Middle Aged Memories

I remember typing on the mimeograph masters, putting them on the drum and turning the crank to produce those smelly things. The really weird part was the liquid correction "fluid" that you had to use to fill in mistakes on the original blue master - and then try to fit it back in exactly the same place on the typewriter to add the correct letter - oh my.

Kids doing paper routes for extra money

And playing cards clipped to the spokes of our bikes with clothes pins.

No I never tried balloons. What a kick!!!

Just got my fall Vermont Country Store catalog. I had a wonderful time looking through all the old favorites. Did anyone else have a Lanz nightgown? I begged for some time in elementary school before I got one because they were expensive (in the day).

I love looking at my Vermont Country Store catalog too.

Mom makingus either a sweater or a new nightgown for Christmas.

I’m a Wind Song and Chantilly gal. My paternal grandmother wore those and I have always loved the smell. I have both perfumes.

I had to look up what a Lanz was. I had never heard of it before.

But as far as old colognes go (which I know we posted about on this thread probably 50 pages ago,) it is a tricky proposition whether to buy one of those fragrances nowadays. I took a chance on Oh! de London about 10 years ago. That cologne was discontinued, but supposedly some company bought the proprietary formula from Yardley and was claiming it was the real deal. I bought a tiny 1/2 ounce bottle. Well...what a disappointment! It smelled nothing like it. Did my nose change for the worse? Maybe. Or, they just could not make it smell good like it used to back in its mod heyday. Scent memory is very primal. I think I would just weep if I ever smelled this authentic scent again because of the memories I have of it.

I smelled some Emeraude recently a few years ago and that smelled just as I had remembered. My aunt always gave me Chantilly at Xmas. Was not a fan, but now I am kind of nostalgic for it. My mom Wore White Shoulders and Chanel No. 9. A neighbor's dad gave me some Nina Ricci L'Air du Temps cologne that "fell off a truck." Some colognes I wore in my youth were Jungle Gardenia, Muguet de Bois, Coty's Sweet Earth scents, and those essential oils that you could buy at "head shops." Remember that Avon cologne, Hawaiian White Ginger? Not a big fan, but I must have felt sorry for those Avon pushers at least once because I did have a bottle of it. (Side note: Who didn't love those tiny Avon sample lipsticks as a kid?) Charlie cologne had that popular ad campaign, but p.u., my nose never cared for it at all. In the 80's, I was all about Obsession and Opium, and I can still detect someone wearing those scents a city block away.

Check out the ad below. Recognize Olivia Hussey? What young girl wouldn't want to wear the scent that the 60's "Juliet" was advertising? I wish you could read the fine print ad copy. Your young girl self would be totally sold on it!

I still have a very good nose. It's a blessing and a curse.

As a public service announcement , I have to write this to all you women of my age: A certain percentage of you have lost your sense of smell and have no idea how much scent your cologne is giving off, so go real easy on it. Thank you.

I loved Avon’s Hawaiian White Ginger. I have a small bottle of it when they brought it back in the late 90s or early 2000s. I use it sparingly. The one perfume I cannot stand and I have a bottle of it is Charlie. I love Jean Nate too. My paternal grandmother wore that, I have a bottle of the After Bath Mist.

Hi Eil - Great to see you. Hope you are doing OK.

I don't remember Trixie Belden, but wasn't there a nurse series like Nancy Drew?

Yup - Cherry Ames is the series my nurse BFF read as a kid. The boys series my brother read was The Hardy Boys, although we had some older books too since that series started in 1927.

I was surprised to note that Nancy Drew first appeared in 1930. I have 3 Nancy Drew books on my shelves from 1934 - 1949. One has an inscription to me for my birthday in 1954 so I can tell when I was reading them.

Did anyone have the Boxcar Children? I read them as a child and was fascinated by the concept of orphaned children on their own. Add to that they lived in an abandoned box car and I was transported. They are aimed at children grades 2-6 so I'm looking forward to gifting them to my grandchildren.

Did you ever remember something from childhood and mention it to others only to be met with pitying stares that you just might be losing your mind? Every time I mentioned going "the show" (how we referred to movie theaters in the common neighborhood tongue) and seeing a horror movie that would flash red onto the screen right before something scary happened so that the audience could cover their eyes, people thought I made it up, dreamed it, or was having a strange psychosis.

Well, HA...a Halloween miracle has just occurred! I just saw it on television this morning. (Thank you TMC!) The movie was and still is...

Time has disproven that bold claim and the "fear flasher" never became a thing. Now as a kid, I probably closed my eyes, but today I kept them open. The funny thing was nothing horrible was actually shown on screen. It was implied (think the shower stabbing scene in PSYCHO) but no actual scar-for-life gore horror was even shown. My thought was, "Wow, how clever, if the whole audience closed their eyes, no one would know that they saved tons of money by having no actual horror effects."

CHAMBER OF HORRORS...so cheesy. Do I want that hour and a half of today back? Of course not, because proving that my brain is not going bad is always time well spent.

I'm still thinking about going to the movies (and that includes sneaking into the drive-in, on foot.) I may have forgotten some of the films, but I will always remember the animated intermission...featuring the "jumping hot dog," and (spoiler alert) the big finish where he jumps into the bun.

@MT, Isn't there still one or more threads on BCO having to do with songs/song lyrics/guess the song?

Today I thought of a movie I probably have not thought of in close to 50 years...THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA. It's Disney, before they got so heavily into princesses.

I was also thinking about another called BILLIE, where Patty Duke was a tomboy on a boys' track team. Back then, a film could be "woke" for maybe five minutes before slipping back into 60's stereotype slumber.