March 12, 2007

• I've just finished reading several novels set in the time I grew up in
  - the late Fifties and Sixties - and found myself really enjoying the
  vivid images they evoked of that long-ago Ozzie-and-Harriet world.
  Since lots of you are close enough to my age to share some of these
  Baby Boomer memories, I thought you might get a kick out of walking
  with me through a typical day in my life in 1962:
  My
  mom wakes me up on a cool September morning for my first day of second
  grade. I've been dreaming about Lassie, the beautiful collie dog on my
  favorite Sunday night TV show. I sit at the breakfast table, my hair
  still in pink sponge rollers, with one little sister in her chair next
  to me and another in her high chair, and Daddy at the end of the table.
  
  Our housewife mother fixes us cinnamon toast, bacon, and eggs fried
  in bacon grease, along with orange juice she mixes up every morning
  from a can of frozen concentrate. Daddy kisses us all good-bye before
  he hurries off to work smelling of Old Spice aftershave.
  I get
  dressed in a new dark cotton plaid dress with a full skirt and a fabric
  sash, bobby socks, and brown and white saddle oxfords. I have on a
  scratchy, stiff petticoat to make my skirt puff out. Mama brushes my
  hair and ties my sash in a big pretty bow.
   I pick up my book
  satchel, carefully packed the night before with a spotless Blue Horse
  tablet, a wooden pencil box with new yellow No. 2 pencils, a brand-new
  Pink Pearl eraser, and a small box of fresh, sharp Crayola crayons. My
  mother hands me my colorful tin Roy Rogers and Dale Evans lunchbox -
  containing a waxed-paper-wrapped bologna sandwich on Wonder Bread, a
  banana, and a twin-pack of Hostess Twinkies and a nickel to buy milk -
  and kisses me good-bye.
  I catch the school bus on the corner, happy
  to get a seat next to my friend Sarah. We face each other on the seat
  and play our favorite hand-clapping game as the bus lurches along,
  chanting as we clap each other’s hands:
  "A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,
  To see what he could see, see, see
  And all that he could see, see, see
  Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea!"
  At
  school, we go through the routines of the first day, including being
  issued our new second-grade Dick and Jane "Friends Old and New"
  readers.
  At First Recess in the morning, some of us girls line up
  to wait our turn at foursquare or tetherball, while the rest of us line
  up to jump rope. Two girls "turn" at either end of the long rope, and
  then, in turns, each girl "jumps in" to the turning rope and jumps
  until she misses. As I jump, we sing together:
  "Cinderella, dressed in yellow
  went upstairs to kiss a fella
  made a mistake
  and kissed a snake
  how many doctors
  did it take?
  1-2-3-4-5..."
  After
  the freedom of summer vacation, the school day seems long, but I like
  my nice new teacher, who has a neat beehive hairdo and high heels.
  After
  school, I get off the school bus at our corner and run home, anxious to
  see Mama and my little sisters. I change into my play clothes - yellow
  pedal pushers and a striped shirt, and my battered summertime Keds.
  Cissy
  and I have a snack together, then run outside to play kickball with the
  neighborhood kids. When we get tired of kickball, we climb up in our
  favorite tree in the vacant lot across the street with a couple of
  other girls, and play like we’re in Cinderella's castle. The boys in
  the neighborhood disappear into the cool treehouse they built over the
  summer, but it has a big sign that says, "No Girls Allowed."
  Mama
  calls us inside to wash up for supper. Cissy and I run to the door to
  greet Daddy when he gets in at 6, and we all sit down at the table for
  supper - meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green peas, and biscuits, and Mama
  even made banana pudding for dessert.
  As we're eating, we can hear President Kennedy's voice on the television news from the living room.
  After
  supper, Cissy and I take our baths and come in the living room to watch
  our black-and-white TV while Daddy reads the paper and Mama gets our
  baby sister to bed. After "To Tell the Truth" and "I've Got a Secret"
  are over at 8:30, it’s bedtime for me and Cissy.
  We kiss Daddy
  goodnight, and Mama comes to our room to tuck us into our twin beds,
  which have bumpy pink chenille bedspreads, and listen to our prayers. I
  prop up in my bed and read a chapter of my new Trixie Belden book, "The
  Gatehouse Mystery," before I fall asleep wishing I could have a secret
  club and solve mysteries like Trixie and her friends.
  
  By Celia DeWoody
  Published March 12, 2007
  Harrison Daily Times, Harrison, Ark.
  Copyright CPI, Inc.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 9:38 pm
  • 3 Comments