I’ve heard of #7 Studebaker cars practically my entire life, but I’ve never been in one nor seen them other than a photo or two.
I do NOT remember nor recognize #8 Blackjack Gum.
I’ve heard of #15 Roller Skate Keys practically my entire life, but I’ve never used one, had one nor have I seen them other than a photo or two. They were what I would consider “quaint” to me even as a young child.
About #17. When I was about 2 or 3 years old, my family lived in a house that had milk boxes built into the wall right next to the mail box. For comparison sake, it was about the size and shape of a small microwave oven, it had two doors on it; one on the outside of the house where the milkman would place all the dairy products, and then on the inside of the house, the other door was for the family to retrieve the items. It had some kind of mechanism that kept both doors from being opened at the same time. Even though we still had milk delivery in those days, the milk boxes themselves were not in use, I don’t know why. I do not remember if the milk was in glass bottles, it may have been cartons by that time. The milk man, more accurately, the milk and bread man, because he delivered baked goods also, drove up the alley in a big giant trunk, parked, and unloaded the orders for that block. Then he carried a large metal basket-type thing with sections on it for the different houses on his route. Because the heaviest thing he carried were the large bottles of milk and large ice cream containers, he made several trips back and forth from the truck to the houses. He would deliver milk, cream, butter, margarine, eggs, cheese, ice cream, loaves of bread, cake, pies, donuts, etc. I remember he wore a uniform complete with a cap and everything. Either once a week, once every two weeks, or monthly, he would also take new orders and collect the money from each household. I don’t know much about it because I was just a little kid, I just remember him going around with his notepad and money exchanged hands. Back to the unused milk boxes. Because they weren’t used for their intended purpose, we as kids played with them. We’d put toys or rocks or grass or dirt or mud in them, silly things like that. That mechanism that kept both doors from being opened at once had a large metal spring inside the box that caused the door to snap closed very quickly and very securely. It was to strong for little kids like me to open, so the older kids always did it, and many times our little fingers or hands got caught in it as it slammed shut. Time and time again, parents told us not to play with the milk boxes, but the second they turned their backs, we played with them anyway. At some of the houses, the adults had secured the milk boxes closed by hasps or other methods, ending the problem completely. There was a house that no one had lived in for a while, perhaps weeks or months. Its milk box was not locked down in any way, making it ripe for being played with, and on that particular day at that particular moment, there were no adults around. There were about seven or eight, maybe nine of us running around playing outside, my older sister and brother, me, my younger brother, and some neighbor kids. For some reason, we were all within a few feet of the milk box when one of the older kids popped the door open, and SURPRISE! Out came a swarm of angry bees or wasps or hornets, attacked all of us. We ran in all directions screaming bloody murder, each of us with a halo of assailants aiming in on us just like in the cartoons. There was a lot of running into each other, falling down, tripping over things, running into walks, trees, doorways, everything. The stings we endured were worsened by the collisions, and the wailing brought every mother or babysitter from each house to see what was going on, whose child was wailing. As our mothers or babysitters came outside, the squadron now had fresh targets, and soon they too were enveloped.
The aftermath looked like the Civil War battle scene from the movie “Gone With The Wind”. Imagine the camera pulling back to reveal the throng of wounded being cared for by beleaguered nightingales flittering from one patient to the next, except that this opera played out with a lot of chastising and rebuke for our folly at disobeying orders. There were no Purple Hearts awarded that day, it was off to the stockade of confinement to quarters for the recalcitrant recruits. The beatings that ensued, added to Mother Nature’s punishment, finally and steadfastly helped galvanize in our minds the message of not playing with the milk boxes, and from that day forward, I personally never went near them again, I doubt that my teammates did either.
It could be that butch wax which was used on butch haircuts was not as popular in your community. But if you remember the other things, you're old enough to remember it.
I’ve never heard of it before in my entire life, which is not to say that it didn’t exist, merely that I’ve never heard of it. When I joined the Marines at 18 and began to mix and mingle with more people not only from other parts of the US but also more people than other parts of the world, I became more and more acquainted with lots of things that I had never previously experienced. Many products or product names were part of that. For instance, as I was growing up, carbonated beverages were called soda pop. The first time someone heard me say that, they laughed at me and called me “country”. From that day forward, I call it soda. Also, on military bases, a package store is what I had always known as a liquor store, so being new to the military, I thought it was a military term. I came to find out that in the South, some places they also refer to them as package stores. On the East Coast, people say “mash the button” instead of “push the button” or “he stuck him” instead of “he stabbed him”. A shopping cart is a buggy, you don’t give someone a lift to the store, you carry them to the store, grandchildren are called grands, the word “really” is replaced with “for true”, margarine is called oleo, a purse is a pocketbook, the faucet in a kitchen sink is called a hydrant, etc. ~
Why are you so nice and cutesy with Jane, but with me, you make it seem as if there’s something wrong with being older than you are? You probably think that I don’t notice these things. Grrrrrr.
Thriftymaid 