A stroll down nostalgia lane.....

A e mail post got me to thinking about things of the past that I remember in my life, that are now more historic (makes me feel old).

For instance a a young kid, I remember an appliance like this old clothes washing machine.
Ours had a hand crank for the "spin cycle".

In fact I think my Mom & Grandma wore aprons!

The actual washtub looked more like this one. 

Come to think of it-- we lived on the 2nd story, 

so Mom had to haul all of our laundry up & down 2.5 flights of stairs to & from the basement.

The push mower.

 Mom also mowed the corner lot using a push mower.

This was done in the hot as hell & twice as humid, summer midwest weather. 

I did my fair share of lawn mowing as a kid, but my parents quickly shifted to the power mower. 

If you ever used a push mower you would remember. 

It is a fully aerobic endeavor, requiring grunt work by the pusher-- if the grass was remotely tall, wet, or the blades were at all dull- you had your work cut out for you (pardon the pun!). 

She also shoveled that corner lot by hand. 

All this mowing, and hauling laundry, and shoveling was done while she was 

not a "working Mom". She was a stay at home Mom, raising 2 kids. 

This raises 2 issues.... 

• No wonder she wanted to get back into the work force-- she needed a break!

• Also no mystery why, years later she wound up with severe back issues. 

Can't help but wonder if all that back breaking physical labor took it's toll?

Cotton Diapers

We did cotton diapers for both our kids in the 80's.

The really good Gerber ones lasted forever. 

For me it was a choice for multiple reasons. 

The environment yes, besides who knows what kind of chemicals there are in disposables?

But I was also quite broke & it was cheaper to buy diapers & continue to reuse them, rather than have to fork out more & more $ we did not have for disposables. 

Plus diapers can be used for spit up, drool, & all other bodily fluids babies spew on any given day. 

Back then I also used  diaper pins:

These ones were on the internet listed as "Vintage diaper pins". 

Now they have rainbow colored hemp diapers, with velcro closure tabs... 

thus making diaper pins "vintage". 

And finally, did things go better with Coke?

Remember this kind of dispenser machine?

The little door on the left opened so you could get your soda. 

This one cost 10 cents!

Now they charge $1.25 each & some charge more if the thermostat says it is hotter out!

The Coke soda came in glass bottles & those bottles were recycled & reused. 

We even had a little corner pharmacy that had a tiny soda fountain-

 maybe only 4 or 5 of the classic soda fountain chairs. 

If you ordered a Cherry Coke, the Pharmacist actually mixed in the Cherry flavoring@

the fountain.  

So what things do you remember from "back in the day"?