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| The Way We Were | |
| Click on a link below to read musings on our past by former president Al Hutin. | |
| School Days - The Middle Years | |
| Radio Food | |
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SCHOOL
DAYS – THE MIDDLE YEARS When
we finished our K through 3 years at the “Little School” at the top of The basement housed the cafeteria, the metal and wood shops, industrial arts, music, typing, and had two academic classrooms. The first floor housed the administrative offices, the auditorium, the gym, and classrooms for the elementary classes. The second floor was devoted to the junior-senior high classrooms. There was a temporary building…the “chicken coop…” behind the school for two third grade classrooms. And way up on a small third floor, the art studio was located, with its north-facing skylight. Even as a child I think I appreciated the beauty of the school…the exterior stone walls, the slate roof, and the varnished oak woodwork throughout the interior were quite impressive. The elementary classes…I think there were three at each grade level except for the two third grade classes … stayed in one room with one teacher all day. Each class contained about18-20 students. The curriculum was much the same as in the lower grades…reading and arithmetic with the addition of social studies (a combination of history, civics, and geography), music and art. I don’t remember science being taught as a subject, but I suppose it was worked into the other courses. Homework increased as the years went on, but I don’t remember it being the chore it seems to be today. We were encouraged to take music lessons on band or orchestral instruments. One novelty was the assembly programs with the other elementary grades, where we learned and sang old ballads while the music teacher accompanied us on the piano or her violin. I was fascinated that rather than just her fingers quivering on the strings, her whole body seemed to shake. We were also supposed to learn to sing solfeggio, that is, sight-reading music, but I failed that. Another big change was having lunch in a real cafeteria with hot as well as cold selections. Some of us still brought our bagged lunches…it was less expensive and these were Depression years. We still had recess, but the playground was much larger, and the kickball games were played on real grass rather than dirt. And we could ride our bikes to school!
The next big move was to junior high, and we literally moved to the second floor. No graduation ceremony…no diplomas…just a letter telling us who our “homeroom” teacher would be in September. Again, homerooms were three in number and contained about 20 students. But what changes! Now we moved from classroom to classroom as the subjects changed. We had lockers to store our books, and we rubbed shoulders, in awe, with the high school kids who tolerated us as we scurried around the halls. The classes remained much the same…arithmetic (now called MATH); English where writing was emphasized and we read classics such as Silas Marner, David Copperfield, and Ivanhoe; and social studies which concentrated on units like My Family, My Community, My State in the seventh grade and American history in eighth grade. We had gym twice a week complete with musty gym uniforms and cold showers, but no more kickball. Now it was basketball, touch football, rope climbing, and (groan!) murder ball, the opportunity for bullies to annihilate the smaller kids. Art, shop, music, and home economics divided the year into fourths…ten weeks each…and were much more structured than in the lower grades. We learned how to bake cookies and set a table, appreciate classical music, and how to use hand tools and make birdhouses. My memory of art is a total blank (sorry, Toni)…guess I wasn’t artistic. And, of course, the homework increased, but we had study halls which allowed us to get much of it done in school.
Socially, junior high school recognized the maturation of the students. We had dancing classes in the cafeteria after school. For a very modest fee, a private instructor taught us the fox trot, waltz, jitterbug, tango and rumba. The boys had to wear slacks and white shirts and a tie; the girls wore dresses and maybe white gloves. Every time I hear Tommy Dorsey’s Song of India or Glenn Miller’s Tuxedo Junction, I remember the teacher counting out the steps. And if you didn’t pay attention, you had to dance with HER! We started to have boy/girl parties, usually on Saturday afternoons, and I learned that girls didn’t have “cooties;” in fact, girls were pretty nice.
I think we were given more responsibility than our middle schoolers have today. We were part of the General Organization, the student government, and each homeroom had a representative who attended the G.O. meetings and reported back to the homeroom. We were allowed to help the administration solve some of the issues that affected the student body. We had a junior service club to help keep discipline in the halls during passing time among other duties. And junior high students were members of the band and orchestra, just like the high school kids. During World War II, the G.O. reps sold war bonds and stamps in homeroom during drives. I remember having several hundred dollars, which I collected from classmates for bonds that their parents bought through us. We were responsible to see that the money was turned over to the drive chairman each afternoon. Each homeroom elected class officers, and each grade sponsored and planned a fundraiser, usually an old movie. And we had FUN!
After
eight years of preparation, we were ready to be launched into high school. But
more about that another time.
The
other day, I was watching the little children waiting for the bus to take them
for their day at school. I got to remembering what it was like when I went to
school in the mid-thirties and how things have changed. We
all attended kindergarten at the Kipp Street school, which, of course,
wasn’t on Kipp Street but off Hardscrabble Road where the New Castle Art
Center is today. We only went half a day, switching between morning and
afternoon sessions half way through the school year. There were no
prerequisites to attend kindergarten then…you just had to be five years old.
And even that requirement could be waived if there was room, thereby allowing
a child to start school early at the age of four and a half if your birthday
fell early in the calendar year. All
we did was play, which taught us to share with others and to listen to a
teacher. I guess our parents had already taught us to count to ten and to know
our colors, to put on our clothes, tie our shoes, and not to fight. No
workbooks, no homework, just socializing. None of us went to nursery school
then.
First,
second, and third grade were taught at the “little school,” a big concrete
building at the top of King Street where Talbots is today. The school had four
classrooms, a nurse’s office for applying Band-aids after recess, and a
cafeteria. I think there were two first grade classes going a half day each,
and two second grades and one third grade going a full day. There were also
two third grade classes downtown in a wooden building called the “chicken
coop” located behind the One
teacher taught us all day: reading, writing, arithmetic, music, and art.
I don’t remember science being a subject. Each class had about 15 to
20 students. We were not organized by where we lived, as I remember classmates
from Millwood and downtown in my class, and I lived on the east side. We
had reading groups with fewer students, so that each child had a chance to
read from the reader. Yes…we had Fun
with Dick and Jane and other less memorable books. We all sat in a circle
waiting our turn and giggling when a classmate made a mistake. I think the
groups may have been organized by ability, but I was never conscious of that. The
second and third graders had workbooks, which we used in school, but I don’t
remember having to take them home. We may have had some homework, but it never
seemed to cut into my playtime outdoors or my radio listening time. Each
classroom had a piano, and the teacher could play it adequately to accompany
our singing. There was a box of “instruments” that we could play…sticks
to keep time with, a tambourine or two, several triangles…all of which were
in great demand. Art
consisted of paper and a box of peeled crayons or paint jars, or colored paper
and paste which some of the kids thought tasted good enough to eat. Oh yes,
and finger painting which I’m sure the teachers would just as soon have
forgotten altogether. What a mess! Of course, we all had to bring smocks from
home to save our school clothes. We
didn’t have gym; we had recess. The playground contained a large steel
jungle gym, a large slide, and a big sandbox. We spent a lot of time and
energy chasing each other around when we weren’t climbing the jungle gym
bars to reach the top and slide down the corner supports, an activity, which I
think, was not allowed. It was a long fall down. Second
and third graders ate lunch in the cafeteria. We all brought our lunches in
lunchboxes or brown paper bags. We could buy milk, both white and chocolate,
in half-pint bottles, a bag of Life
was pretty simple then…very little pressure…but we seemed to learn what
was expected of us to pass into the next level. And after three relatively
carefree years, we were ready to leave the little school and attend fourth
grade in the “BIG SCHOOL,” the
Little
White Lies and Old Wives’ Tales If
you’ve read some of my ramblings, you may remember my mentioning my
grandmother, Louise Thompson, from time to time. I called her Nanny… or We’ve
all been exposed to little white lies…Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the
Tooth Fairy… wonderful folk tales that bring joy to children and parents
alike. But Some old wives’ tales had a practical purpose. I was told to eat my bread crusts so my hair would grow curly; eat my carrots and I could see in the dark; don’t drink coffee or tea or I’d stunt my growth. She may have shared that one with Tony Viscomi, who ran the Twin Diner in Chappaqua. Tony wouldn’t sell me coffee even when I was in high school. Some tales were based on superstition. “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” If your palm itched, you would find money. “Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.” Don’t put a hat on the bed…it’s bad luck. But to counter bad luck, have a ladybug land on your hand, and she’ll bring you good luck. If you blow an eyelash off the back of your hand, that’s good luck, too. But if you spill salt, throw some over your right shoulder to blind the Devil when he sneaks up behind you with bad luck. And if she dropped silverware, she was sure unexpected guests would be coming for dinner. Maybe
the silliest one of all, I’ll
tell you more about
I
think we had a lot more free time to have fun when we were kids than our
children have today. Oh, we had our chores to do…picking up our rooms,
feeding the pets, emptying trash, mowing and raking the lawn…but there
always seemed to be time left for entertaining ourselves. If the weather was
good, we were outside playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians (we
didn’t know about political correctness), or pickup games of football or
baseball, there being no organized sports program then. “But,” you ask,
“didn’t you have homework to do?” Well, we had study halls during school
…quiet time…when you could get a lot of your assignments done. Saturdays
were especially made for improvised activities…hiking, bike riding, or just
hanging around with a friend or two. I remember sitting in a tree at the foot
of By
the mid-forties when we were in junior high, Saturday nights became a problem.
We were too old to sit home with our parents and too young to go on
“dates” to the movies. So a group of fathers formed the Chappaqua Dads.
They had permission to open the Around
1946 a group of us students wanted to take a page from the service canteens of
WWII. The local Safeway store had closed, and the owner agreed to let us turn
it into a Teen Canteen. We cleaned it up, found castoff couches and
chairs…even an old jukebox that someone had…and enjoyed “a place of our
own” in the middle of town. We policed it ourselves…I don’t remember
adults being there when it was open Friday and Saturday nights…and we never
had any problems. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long, as the building was
rented all too soon for us.
By our high school years we enjoyed boy-girl time together. Friday nights during basketball season were fun when groups of us would attend the game together, and after the game, adjourn to someone’s house. There the living room rug would be rolled up, records played on the phonograph, and we’d dance for an hour or two. The parents were home…out of sight but available in case of “crashers,” and we always had Cokes and chips to sustain us for the walk home. Oh yes, we walked because we weren’t eighteen, the legal age to drive at night. We
were so lucky to have the free time to enjoy our childhood. And I’m tickled
pink when I hear my neighborhood children out playing, whether it be shooting
baskets, kicking a soccer ball, or just chasing each other laughing and
shouting. As the TV commercial says, “They’re just too young to be old.”
WINTER
CLOTHES: WHY I DISLIKE WINTER I’m not too fond of winter. It may be due to the fact that I’m over forty and don’t indulge in snow sports (unless snow blowing the driveway has become an Olympic event). But I think it has more to do with the heavy clothing I have to wear to stay warm. And that aversion to winter clothes dates back to my elementary school years in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, before polar fleece and Ugg boots were invented, and before geese gave up their down. I don’t know if winters were colder then, but our bedrooms certainly were. We had coalfired steam heat, and we slept with the windows open. If Dad didn’t stoke the fire early, before I had to get dressed for school, my clothes were as cold as the outside air. If the heat was coming up and the radiators were getting hot, I’d put my clothes on the radiator to get the chill off. Now, that could be hazardous, because I had to wear one-piece long underwear with metal snaps up the front and a flap in the back for obvious purposes. If the snaps came in contact with the radiator, the effect when they touched my skin certainly woke me in a hurry. Yow! How I hated those long johns, especially when the day came to disrobe in front of my classmates for the annual school physical. And they were always in winter! Next came the “uniform” for boys in the lower grades…knickers, high socks, flannel shirts, and sweaters. Knickers…there’s a new word for those of you under fifty. These pants were made of corduroy and had elastic bands around the lower calves so that they would tuck into long cotton stockings, usually in an argyle pattern. When one walked in knickers, they produced a “zip, zip” sound as the corduroy legs rubbed together. Next came the heavy cotton-flannel plaid shirt and a wool sweater, both tucked into the knickers. I was ready to go downstairs for breakfast… and Mom’s inspection. Outerwear was the next hurdle. Most boys wore mackinaws…heavy wool felt jackets, again with a plaid design, and an attached hood. Under the hood I wore a wool knit hat or a wool felt cap with earmuffs that folded under the cap or up on the outside. Hand knit mittens with a ribbon attached and running through the jacket sleeves (so they wouldn’t get lost) kept my hands warm…until I threw a few snowballs, and the mittens became sodden and cold.
Finally came the galoshes…now there’s an onomatopoetic word for you. A galosh was a high, rubber-coated canvas overshoe that buckled up the front. When one walked in galoshes, that’s the sound they made …“galosh, galosh”… as one slogged through the snow and slush. Oh, I almost forgot the wool scarf wrapped around my neck as many times as possible. Ready for school…and only ten pounds heavier than when my feet hit the freezing floor. No wonder each classroom had to have a cloakroom for all the outer clothing we kids wore. Junior high school brought some relief…no more long johns and knickers, mackinaws and galoshes, or mittens with ribbons. Now I could wear jockey shorts, T-shirts, and long pants (but they were still corduroy), and rubbers over my shoes on snowy days. Only the outer jacket gave me some angst. The other boys wore short ski-type jackets. But Mom insisted my coat keep my kidneys warm, and she had the mistaken idea that my kidneys were located somewhere in my buttocks. Therefore, my coat came halfway down my thighs. It definitely didn’t make a fashion statement. But with its sheepskin lining it was warm…and heavy. Finally in high school, I was allowed to buy my own clothes…within reason. Ski caps and wool Eisenhower jackets from the Army-Navy store replaced the knit caps and “kidney warmers,” leather gloves instead of mittens, and ski boots on snowy days replaced galoshes. Ski boots then were not what skiers wear today. They were leather lace-ups with heavy soles that didn’t flex, so one clomped around like Frankenstein’s monster. I’m sure they drove the teachers mad, but we thought they were “nitzy.” Well, today my winter clothes are lighter and warmer – fleeces, polypropylene, and down. But they’re still too bulky and get in the way when I drive. No
wonder I look forward to spring…and golf shirts, shorts, and boat shoes.
The scourge of today’s youth, the health gurus tell us, is junk food. It’s blamed for everything from low grades to high weight, and they’re probably right. Six score and ten years ago, we didn’t have “junk” food, unless you count Hostess cup cakes and Drakes coffee cake, but we didn’t waste our allowances on those…maybe ice cream. No…we weren’t addicted to burgers and pizza; we were addicted to radio food.
Let me explain. Every kid had his or her favorite radio programs. From five until six every afternoon, we were transfixed in front of our radios to catch the latest adventures of our transcribed heroes. And they all advertised food, mainly cereals, so they couldn’t be that bad for us. But we became slaves to brand names. My earliest memory of radio was listening to “Irene Wicker, the Singing Lady” who sang songs for children. She advertised Kellogg cereals, probably Corn Flakes, but we already ate these, with bananas. No problem there. Next I remember Nila Mack’s “Let’s Pretend,” dramatizations of children’s stories, every Saturday. Cream of Wheat was her sponsor, and that was a good hot cereal for winter. Again, no conflict. But
as I grew older a problem developed. “Little Orphan Annie” wanted us to
drink Ovaltine, so I coerced my grandmother to buy it. After all, I needed the
seal to get the decoder to read the secret messages Pierre Andre read after
the broadcasts. She acquiesced, I got my decoder, but then I had to drink the
Ovaltine…and it was awful; not the chocolate flavored drink they push today,
but a malted flavor I didn’t like. But I knew that if I didn’t finish it, Well,
that was Ralston hot cereal from
I
had a little less trouble with my favorite program, “The Lone Ranger.” He
had me urge Fortunately,
I grew up and realized I was being manipulated by my heroes. Cheerios, Corn
Kix, and Historical
Note: Several
of my radio heroes, Commander Don Winslow, and Mandrake the Magician, were
played by a local Chappaqua actor, Raymond Edward Johnson, who lived in Dodge
Farms. He was one of the most familiar voices during radio’s golden age.
Perhaps most famous as Raymond, your host, on “Inner Sanctum Mysteries” of
the squeaking door intro, he was also heard on “Gang Busters,” “Lights
Out,” “Mr. District Attorney,” and many
other adventure shows, dramas, and soap operas. We all knew him and learned to
recognize his voice. He was Chappaqua’s real-life radio hero.
Dad worked as a road salesman with Westchester Lighting Company in the mid-thirties, before Con Edison absorbed the company. He sold Frigidaire refrigerators out of the Pleasantville office, and he had to have the car on weekdays. And since we were a one-car family, as were most families in those Depression days, Saturday was the time to “run errands” for the family. While Mom and my grandmother did their Saturday chores, Dad and I would make ourselves scarce. And that’s how I bonded with my Dad…and learned about Chappaqua, my town. Dad
and I would pile into his 1932 The
first stop was usually the post office, located where the Greeley Barber Shop
is today. One wall was filled with brass mail boxes, each with two lettered
dials. I wasn’t tall enough to reach our box, but I remember the combination
…between G and H and between S and T. We kept that combination until the
Postal Service started delivering Next
stop might be Cadman’s drug store, across from the post office, to pick up a
prescription or something Mom
needed.
Cadman’s always smelled
the same… probably a mixture of face powder and perfume, candy, floor
wax…I don’t know what all. While Dad made his purchases, I hung around the
soda fountain just in case Mr. Cadman had a package of cookies that came with
a hot chocolate to give me. He usually did. Mom and Dad played bridge with Don
Cadman and his wife
Next
door was the While
we were in the village, we might go to Chappaqua Coal and Feed to pay the coal
bill. This was located across the tracks at the site of the abandoned
Chappaqua Drama building. Lou Kopp, the owner, and his wife Phyllis were
another bridge couple so Dad had to pass the time with Lou while I looked at
the coal trucks. Another stop might be at the Quality Market on the corner of Every
other Saturday we’d have to go to Pleasantville to DiGrazia’s barber shop
on Perhaps the biggest treat was to go to Chappaqua Motors to have the oil changed in the car. Devoe Bingham owned the garage, located where our Mobil station is today. He and Dad had been friends and neighbors over the years. While they talked and a mechanic changed the oil, I could wander and look at the new Chryslers and Plymouths in the showroom or at the limousines from the estates around town that were in for service… Lincolns, Cadillacs, even a Rolls-Royce. Sometimes Mr. Bingham’s manager, Al Cronk, would lift me into one of these luxurious cars and let me pretend to drive it. And when we left, Mr. Bingham would give me a catalogue with pictures of the new cars he sold for my scrapbook. We had to be home for lunch, and then Mom and Dad would plan their afternoon activities which often didn’t include me. But that was OK…I had my new Tootsietoy to play with and pictures of cars to cut out and paste in my scrapbook. I’d had a full Saturday with Dad.
Twighlight
games of summer article missing – Summer 05 Imagine
going to your local summer theater and seeing Margaret Sullavan, Henry Fonda,
Mildred Dunnock, Burgess Meredith, Myron McCormick, Ruth Gordon, Lloyd
Bridges, Eddie Albert, Vincent Price, Ethel Barrymore, Edmond O’Brien, David
Wayne, Joseph Cotton, Van Heflin, Montgomery Clift, Sylvia Sidney, and Keenan
Wynn perform. The residents of Well,
these actors didn’t all appear in one play or in one season, but all were
players at the Westchester Playhouse in My family attended many of the performances from the opening of the theater in the summer of 1932 to 1940 and saved the playbills, so I have the record of many of the performances and the players. In 1930, seats cost from fifty cents in the balcony to $2.00 in the orchestra. Performances were in the evening, but there was a matinee on Friday. Perhaps the biggest headliner that first year was Margaret Sullavan, a Broadway actress briefly married to Henry Fonda in 1931, who went on to take Hollywood by storm the next year. She starred in three productions along with Kent Smith from Bronxville and Anne Seymour, both part of the stock company. By 1933 the theater must have gained a good reputation because more future stars were in the company. Monty Woolley ,“the man who came to dinner”, was listed as the stage director, and Henry Fonda designed and built all the sets and acted in three plays for the season. Other notables were actors Kent Smith (his second season), Ernest Truax, Henry Hull, and Peggy Wood (later of the TV show “Mama”). I guess the Depression was hurting ticket sales because the prices had dropped to $1.65. The
summer of 1934 saw many more future stars appearing. Henry Fonda returned this
season with his name in capital letters and fresh from the Broadway review “
New Faces.” Myron McCormick was there for the season as was a 26-year-old
Mildred Natwick. Tom Powers, later a Hollywood contract player, lived in The
1936 season saw the return of now familiar actors and the addition of new
talent. The Mildreds (Natwick and Dunnock) were back with Peggy Wood and Tom
Powers, ably assisted by George Macready, Eddie Albert, and Lloyd Bridges
(“…a resident of Hollywood who has come east to seek his fortune”). And
maybe the hit of the season was to be Vincent Price, fresh from playing on
Broadway opposite Helen Hayes in “Victoria Regina” and considered
“…the most popular young leading man to play under the Tuttle
management”). Day Tuttle was the
director of the theater from its inception into the 1940’s. When I was growing up in Chappaqua, most houses had attics. I don’t mean those low ceiling crawl spaces that you reach by ladder through a trap door in the ceiling as the modern ranch and modular homes have today. These had an attic door and stairs and were stand-up attics with eves where you could find long forgotten treasures. There was nothing like an attic to play in on rainy Saturdays in the spring and fall. They were often too hot in the summer unless they had cross ventilation, and the winters were too cold because Johns-Manville had invented insulation that prevented the heat in the house from rising. Attics offered an unlimited opportunity to explore. Old steamer trunks were filled with outmoded clothing, old books, faded family pictures of departed relatives and forgotten vacation spots, and cast-off costume jewelry. Old comfy couches or straight-backed oak chairs from another era could be arranged into forts and hideouts. If one was very lucky, there might be an old wind-up Victrola with records from the twenties and thirties…the Charleston, the two step, Russ Colombo, Rudy Vallee, Paul Whiteman, Enrico Caruso…all passé to the folks, but new to us kids. I even found an Atwater-Kent radio with a horn speaker. My electric train was stored in the attic, and that was where I could lay out the tracks and leave them set up until a new activity appealed to me. I was even able to ride my tricycle up in the attic if Dad would carry it up and down. Toys lost under the eves one year were found and seemed new another year. And my aunt stored National Geographics and Readers Digests up there…an endless supply of pictures of exotic places, ads for old cars, and later, jokes to read. Attics
smelled…old…a mixture of cedar shingles, dust, old paper, heat…I don’t
know what all, but I can still recall that smell today. And of course there
were scads of dead flies and wasps that seemed to spontaneously generate near
the windows. (Fortunately, Our
house today is furnished in part with furniture from my family’s past. I’m
sitting at my grandfather’s oak roll-top desk, bought at Finn’s Desk
Exchange on Today people give away old furniture because they haven’t room to store it for their children when they might need it or value it. Worse yet, such things are destroyed…put out for pick-up… when no one wants them. I wonder where we’ll find the antiques of tomorrow without attics to store them in. People who buy the old Victorians and the houses built in the 20’s and 30’s are converting the attics into family rooms or extra bedrooms. When I sold the family home a few years back, I searched diligently in the attic under the eves, hoping to find some toys from my youth that had rolled away to be forgotten. Sadly, someone had done too thorough a job cleaning over the years. Nothing left but the memories of Saturdays in the attic. SMALL CHANGE I
can’t get over seeing the middle school kids from In the mid-1930’s, my Grandmother Louise used to tell me, “Take care of the pennies, and the dollars will take care of themselves.” I had trouble handling that bit of Keynesian economic theory, but another of her favorite sayings was, “See a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.” I let the luck take care of itself, but a penny meant a trip to Mr. Gottberg’s Little Store where Lange’s Deli is now. Oh, the candy I could buy for a penny…a box containing two Chiclets, licorice shoe strings, several jaw breakers, some Mary Janes, spearmint leaves, or gum drops. If I was lucky enough to find a deposit pop bottle, I had two cents and could treat a friend. My pals and I used our eagle eyes searching the roadsides for these thrown away treasures. Now, five pennies made a nickel… I loved the sound of that word. Our nickels had an Indian head on one side and a buffalo on the other, two symbols any kid could identify. And a nickel was a small fortune. In fact, a nickel was my whole week’s allowance for several formative years. A nickel would buy a cold bottle of Pepsi on a hot day. I never bought a Coke because with Pepsi, I got “twice as much for a nickel, too.” An ice cream-cone at Cadman’s Pharmacy was a nickel, and I think that included sprinkles. At the Little Store it bought a Popsicle, Creamsicle, Fudgesicle, or Melloroll, a cylindrical ice cream that sat in its own horizontal waffle cone. Even the Good Humor man sold a small cup of orange ice for five cents. And I spent many of my allowance nickels on Tootsietoy cars at the Greeley Hardware store next to Cadman’s. As I matured and my allowance increased to a dime, new consumer horizons opened for me. Occasionally I could splurge and buy a toasted almond Good Humor instead of the ice cup. The Good Humor truck would come by the house every summer day, and the jingling bells would summon us kids to the street like the Pied Piper’s flute. I think my biggest summer thrill was finding a “lucky stick” in the ice-cream bar that entitled me to a free Good Humor. They were pretty rare. And for a dime I could buy a comic book or “funny book” as we referred to them. We read Superman, Batman, and the Green Hornet until the books fell apart, and then we would exchange them with friends… but not “for keeps.” Quarters came still later, and they meant a Saturday matinee at the Rome Theater in Pleasantville. From one o’clock until four-thirty our eyes were glued to the screen, watching cartoons, the March of Time, Johnny Mack Brown westerns, and adventure movies. If someone had an extra nickel, we’d share a box of Good and Plenty or Jujifruits, happily loosening the fillings in our teeth. I think our parents felt a quarter was worth it for three hours of peace and quiet. I don’t remember getting too many fifty-cent pieces: a kid could get sick on fifty cents, and I think they were earmarked for my savings account at Chappaqua National Bank. But I had an “uncle” who visited my folks occasionally, and he often gave me a silver dollar. Then I was a wealthy child! Later
on, paper bills were great for buying power, but I’ve never lost my love for
small change. Bills don’t jingle in my pocket or feel good in my hand. I
still get a charge finding a forgotten quarter in a pair of pants or under the
couch cushion. And yes, I still stoop to pick up a penny. Hey, I’ll take all
the luck I can find.
I was getting a prescription filled the other day at the Rite Aid pharmacy, and walking down the aisle, I was amazed at the number of over-the-counter medicines that are available for what ails us. There are so many more choices than there were fifty or sixty years ago when patent medicines and prescriptions were fewer in number. Cadman’s Pharmacy was the source of our medication in town, and many doctors had their own mixtures to cure or relieve illness. Doctor Robinson, a Pleasantville physician, doctored many of us in Chappaqua. For a sore throat we took Dr. Robbie’s yellow throat mixture, a concoction so vile tasting that the temptation to pretend to have a sore throat in order to stay home from school had to be weighed very carefully against the requirement of taking the medicine. For a stuffy nose we used a locally prescribed nose drop, but for a bad cold or sinus infection, Argyrol, a brown, disgusting nose drop, was the preferred treatment. With coughs we suffered through spoonfuls of peptinoids and creosote, another dark brown torture. Cherry flavored syrups were yet to be invented. For a chest cold, the old mustard plasters had been replaced by Vicks Vaporub, about the only medication that was pleasant in any way. Upset stomachs required rhubarb and soda. A headache was eased with two aspirins and two soda mint tablets to neutralize the acid effect of the aspirin - no Bufferin in those days. Constipation must have been very prevalent because we seemed to have had many remedies for that: the old reliable castor oil, sometimes mixed with orange juice so that we wouldn’t gag; Haley’s MO (mineral oil); Phillips Milk of Magnesia, either liquid or tablets (the mint flavored was to come later); Ex-Lax, the chocolate laxative; and Feenamint, the chewing gum laxative. What a way to kill a child’s love of orange juice, mints, chocolate, and Chiclets. And I remember Fletcher’s Castoria, which Dad called syrup of figs; not bad if you liked figs. We didn’t have the vitamin choices we have today. If one became run down, there were patent tonics like Maltose with a honey consistency but a medicinal taste; cod liver oil which tasted like spoiled fish and was another destroyer of orange juice; and for women, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, often referred to as “pink pills for pale people.” Fortunately for me, sulfur and molasses was passé, but I think my grandmother secretly longed to try it on me each spring as a tonic. My father told me that when he was young, he needed extra iron, and his mother soaked rusty nails in water and had him drink the water. How about that! Serious infections were difficult to treat. There were sulfa drugs and after World War Two, penicillin, but it was administered with huge needles that seemed always to be dull and probably were because they were used over and over after being disinfected. Small cuts were treated with iodine which stung like crazy or, if one was lucky, Mercuro-chrome, which didn’t sting. No Bacitracin, Neosporin, or other antibiotics… they hadn’t been invented. Aches and bruises were treated with arnica and witch hazel or maybe Baum Ben Gay. Of course, with the latter you smelled like wintergreen all day. Oh yes…there was Absorbine Jr. which I’m sure was 150 proof and was used for aches, pains, and athlete’s foot…now there’s a medical combo for you. People tried to avoid operations or “going under the knife” as we said. However, most kids I knew had their tonsils and adenoids out by the time they were six or seven. It just seemed to be the thing to do to avoid serious colds and throat infections. We kids were lured into the hospital with promises of ice cream after the operation, but one’s throat was so sore that the ice cream hurt too much to swallow. Today a tonsillectomy is a rare occurrence. About the only benefits of the good old days was the availability of a doctor to visit one at home. I believe office visits cost two dollars, and a house call was five dollars. That may not seem like much today, but during the Depression, that was a lot of money. And the recovery process seems strange today: bed rest for 24 hours after a fever. Now
with all the medications we have and the medical specialists to watch over us,
we must be healthier than we were then. Yet somehow with all the childhood
diseases like measles, mumps, and whooping cough, which we caught in school,
and the dangers of asbestos covering our heating pipes, and lead paint on the
walls and furniture, we managed to survive childhood. Good for us.
Radio dramas, comic books, and Saturday movie matinees - all were the grist for our mills. We had our cowboy heroes…Hoot Gibson, Johnny Mack Brown, Gene Autry, and Roy Rogers, and any open space became the wide-open prairie. You be the rustler and I’ll be Hoot. If you didn’t have a cap pistol, you made a wooden one with some pine stock, a penknife, and black shoe polish. The fields below where the high school is now made wonderful wide-open spaces for a cattle stampede. I
remember seeing the movie, “Drums along the Mohawk,” and for weeks the
Greeley Woods was the western Comic book and radio heroes like the Green Hornet were easy to play…again you needed a pistol… and transportation. Dad’s 1935 Dodge coupe became the Black Beauty even though it was tan. We made all the sound effects…car motors, gunshots…with our mouths. We
were aware of world affairs, and the Spanish Civil War and the Russo-Finnish
War gave us an opportunity to perfect our combat skills. The unfinished Any
brook became a challenge…it had to be dammed to form a pond for wading in
the summer. The little brook along I think we were fortunate that there were no organized sports for us. That left us free to pick up our own teams, make our own rules, and resolve our own disputes. Parents played no role in our playtime…they were too busy making a living and keeping house. Of course, Mom was always ready to pack a PBJ sandwich and some Lorna Doone cookies to take on the trail. But we were free to be gone for the day as long as she knew approximately where we would be and with whom we were playing. Lucky
us…no TV, no video games, no chance to be bored. We made our own fun…and
memories.
SCOUTING
IN NEW CASTLE - WORLD WAR II A
few weeks ago I attended a memorial service for Rusty Allen, a member of the
Campfire Club of America. On a table by his pictures were his medals earned as
an Army officer in I
couldn’t wait to become a Boy Scout and to wear the flat brimmed hat and
khaki shirt that the son of a family friend had given me when he outgrew it.
Cub Scouting was all well and good...but Boy Scouts went on overnight camping
trips and cooked out in the woods by Guinzburg’s lake on upper My
chance came in the spring of 1943 when I turned twelve, the required age at
that time. I joined a number of my friends, including Rusty, and some boys
whom I didn’t know well enough to call friends, and we formed a new
troop...Troop 2. Troop 1 was older and larger, and it was formed mostly of
boys on the west side of town. We were sponsored by the Congregational Church
and met in the undercroft of the church on Friday nights. We
wasted no time learning the necessary information...Scout oath, Scout laws,
Scout motto...so that we could become Tenderfeet and wear the first gold pin
on our uniforms. And what a sight we were...most of us wearing hand-me-down
parts of the uniform…we looked like under-aged veterans of World War One
with the campaign hats and knickers-like pants. Of course, some boys had
complete, new uniforms (they must have been the rich kids). But we all took a
trip at one time or another to Stone’s Men Store on Getting
ready to march in the Memorial Day parade required hours of marching practice
under the stern commands of Elliot Bliss, our Scoutmaster. We marched up and
down This
was in the early years of World War Two, and we weren’t organized long
before we started to participate in activities to help the war effort. Of
course, we all saved tinfoil...what better excuse to chew gum than to save the
foil that wrapped the sticks of gum. Another plane to bomb Hitler. But
the most fun were the scrap metal and waste paper drives that occurred
periodically in town. Word would be put out through fliers and the local
newspaper that a drive would be held on a Saturday.
The Town highway department would donate the trucks and volunteer
drivers, and we would meet in the village and report to our designated trucks,
in uniform, of course. Each truck would have an assigned route, and our job
was to throw the scrap metal or bundled magazines and newspapers up into the
truck and pile them neatly so as to economize space. The best part was when we
would find some copies of Esquire magazine; we would gather around and
read the jokes and gaze in adolescent awe at the Vargas centerfolds. Who says
we didn’t have sex education in the Forties? Another
wartime activity, which made us feel very important, was assisting in Red
Cross blood drives. The auditorium of the Horace Greeley School (now the Bell
School), was set up with hospital beds and screening partitions, creating
stations manned by nurses, the whole operation supervised by two local women,
Mrs. Ruth Guinzburg and Mrs. Ethel Riach in their elegant Gray Ladies
uniforms. We scouts would show blood donors to their assigned beds, and after
they had donated their pint, we would give them juice as they rested the
required time before leaving. Some of the older boys would be assigned to
carry the cartons with empty or filled bottles from or to the waiting
ambulances...real Army ambulances painted olive drab with large red crosses on
the sides and top and manned by soldiers in uniform. This was one duty we took
very seriously...no shirking responsibility here. Of
course, there were the hikes, the camporees, two weeks of scout camp for the
lucky ones, and the courts of honor, but the paper drives and the blood banks
were activities which gave us the opportunity to prove our responsibility. We
felt a part of the war effort. We were good Scouts.
As the cool, crisp days of September and October arrive, I start to think of …cider. Not that pale, thin, sour-sweet, made-from-concentrate stuff called “apple juice” but the thick, opaque, rusty orange cider that you can only get at an orchard. That’s cider! When I was growing up in the 1930’s and 40’s, almost every yard had at least one apple tree left standing by the builders, and while they might not have been the best quality, the apples were consumed by kids in spite of parental admonitions against tummy aches from eating green apples and germs. Ben Davis and Russet were the most common variety on m |
Now
Jack Armstrong wanted me to eat Wheaties…The
Breakfast of Champions. They got soggy pretty quickly in milk so I had to
gobble them up before they turned to mush. And then “Don Winslow of the
Navy” wanted me to eat Kellogg’s Pep, another mushy wheat flake. What’s
a fella to do? How could I be loyal to “the All-American boy” and to
Commander Don at the same time? And I really didn’t like either cereal. And
to further complicate the dilemma, Hop Harrigan wanted me to eat Grape Nut
Flakes; Brit Reed, the Green Hornet, pushed General Mills cereals; Buck Rogers
ate only Post cereal; and Terry and the Pirates ate Quaker Puffed Wheat
Sparkies, “the wheat that’s shot from guns.” Bacon and eggs was sounding
very good by this time.
mail
in the 1950’s. Of course Dad would chat with the postmaster…John Harrigan.