Middle Aged Memories
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Castile soap…how can I forget Dr. Bronner's? It was the soap that spelled out the Bronner's faith statements and moral code, in very fine print, on the label. It is still available although it has been years since I've used it, and the only thing that has probably changed is my eyesight. Let me show you the "big print" version.
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Dr. Bronner’s is still highly recommended for hiking and wilderness camping since it is environmentally friendly and a little goes a long way. My son uses it. Bronner (who was not a doctor) would probably approve.
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To go back to sneakers and Clorox, I just remembered a summer when everybody had deck shoes, the canvas kind. The usual color was white and, boy, did those get dirty fast. Soaking in Clorox helped but by the second soaking, the white had that yellow bleach-y look. No worries because all that bleaching + growing kid feet usually helped a toe poke thru' the canvas before too long…easier to plead your case with mom for some new ones.
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Oh, I remember canvas deck shoes. I had some navy blue ones, and just loved them.
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Mine were navy blue, too. My mother wouldn't let me get white ones since she knew I would get them dirty.
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Hi: when I was a kid I sent in box tops or something and got an actual set of 20 mules and a wagon from Borax. It was so cool!!!
We used to use a white shoe polish that had a foam applicator. We used it on our deck shoes that were referred to as "Lily Whites" so you had to keep them WHITE. Frequent applications made them a tad stiff.
Saddle shoes were a must if you used the old roller skates with the wrenches that adjusted the length and the width of your shoes. You needed the sole that stuck out for the roller skates to clamp on to. I wore the key around my neck and was lucky not to have knocked out my front teeth when I kept falling backwards and the key would whack me in the mouth
A few years ago I was in a wonderful shop that carried everything anyone could imagine. They had a bin full of bits and bobs for 50 cents apiece. I rummaged around and came out waving my find "Look a roller skate key"…the sweet young thing with the pierced eyebrow said "a what?" I gave her a brief history
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Those roller skates were great because you didn’t outgrow them as quickly as your shoes. There were also four bladed ice skates that you could buckle around a toddler’s boots. I strapped them on my younger siblings but don’t remember wearing them myself. Actually, I don’t remember not knowing how to skate.
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My mom at Christmastime made her peanut brittle. I always got the job of buttering the cookie sheets and laying out the peanuts on them for her to pour the hot mixture on them. Once they were cooled and the candy hardened, she let me break it into chunks with whacking it with a rolling pin.
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At Christmastime my mom made meringue nests which would be filled with fruit or peppermint stick ice cream and topped with fudge sauce. I remember that the oven was heated to a fairly low temperature, turned off, and the meringues were left there overnight. I got to cut paper bags to fit the baking sheets (cheap parchment paper) and traced circles on it using a saucer so the size was uniform.
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A friend and I were talking and this generational activity came up:
Locking yourself out of your car, then getting a wire coat hanger to pop the lock yourself. Can't do that anymore (and if you even try something…cue loud, abrasive alarm sounds.)
————————————-p.s. @elderberry who wrote:"when I was a kid I sent in box tops or something and got an actual set of 20 mules and a wagon from Borax. It was so cool!!!"I ate a lot of Nabisco cereal and got about half of the plastic dog set pictured below. I lovingly kept mine in a kids' toy Pan-Am flight bag, even after several of the tails had been visibly chewed on.
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I remember my mom doing the old coat hanger trick to unlock her car door once when I was a kid and she accidentally locked her keys in the car
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I have used a coat hanger to unlock a car and as a replacement for a car radio antenna.
I have a collection of small ceramic animals that came in Lipton tea boxes. Some are farm animals and others are those you would see on safari.
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Making beaded ornaments with my mom for her to sell at craft fairs or to put on our tree
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Crocheting bells and snowflakes to use as Christmas decorations—on the tree and in windows
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Stringing popcorn and cranberries with a needle and thread to make Christmas tree garlands.
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Oh yes Maggie for the popcorn & cranberries.
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Looking forward to no school when we heard snow was coming
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m0mmy, I agree. Online classes and blizzard bags don't provide the unexpected but welcome day off with nothing planned.
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Yep! Now kids today won’t get that feeling of fun like we had.
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My mom was not much of a candy maker. At Christmas, she did like to buy candies from the import store. Hard candies from Poland that had a jelly center and came in flavors like orange marmalade and black currant. We also got the tiny chocolate bottles filled with liquor. This was a big hit with my friends who came over and thought the candies were much more sophisticated than the average candy cane. Hohoho.
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Those tiny chocolate bottles filled with liquor were great. They still have those hard candies with the jelly center in Europe. I got some lemon and blackcurrant ones in Italy last year. At Christmas my mom always bought ribbon candy which I was not a fan of. I learned to make fudge in a double boiler at a young age; my siblings would get all the ingredients ready for me and get me to cook it for them to substitute for the ribbon candy that only my mother ate.
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My mom also bought ribbon candy and I too was no fan. I did think it was kind of pretty and interesting looking, though.
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My mom and I made the candy and baked goods. Her peanut brittle recipe is a big hit in our family. Going try to make it next year as I love peanut brittle. Next year will be home baked goods and candies.
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Watch out, if you liked those tiny chocolate bottles filled with liquor as a kid. It definitely leads to the holiday hard stuff…like Rum Cake! (Rum Cake, not officially a "memory" unless you count last year.)
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!
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My Mom also bought those hard candies. If I remember correctly, maybe there was a root beer flavor that was my Dad's favorite? But I think we all liked Raspberry best. And I agree with those who don't care for ribbon candy. For special occasions, we were lucky to live in CA and had access to See's Candy. You can only buy the Victoria Toffee in December now so I buy two boxes. This year that broke the bank with the price of chocolate - but it lasts several months if I'm not too greedy.
Mostly my Mom was a baker. Homemade bread every week. Fresh cookies always in the jar. Pies or cakes for my Dad several nights a week. And light as air yeast rolls. At Christmas she made delicious Date Bread, which I keep promising to make every year for the last 20 years, but…
I treated myself to the Tortuga Rum Cake. I buy the small boxes - not much bigger than a cupcake. They have original or coconut or pineapple.
I had drinks with a friend last night who had never heard of stringing popcorn & cranberries to decorate the Christmas Tree. Sigh.
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That rum cake looks delicious!
Re the hard candies: While I didn't like the ribbon candy, I do remember liking the raspberry ones that Minus Two mentioned. They were tart/sweet and had that little jelly like center. I especially liked those.
I seem to remember that the only people I knew who ever had the little chocolate bottles with the liquor inside got them from Canada, because they were not legal here or something. I live in Washington State, and if my memory serves me correctly, anyone here who had them got them up in BC, and brought them back here. I could be wrong.
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I had totally forgotten about the rosette cookies my mom and I made for Christmas. It’s a Swedish cookie that is popular at Christmas. They’re made from batter that you dip an iron into hot oil and then into the oil to fry. Once done, drain on a wire rack over a cookie sheet and then into powdered sugar. Going to get the set for next year from Amazon for Christmas baking.
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Many years ago, I used to work in a mall type of place, and just down the hallway from the store I worked in was a small Scandanavian cafe, and during the holiday season, the proprietor would make the cookies you described out in the hallway, and many people loved them and would stop by and get a few. It was always a nice holiday touch.
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Threetree, you are right about the liquor filled chocolates having to be imported. Coming through customs from Quebec we would declare candy but they never checked to see what it was. Europeans had a laxer attitude toward alcohol. In Ireland in the ‘70s if you were under 14 you had to drink at home. However, many pubs would only serve women if they were accompanied by a man and required women to have half pints rather than pints.
Swedish neighbors made a really delicious Christmas stollen which I looked forward to every year.
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