cigarettes on the ground and step on them.

Drinking and Driving

When I was a kid we thought nothing of it. When my dad buddies, their wives and kids would drive up to the hosting houses for a weekly card game. The men would always step out of the cars with open beers. Actually my father never drank.

After I was 14 my dad dealt me into the card games and on occasions I was given 1/2 empty pony can of beer. This was a perfectly normal and natural part of everyday life.

Helmets and Seat belts

When I was growing up, the only people who wore helmets were human cannon balls. They were the only people to wear capes too now that I think about it.

And seat belts? 

Forget about it!  When they started making cars with seat belts everyone totally ignored them or tucked them into the seat so they wouldn’t be in the way. 

I don’t even think the astronauts wore seat belts. (Probably because it would have restricted their cigarette smoking.)

Cooking

When I was a kid the term fast food meant somebody dropped a watermelon down a hill and it was rolling too fast to catch it. 

Of course, I lived often in small towns not more than a thousand people or less and there certainly weren’t many fast food places in those towns.

My mother cooked every meal everyday and on Sunday afternoon, she would fix a big Sunday dinner.  Of course, all the stores were closed on Sundays, so if she forgot to buy an ingredient, she would have to borrow it from the neighbors or make do without it.

My mother kept a coffee can of bacon grease to cook with inside the cupboard above the stove.

I distinctly remember this because one time when she reached to get it down, she spilled it all over herself and the stove.

Boy was she mad . . . I think it might have landed behind the stove!

Oh well enough memories until next time...

Nana