"Why
use plain ole butter when you can use… horse fat? The ad boasts using
the finest horse hooves and fat that money can buy. It also says that
it’s great on bread, toast and pancakes.
Just the idea of this
is disgusting to most of the world today, let alone to those concerned
with animal rights. The one redeeming thing about this ad is that it
shows the contrast between yesterday’s world and ours. I don’t think
that using horse fat is even legal anymore, but in the 1950’s it was
simply an alternative. Still, this gives the phrase “I can’t believe
it’s not butter” a whole different meaning." Retro Dee's, Dickman's
(made from the goodness of ponies.)
Some
of fellow bloggers have questioned its validity, as rightly you should.
While there is butter to use on horses for their health, nothing is
written about this product, dang it. Ponies were popular in the rural
areas where I grew up. The Dept of Agriculture wanted to use ponies as
alternative to beef, so farmers were encouraged to give this a run. That
was in the 1950s.
Give it a try?
Some
readers may consider this a hoax, but it is not. Neighbors did this
experiment. A neighbor Jim tried this, still had one pony left which I saw
in the field a few times.
This was a 2022 blog post. I hope you all will find this inspiring.
My daughter lives in Switzerland and their fine eating is different from ours.
Do not argue or mess with this lady. She will lecture you to death. Or grab you by the ear and haul you out to do laundry with a wringer washer.
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment,.
The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."
The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."
The older lady said that she was right our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.
The older lady went on to explain: "Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day. Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.
But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks. But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.
Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days.
Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.
Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power.
We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity. But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the "green thing."
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.
But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?"
Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart ass young person. We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced smartass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much. Karen Karli Webb America in the 1950s
The caption on the photo shows the originating post in 2020.
Amen.
Sorry about the length of this post. Didn't know what to edit out.
In 1955, I was 4 years old and my world was all about playing. I didn't know about the other world where women were stay-at-home moms and were basically saints. My own mother was a saint, but she was part of a work force with my father.
Apparently, I was ignorant about these women. None of them were part of my real world, and I was not or would ever be part of theirs. The following videos are all similar, all about 2 minutes long. Can you guess which one is actually from that time period?
Sooo, there you have what it takes to be that perfect wife all aspire to be. Good luck to all of you. Men, better change your views of marriage. You just might disappear one night, only to be found shivering, sobbing in a dark abandoned dirt road. You might be naked.
I was 8 years old, life was filled with adventure, learning, and ignorance. I had NO idea about what my parents faced and what things cost. This post is not about anything special or imbued with great meaning. It is simply a reflection of that golden time of the 1950s.
Caravan Parks following WW11 were immensely popular. After a time of rationing and doing-without, a
park providing comfortable housing and entertainment along a river or ocean was
welcome. Families visited these parks in droves.
An English mystery, George
Gently, had an episode that centered around a death in one of these
parks. The time period of this episode was in the late 1960s, when cars were more available, allowing families to drive themselves to
all sorts of places. This particular
park was on the down slide.
In Ireland, Hazel and her family had a standing reservation, year
after year, at one park...only no murders were part of the holiday experience. While her children and husband enjoyed this park,
Hazel was not/is not as woman who sits around tea and gossips. Mindless conversation is not/was not her
interest.
In 1984, our family was traveling around Ireland, Wales, and England. We spent one week at a simlar camp in Wales. Compact holiday houses (not caravans) were comfortable with all the facilities available.
Later in 1987, we visited another such park in Ireland, Trabolgan Cork. (You must access that site, by clicking on the underlined words. You will love the advertisement!). Great times there. Just the break we needed.
The world is a scary place in this generation. Perhaps it has always been scary, but in the
1950s, it did not seem so.
“Baby Boomers” all share stories of the freedom we had in
riding our bikes from the house to remote places, returning only for
meals. The neighbors knew us and we knew
them. We also knew who the strangers
were.
Technology gave us radios and televisions, which opened a
world view known by our parent after a horrible war. Documentaries showed us what happened beyond
the streets of our town. We didn’t know,
we just hadn’t known.
Recently my daughter shared a video that details
perhaps the scariest and frightening of all the world has shown us. Here it is:
In all the scariest experiences seen in our time on earth, this
is the closest to home.
Everyone
has to make his own decisions during his lifetime.Where
should I live?What job should I
pursue?Will I find someone to
love?These questions are universal.
This
poster is about a young woman, Gina “Bronco” Bouza, 1932 – 1957.At one time before fame found her, Ms. Bouza
was a Kansas City stockyard worker.She
was strong, darn strong; she was 5’ 5” and 200 pounds.
Her
job was to kill the steer at the beginning of the meat processing.Her claim to fame was that she could jump
onto the steer, wrap her legs around its neck, and break it.
No, I
am not kidding you!
Someone
realized her talent and asked her to join the female wrestling
organization.She defeated Quebec’s
Giselle “Frog Legs” Boudreau.
After
such an event, Sal Mineo asked her out.Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts were impressed with her.
At the
height of her fame, Ms. Bouza was asked to participate in a fundraiser by Joel
Del Campo.She would get to wrestle an
elderly orangutan (I think), “Bungles”.Tickets were
sold out, crowds gathered, spirits were high.
After
great hoopla, “Bungles” was brought into the ring by its handler.It is easy to imagine it wearily looking
about at the human monkeys, sighing at the noise, and longing to be back in the
quiet of its cage.
Ms.
Bouza leaped into the ring energetically, rousing the crowd.Bouncing around, Ms. Bouza approached “Bungles”,
ready to put her moves to work.
In
twenty seconds, “Bungles” reached out, grabbed Ms. Bouza, and broke her neck,
killing her instantly.
What
choices could Ms. Bouza have made?Were
the Kansas City Stockyards her ideal employment?
Choices
are all important.*
Note: In researching this story, details were mighty thin. Maybe it didn't happen? Maybe it did.
Somehow the 1950s of my childhood seemed to be a sweeter time, almost innocent. The cars were big and roomy, without seatbelts. Keys were often left in the ignition, in case the car had to be moved out of the way for a tractor. Children could be left in the car; no one would take them. Everyone would watch the car anyway, to make sure the kids stayed there.
A different town in a different state in the 1950s
Perhaps leaving kids in the car wasn’t a good idea all the time. Maybe some wisdom should have been applied. I don’t know. But the story here is a true story, with details changed because it is a good idea to change some things.
Lenora had four kids, and was expecting a fifth any day. She had a list of errands to accomplish before #5 came: stop by the butcher and pick up the five gallon sealed container of newly rendered lard, go to the bank, and then drop off the newly-collected honey to be put in jars at her sister’s house. So far she had completed only the first one—picking up the lard.
1956 Ford Fairlane
Lenora left the keys in the car and told the boys what she would do to them if whatever. Then she went into the bank for just a few minutes. A few dang minutes.
A five-gallon tin of lard, pure snowy white
When Lenora came out, she shrieked and shrieked. “What the________ have you boys DONE?”
A last ditch effort to advertise lard
The entire interior of the car was plastered, no, layered, with handprints of white lard. Coated from ceiling to floor mats, from rear view mirror to the back window in lard, thick greasy lard.
Then the honey had come out from the sealed jar and dumped in great sticky strands over the lard.
The doors were locked. The kids were not talking or responding, just giving a quiet giggle now and then. The keys were in the ignition.
Lenora sat down on the curbing and cried. What else could she do?
Our train of tricycle and rusty red Radio Flyer slowly moved along the restrictions of
the gray uneven sidewalk, thumping over the raised sections where time and water had
moved rock and earth to push up the ancient pitted concrete. My brother Kent, with
his sweat-streaked coal black hair and his black framed magnifying lense-like glasses,
peddled slowly, clearly bored with the straight, narrow, and bumpy.
I stood on the platform between the two back wheels, holding on lightly to Kent’s bony kid shoulders,
thinking random thoughts about the humid June weather, the smelly freshly oiled streets,
Mom’s command for us to stay off the oil or else, and whatever a scrawny four-year
old might think. Behind me in the wagon was Bobby, a lumpy neighbor friend, who
sat benignly in the hot metal and complaining as he always did about anything and
everything, including the smell of the oil puddled in the streets, puddled like black
swimming holes, black glossy swimming holes.
It was then that our lives took a new turn, one that would affect many lives, not just our
own young lives, but the lives of grown-ups who were setting out of one of the greatest
adventures of all. The Christian Church doors opened, and out poured a flood of talking
and laughing people, a flood like a rainbow of paint cans that had tipped over and spilled
the contents down the steps.
The women were all dressed in Easter-like finery—dresses with floral splashes and pill-box hats of all colors topped off with fine nets. The men were dressed in funeral garb, complete with ties wrapped too tightly around their bulging necks, with faces red and bloated. The talking and laughing women walked over to the
school house cafeteria next door, followed by the grim and silent husbands, forced there by custom and by threat, knowing that the next meal on their kitchen tables depended on their attendance at this event.
Out of the church doors came another group, only this time the women were garbed gaily
in gorgeous gowns of pink chiffon, layer after layer of wispy, wafting finery waving in
the wind. Then men followed them, young and fit and happy, laughing about the lucky
lively man who lingered with his love on the top step. The pink-clothed bridesmaids
lined one side of the stairs while the gray suit men lined the other. Between them, the
bride in a glittering and graceful gown of winter white with her willing groom began their
descent.
Fate took a hand at this point, and I detected a change in Kent’s long lean legs. He
steered our tricycle entourage onto the oil infested streets and gained speed on the smooth
level gleaming oily black surface. “Noooooo!” I protested but I was almost thrown
off by the g-forces Kent had gained with his grand propelling of our train. In the back,
Bobby was crying, “I’m gonna die…die…” but his voice drifted in the wake of the wind
generated by our rapid locomotion.
Thank you, Erin, for hosting this.
The wheels now had multiple layers of oil coating, and this was when Kent turned his attention to the wedding party. Going the speed of light, our train headed straight for the backs of the pink gowned women. They turned just as we came through them, a spray of sticky syrupy oil splattering across the pink chiffon, creating a new vision of pink leopards, screaming high pitched profanity. The bride was bowled over back onto
the steps, while the groom made his first mistake of his new marriage: he laughed.
The groomsmen were light on their feet, and danced out of the way, but they would have been safe. Our train had lost it load of oil on the bridesmaids and bride.
We headed through the grass, and with great effort, Kent steered us into safer ground,
behind lilac bushes, across two yards, and into our garage, where we collapsed in
laughter and dread.
The original short paragraphs are as follows. I am adding this in, as I didn't recall (brain-fog-moment) that I was supposed to do this. :)
Kent had wired the wagon to the wheel support, where I stood.Bobby climbed into the wagon, complaining about everything, including the nasty oiled streets and the hot muggy June weather.Mom had given us no-nonsense instructions about staying off the streets, so Kent slowly pedaled along the uneven sidewalk.
Just then, a wedding party came pouring out the doors of the Christian Church.The bridesmaids in pink fluffy gowns along with the groomsmen in tuxedos flowed down the church steps, laughing.With their backs to us, the bridesmaids were oblivious to us three and our tricycle train.The bride and groom stood on the top step, preparing to move down.That is when Kent made a decision.Peddling for all he was worth, Kent steered through the pools of black oil, and then made a line for the bridesmaids.They never saw us coming.
This is a true story. I can show you the oil tire marks on the sidewalk in front of the
church. In Preacher’s Creek by Susan Kane
This blogfest is being hosted by the following site: http://courtlyromance.blogspot.com Please check out this site! Many Thanks! to Erin Kane Spock, an awesome writer, with a great future!
