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Dr. Clyde N. Wilson

My, How the World Has Changed

11/13/2018

3 Comments

 
Picture

I am 77 and I recently started to remember things that used to be commonplace but that my children and grandchildren have never seen:

Snuff sticks and spittoons

T-Model Fords

Mule wagons in town

Chamber pots

Greasy  hair tonic for men and boys on Sundays.

When soft drinks came only in real glass bottles and you had to reach down in delightfully cold water to get one

Cotton fields everywhere and up to the edge of the road.  Cotton presses in every town of any size that was on the railroad.

When newspapers were independent local voices

Real Southern orators with white coats and hats

When I saw my first foreign car (a Volkswagen)

When I had my first pizza (I was 18)

When the county courthouse was free to everyone and not a government fortress

When rolled down white socks were fashionable for girls

When college girls had to sign out and in

When  college students lived without cars, apartments, and electronics.

Bib overalls worn by working men and boys, and in summer without shirts

Going barefoot most of the time in the summer

Tin roofs (delightfully restful in the rain)

Most roads were dirt except main ones.

Boys played with BB guns and lighter fluid

Boys spent all day unsupervised in the woods with rifles

Arthur Godfrey

Boys played sports, mowed lawns,  and rode bicycles without helmets (and often without shoes)

When gas was 35 cents a gallon and no woman would be seen near a gas pump.

Everybody who lived in the country had multiple dogs that mainly slept under the house.

There was no television, no computers and only party-line telephones with the speaker you had to stand up to.

Nobody you knew had ever sent or received a long-distance call.  Too expensive.  We had “air mail” for important communications.

Nobody you knew had ever ridden on an airplane, unless in the military.

When a cup of coffee was a nickel or dime depending on how upscale you wanted to go.

When the weekly wash had to be “put through the ringer” and hung outdoors to dry.

Trolley cars powered by overhead wires.

Door deliveries by the milkman, the ice man (for non-electric ice boxes), the coal truck, and the telegraph boy.

Grammaw  making biscuits every day from scratch.

Wagons taking cured tobacco to the auction house.

When hot dogs were 10 cents and milkshakes a quarter, along with 10 cent comic books. So, including bus fare you could have a great day downtown Saturday for one 50 cent piece and a nickel. Sometimes Grampa gave you an extra dime for another comic book, saving you from the tough decision between “Smilin’ Jack” and “Terry and the Pirates.” (Nobody, white or black) ever imagined a child alone  downtown would be harmed.)

3 Comments
Robert M. Peters
11/15/2018 12:38:12 pm

Christmas came at our house when:

1. Daddy "engaged" some Louisiana navel oranges, only available at Christmas time.

2. Daddy bought a coconut or two from which Mama made pies and candy. He would bore holes in the bottom and drink the "milk." He would not let me have any, saying it would "tear up my stomach." When, however, I was twelve, he let me have some. It was a redneck Bar Mitzvah.

3. We would go to the Jitney Jungle and get raisins on a stem in wooden boxes. They came only at Christmas.

4. Cousin Wallace, who worked for Tom's Toasted Peanuts, would bring by a huge candy cane which would last until March. To break oft a piece, you had to use ballpeen hammer.

5. Mama sent me out to shoot, with my 410 bore shotgun, mistletoe out of the old oak by the barn.

6. We foraged for pecans, primarily for Mama's divinity. I got to chose the halves to go on top and put them there.

7. We went on a hunt for just the right long-leaf pine for a Christmas tree; it could not be too big. We would drag it out of the woods as if it were a deer kill.

8. It was a family act of caritas to make Christmas baskets for the "shut-ins." We motored around the greater Pollock area giving them out.

9. We had an old record player which always smelled of ozone. We had one Christmas record which had "Classical Christmas Music."

10. Black Cat firecrackers would be marshaled for the sharing of a Christmas war with my buddies: tape them to rocks and throw them; tape them to old arrows and shoot them, etc.

11. Granny had gotten a huge cone from under a giant sequoia on a trip to California. It was always her Christmas tree, decorated with tiny Christmas balls and ribbons.

12. In school, the teachers gathered the afternoon before the last day to pack bags of fruit and candy for all the kids in school. The next day, the last day before the Christmas Holiday, each child got a bag at the class party.

13. Santa Clause greeted kids sitting on the bread box at the grocery store. We were always glad that he was able to find Pollock.

14. More important that Santa Clause, Christ always made it to Pollock. We recognized Him because things were still simple.

Reply
Cooter Brown
11/29/2018 06:02:06 am

Lawd hab mercie! Sho’ does bring back sum verie fine recollectshuns drum much betta dayze!
Boff Dr Wilson an’ Dr Peters, y’all iz fine folks!

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top rated essay writing services link
12/10/2018 07:48:29 pm

I really love the phrase that you quoted to start your blog. I am a really big fan of the great Albert Einstein and I also agree with what he has said here. In one of his speeches, he said the lines, "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it very well". This is one of the most accurate things that I have ever read. It is very well true that it would be hard for someone to explain something that he doesn't understand himself.

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    Author

    Clyde Wilson is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina He is the author or editor of over thirty books and published over 600 articles, essays and reviews

    Dr. Wilson is also is co-publisher of Shotwell Publishing, a source  for unreconstructed Southern books. 

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