Golden Era: Everday Life in Bygone Era

[Lawman]

This may sound like a strange post, but I'd love members to share some personal stories, family or otherwise, verifiable or apocryphal, of Golden Era memories. I am thinking particularly of scenes from everyday life that will illuminate the way common folk lived, loved and passed the time in our beloved era. The spur to this post was a story my father is fond of telling. When he was a boy growing up in Auburn, New York in the 1940s, his father would take a drive every Saturday (wearing his prized Whippet of course) to nearby Syracuse to pick up "exotic" items from Italian delis, sopressata, provolone, good bread, olives. On the way home he would hit any one (or two or three) of a number of watering holes of which he was fond. Once home, he would take a short nap in the hammock out back, and might even sneak down the street to visit his best friend, Fritzy Porten. The two would slyly sneak into the basement, where they would sit around a barrel of fresh sauerkraut and drink Ballantine Ale while listening to a ball game in the cool of the basement. Sounds pretty nice to me.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

This may sound like a strange post, but I'd love members to share some personal stories, family or otherwise, verifiable or apocryphal, of Golden Era memories.

Great idea. Lawman, may I add to your request, one of my own: I'd be particularly interested in the "big picture" of how people spent their time in the golden era. If anyone who has relatives or friends who remember it well enough to, say, recall how the average adult weekday went in terms of times of day (6:30 am wake, 8am-5pm work, 6pm dinner then chores, 8 pm - 10 pm Family Quality Time - no wait, that's the family TV sitcom schedule...)

We all know people spent more quality time with family, actually talking to their neighbors, entertainign guests, etc. but how much more? How far off the track are we now, and what would we shoot for if we wanted more of a Golden Era "feel" to our lives... (funny me asking, I'm gonna be tied up with I.T. dayjob & Healthcare night classes for next few years...) And then, the weekends.

Mom remembers just the end of the "golden era" of 1930s-40s as a kid - but one of her earliest & fondest "regular ritual" memories, is that one day of every week in the spring/summer in the suburbs of the beach city where the grew up, about 7 or 8pm when it was twilight (and they had lots more fireflies than now), all the kids would congregate at one guy's house in the neighborhood. His parents would put a big old floor model wood radio facing out the front door turned up loud, and all the kids would sit around on the big front covered porch, listening to some Western radio show that always started with Vaughn Monroe's "(Ghost) Riders in the Sky". This was before TV hit their area around 1949.

A friend-of-a-friend's mom came of age in the 40s and remember every weekend in her small Virginia town, there was one sodashop owner who would block anyone over 18 from coming in on Saturday nights, and put the jukebox (full of Glenn Miller & Tommy Dorsey) on freeplay, and let the kids have a place to swing dance & socialize without any "scary people" around. She was real fond of telling the stories he told the kids of growing up and learning tolerance, honesty, how to spot scam artists, etc. Wow that does sound like a fairytale sitcom now, it's hard to believe there ever was such a time or place. She remembered when listening to Glenn Miller's "In the Mood", a ritual all the kids had, where the band gets softer and softer at the end with all the false endings, then when the band came in loud for the final chorus, everyone would throw one hand up and scream.

I'm gonna have to start asking folks who still remember about how they prioritized their time before they're gone...

 

[John in Covina]

Some bits and pieces.

My dad, as a youngster lived in Brooklyn NYC during the Great Depression and said that he recalled a time when oranges were fairly cheap. You would see orang peels sprinkled all over the sidewalks.

As an adult, my dad worked as a machinist and every day after work would come home, get cleaned up and change into a crisp clean white dress shirt, dress pants and shoes when finished working for the evening.

He liked to go to the Horn & Hardart AUTOMAT for a lunch on the weekend.

He also spoke of visiting "The Old House at Home" AKA McSorley's Alehouse with family and friends. (I love McSorley's but have been in many years. Wish I could have taken dad there for
lunch.)

He also spoke of the great Swing bands playing in the theaters and how the kids would dance in the aisles.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I talked to my grandparents about these things quite often when I was young -- they had very mixed feelings about their lives in the '30s and '40s, and had a decidedly unromanticized view of what it was like to be living a working-class life during the Depression and war eras.

My grandfather was one of eight kids, and only the youngest daughter was allowed to finish high school. The others had to go to work in order to help support the family: my great-grandfather was a carpenter, but didn't bring in anywhere near enough money to such a big family. So my grandfather did anything he could to make a buck -- for a while, he played a trumpet in a local dance band, until getting into a brawl one night and getting his lip split. After that he couldn't play -- so he switched to the drums, and eventually started his own six-piece dance band that played smalltime vaudeville and dance halls around New England and Atlantic Canada. It was a rough life, and there was a lot of drinking involved, which became a serious issue when he was dating my grandmother -- a strict grape-juice Methodist who never hesitated to grab a flask out of his hands and throw in the river if she caught him sipping.

At the same time, he was playing semi-pro basketball -- $5 a game on a good night -- in makeshift courts set up in lodge halls and schoolrooms. During one such game he ended up getting hopelessly tangled in a fishing net someone had hung on one of the walls to dry -- and during another he burned his bare leg practically to the bone by crashing into a sizzling-hot woodstove in the corner. Such was the life of a small-time athlete in the late twenties.

The Depression found him working on a WPA gang building roads, while my grandmother had to give up her dream of nursing school to take a job as a waitress in a cheap lunchroom -- smiling thru gritted teeth at smarmy tourists who'd ask her for "a Pine Tree Float" -- a toothpick in a glass of water. At this time they were living in a tar-paper shack with no electricity and the only heat coming from a barrel stove in the living room -- and their only entertainment came from a battery-operated radio they'd bought second hand. It was a big deal when they could tune in Bangor.

Things got better during the war years. My grandfather got a job in a gas station, was quickly promoted to manager, and then in 1943 was allowed to take over the business himself, with my grandmother as his bookkeeper/business manager. He'd work fourteen hour days at the station, and then put on a tin hat and a heavy overcoat and go sit on the roof of the Full Gospel Church for five or six hours more as a plane spotter -- just in case the Nazis decided to take out the military fuel depots that supplied much of the Northeast. Meanwhile, my grandmother juggled her work with the books with raising two kids -- both of them sickly -- and keeping a house. They finally bought a house of their own in 1945, where they'd both spend the rest of their lives. It had a mud basement, and was heated by a fussy kerosene stove in the living room, but it was all theirs.

They led a simple life, really -- they didn't travel, they didn't go out on the town, they didn't live a life of music and romance. They might go over to the next town to take in a movie once in a while, and they might sit on the porch on a hot summer afternoon and listen to the Red Sox game, but mostly they were of a generation that had work -- not dreams. And deep down, I think they both regretted that very much.

 

[Paisley]

Dancing back Then

The nostalgic view of dancing during the war is couples swaying to Moonlight Serenade. However, my mom (b. 1929) says that all the men were gone from her town then. There were just boys, old men and other girls left to dance with, and she preferred to dance with her best friend. There was some old guy who always liked to dance with her, but she preferred her friend Lavonne. They lived in Wyoming and mostly danced to country and mountain music (later called bluegrass). My mom never heard of lindy hop until I told her about it a few years ago.

My aunt Helen (b. c. 1936) was a dancing fanatic. At 15, she married another dancer who worked as a lineman. He'd call from wherever he was at the end of the day and she would meet him at some club where they'd dance. So not everyone who went out was dressed to the nines; probably many people just went from work.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

My dad was born in 1901. He used to talk about pollution - horse manure all over the streets and in fact, dead horses (abandoned vehicles!) down sidestreets and alleys! And speaking of vehicles, it wasn't like just driving the car into the garage and leaving it alone (I'll check the oil tomorrow!), with the horses, they had to be brushed, fed, and the stalls cleaned daily. All the tack and the carriage had to be maintained.

Eventually, they too had the automobile.

...oh yeh, they had bell-bottoms and tank tops back then too! Dad's on the left.

My father followed The Great War much like a kid today might be following the war in Iraq. Except withno CNN or Internet - all reports came weeks later and only in the newspaper, mostly with illustrations and not photographs. He new all the generals names and the battles. His fear was if it kept on, he may have to go fight himself - he was 17 in 1918.

In his hometown of Philadelphia, in 1917 a large segment of the population died of influenza, including many of his school friends. House after house on every street was closed to visitors with a sign on the front door - Quarantine!

He had a million stories about his Golden Era - pre-income tax and pre-depression. Then of course, a not so Golden Era of depression and lost wealth. A young Jay Gatsby had to get a job, test-driving trucks for Autocar and selling Hoovers. A career at Prudential saved him for the next twenty-two years.

Oh the clothes he had! All gone now - heck you many even own some of his suits and hats!


-dixon cannon

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap

Great real stories! If only I had any, but alas, I hardly hear much from that generation, and the only remembrance of the past is in photographs and my grandmother. But I can tell plenty of stories of my own life that'll sound like it was from that time.

 

[Jay]

I have several told to me about my grandfather (b. 1906) from my Dad. Apparently he's who I take after (stubborn, crazy, angry, etc.) in the family.
Around the late 30s my grandfather and grandmom were driving around and my grandad flicked a cigarette out the window. Naturally (I get my luck from him too, apparently) it bounces off and lands on the floorboard. My grandmom bends down to pick it up but can't find it. She sits up to tell him and finds he's down on the floorboard as well. Well, needless to say, he hit a fencepost.
Dad still can't figure out what all the fuss was about since the car had rubber mats on the floor, anyways.

Another time in the early 40s my grandad kept a brown Stetson on his bureau that he'd wear out on Saturday nights and stuff. Well one weekend he went out drinking and didn't come home til next morning. My grandmom was mad at him she took his hat and kicked a hole clean through it.

Last one: It's December 7th 1941 and my Dad is 7 years old and playing in his backyard with the few toy cars and trucks he had. My Uncle Joe runs out from the house and said "Did you hear? The Japs just bombed Pearl Harbor!" My dad didn't even know where Pearl was at the time and kept playing with toys. My Uncle picks them up, sees they're made in Japan and breaks every one of them. I think he's still mad at that...

Those are a few of mine for now.

 

[Weston]

My Dad was born in '45, and grew up in the Fifties. He told me great stories about when my Grandmother would want a weekend alone to clean the house and play bridge with the other wives. She'd say to Granddad "Take the boy fishin!"

My Grandfather disliked the outdoors in general (where I get it from!), and would tell my Dad "go get some dungarees and a fishing pole." My Dad tried to argue, saying they'd need bait, more clothes and some sandwiches. My Granddad told him "Just be quiet. All you need is the dungarees and pole. Yer mom doesn't know what you need to fish anyhow."

They'd jump in the car and off they'd head to a nearby town where my Granddad's buddy owned a bar. My dad was under 10 at the time, but Granddad would go have a few beers and play cards, having my Dad be educated by his poker buddies. They'd come back later that weekend with the instructions being to say "We didn't catch anything."

 

[CanadaDoll]

My favourite is my Grandma's story of her wedding, my grandfather came to her and said "I'm being transferred to Trinidad, we can get married in two weeks or two years" she put a wedding together in two weeks and moved to Trinidad with him. I thought it was very romantic.

More recently my Grandma and great aunts saw me in seamed stockings and had a good laugh reminiscing about trying to rush out the door, for appointments, and get the seams straight, I have the image of them as girls my age hopping on one foot trying to get these things right!lol

 

[Novella]

The only ones that come to mind at the moment:
My grandpa's side of the family were farmers in Oklahoma. My grandmother told me that my grandpa would talk about how once after a meal, the family got up, got into the car, and drove off to California, leaving all the dishes still sitting on the table. My grandpa would have been a little kid at the time, so I've always wondered what my great grandparents' take on the story would have been.

On the other side of the family my great grandma (b. 1901) would talk about how the underwear she had growing up was made out of old potato sacks.

When I last visited my grandma I went through all her old records (which included my great grandparents' music) and picked out a few to play. In addition to the ones that I'd picked, she took one out to put on. The record she had chosen was one she said my great grandpa listened to often. I'm not sure what the song was called - the record label was printed in another language if I remember right - but it was this great eastern folksy polka. My grandmother said that my great grandpa use to put the record on at home and then dance around with my great grandmother. I think that is just the coolest thing ever, because looking at the pictures of this rather serious looking man, I'd never imagined before that he had a soft spot for dancing and music! I always wonder if the song brought back memories of growing up in Poland.

 

[HadleyH]

My mother clams up completely when I ask her about bygone eras...GRRRRRR She yawns and tells me it's all awfully boring ( more GRRRRR)
What can you do with family like that?????

 

[cookie]

My grandfather (maternal side)

My grandfather was born in 1870 (cop that) he went to the first War at age 45 which was too old. So they faked up the birth certificate. He lasted 2 weeks at Gallipoli and was wounded badly at Lone Pine. No more war for him. They sent him to the UK and wanted to chop off his leg but he would not let them. They chopped it off - eventually - when he was about 80 something and gave him a prosthetic leg. He then walked like 10 miles on it before collapsing on the way back home. He died shortly after that. He played grade cricket into his 50s. Amazing those blokes - they broke the mould. tough as teak!