Fruit
Store Bought Fruit. Fruit was always one of the “special items” in the weekly supermarket shopping. The big three were: (1) oranges, (2) apples and (3) bananas. Both my brother and I loved fruit. Try as we might to make the fruit last until the next week’s grocery shopping, the supply always ran out before then. I loved those navel oranges with the thick skins. Sometimes I would even nibble on the outer skin after peeling the orange. Our favorite type of apple was the tangy and juicy Stamen winesap apples. In the autumn, we would usually get a basket of them from a nearby orchard. The bananas were rarely eaten alone. We always saved them for the morning bowl of cereal. Used to slice them longways down the middle, then slice each half into pieces. It made it seem like more. In season, sometimes we would get a watermelon which was a real treat.
Free Fruit. There was also “free” fruit to be had. Along the backyard far fence, away from the street, we had some grapevines bearing purple grapes. We also had two green apple trees in the back yard. The birds seemed especially attracted to them and would always be pecking at the apples on them. Down the street on a neighbor’s property was a large cherry tree (about 25, 30 feet tall) and a couple of pear trees (about 20, 22 feet tall). The neighbor did not mind us kids eating the fruit. Another neighbor had a big mulberry tree. The drooping branches formed a curtain around the tree. I liked to go “inside” the tree (behind the curtain). It was almost like a tent. When the mulberries were ripe, they were good eating but their juice stained my clothes (which Mom didn’t like). She said the stains were hard to get out. Also from the berries on the ground, I would get the berry juice on the soles of my shoes. I had to take off my shoes and wipe them down with a wet rag before I went into the house. Yet another neighbor had a section of their yard that they never used or even mowed. Nobody ever went back there. It was a little patch of land that nobody ever bothered with. One day while exploring that area I found a small patch of wild strawberries, a rare find. I brought those home in a paper bag for Mom because I knew she loved strawberries.
Play Wars
Besides the “play wars” that we had with toy guns back in “the woods” (see blog post of 5/13), there were two other types of wars that took place, one in the summer and one in the winter.
Pear Fights. There were two big old pear trees in the neighborhood that were on private property but were unattended. Bartlett pears. Good eating. We were permitted by the neighbor to eat the pears from the tree. You couldn’t get at the pears at the top of the tree because it was too high. There were not any branches close to the ground. As the pears ripened, they would drop to the ground. Or we would use a damaged pear to throw at a pear to knock it down and catch it before it hit the ground. We would pick up the pears and use them for “pear fights”. Either choose up sides or just an “every kid for themselves” free-for-all. The rules were (1) don’t ever aim at the head, (2) don’t hit any houses or cars, and (3) no throwing at anybody from close range. I don’t remember any injuries as a result of getting hit with a pear. A lot of times you saw them coming so if you were hit, it was just a glancing blow but sometimes they did really sting. You had to be careful around the pear tree or picking up a pear from the ground because those nasty yellow jackets also fed off the pears and you definitely didn’t want to tangle with them.
Snowball Fights. These were big. We had anywhere from two to five kids on a side. We would roll up giant balls of snow and create a wall (fort) and stockpile snowballs. Two cardinal rules were “no ice-balls” and no aiming at the head. The goal was to rush the other fort (on the other side of the yard) and overtake their fort. If you made a rush to the fort and got hit with a snowball, you were “out” (killed). If the other team rushed your fort and everybody on your team got hit, the game was over, as the other team won. If there was only one person left on each team and you hit each other at the same time, it was a draw. When one game was over, you started another one. In between games, you would go over strategy for the next game, strengthen your defenses, make more snowballs, etc. You could get covered with snow from head to foot by diving in the snow to avoid a snowball.
Cops and Robbers. A third game we played with opposing teams was on bikes called “Cops and Robbers”. A minimum of two kids to a team. One team was the cops and the other team was the robbers. Each kid was on a bike and the robbers got about a twenty second or so head start to “get away”. That twenty seconds would go by fast, so if you were a robber you had to get away from the starting point quickly. No real boundaries but we had to stay within a reasonable distance of the starting point, maybe five or six blocks. No hiding in garages or houses, you had to stay on the street. If you were actively being chased, you could cut through yards to get away. The cops had to overtake the robbers and force them to stop by cutting in front of them and forcing them to the curb. Most of the time when the cops were alongside the robbers, this would be enough for the robbers to slow down and surrender. Sometimes however, kids did take spills from their bike but I don’t remember any serious injuries. When a robber was apprehended, he had to become a cop and tell where the location of the other robber(s). When all the robbers were caught, the kids would switch roles and start a new game. One time a kid cut through a yard and knocked down an entire clothesline with clothes drying on it. Boy was that lady mad. I think she called the cops because we saw a cop car heading to her house but we didn’t stick around to see what happened next.
Toys And Such
Of this late 50’s, early 60’s era, from the age of five to twelve, here are some of the toys and different things that I played with or enjoyed using during that time, in no particular order.
Cap guns — These were metal toy guns (usually six-shooters) that you threaded with a roll of caps that made a loud sound when the gun hammer hit the little round percussion cap.
Pea Shooters — These were little more than large size heavy duty plastic straws that kind of acted like little blow guns. You put dried peas or something equivalent in one end then blew hard on that end. The pea would come flying out the other end.
Water Pistols — These plastic guns had a small resevoir to hold water. When you squeezed the trigger, water shot out. The really expensive ones could shoot a long distance. Many a water pistol was confiscated in school from kids by the teacher.
Marbles — Two types, the colored “cats-eye” type and the “clearies”. Used to play a game with marbles similiar to bocce.
Baseball Cards —- Not a toy but more of a collection type of thing. Trading was tough because nobody could bear to trade their best cards (think Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, etc.). We would play a game however called “topsies”. In this game you would stand a good distance from a wall. You would take a stack of your cards and shuffle them up. Then the other kid playing would grab a handful off the top of your stack. Then I would do the same from the other kid’s stack. Then he would hand me back the bunch from my stack and I would hand him the bunch I picked up from his deck. Then you would start flipping the cards, one at at time, as close to the wall that you could., first me, then the other kid, me, then the other kid, one at a time. The idea was to try and land your card on top of the other kid’s card. If you did, you were now the owner of that card. All cards remained “in the flipping field of play” until both decks were exhausted. If he topped one of your cards, you could still claim both cards by topping those two. Whatever card was the one on top at the end of the flipping session entitled the owner of that card to get all of the cards in that pile. If one of your valued cards come up to be flipped, you would flip it wildly so that it would be hard for the other kid to top it. If you saw that he flipped a valuable card, you might use the next ten cards to try and top that card. When your deck was all flipped, you collected all the cards that you “won”, said good-bye to all the cards you “lost” and picked up your untopped cards and put them back in your collection and the other kid did the same. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost. You had to be careful who you were playing against. Some kids just had a knack for the game and could clean you out of your good cards.
Toy Guns — Had a number of toy guns. One of my two favorites was a rifle that you could cock before shooting and when you squeezed the trigger it made a shooting sound. The other favorite was a machine gun that you could pull back on a lever and when you squeezed the trigger, it made a machine-gun sound.
Hula Hoop — Yeah we had a hula hoop but I never was much good at it. I did like to throw it around the yard like a frisbee though.
Molded Plastic Playsets —- Had two different sets of those little plastic playsets that had the flat base so the figures could stand up….one set was soldiers (one side green, the other tan)…the other set was cowboys and Indians
Transistor Radio — Small radio about the size of a standard cell phone but thicker. One year for Christmas both me and my brother received one of these, his was black, mine was red. A prized possession. I used to listen to Phillies games with mine.
Bicycle — Another prized possession. Mine was made in Czechoslovakia and was dark red in color. Started with training wheels and it was a big day when they finally came off. First I stayed within the neighborhood but as I got older, I used that bike to ride to places miles away from the house. It was my “car” before I had a car. It was very simple to repair. There were no gear shifts and for the brakes you just push backward on the pedals. Whenever the tires needed air, I would just take it down to the nearby gas station and use their air hose.
View Master — These were sort of like stubby binoculars into which you would insert a small round disc about six inches or so in diameter. The disc had about a dozen color transparent photographs on it situated in a circle on the disc. It had a small lever on the side that you pressed down with your finger in order to advance to each successive photo. It was like having your own miniature slide projector. The photos could be of famous travel locations or Disney characters or famous fairy tales or whatever. I loved my View Master but the discs were kind of pricey so I never had a whole lot of them.
Sports Equipment — I had my own baseball glove and my brother and I shared a baseball bat, football and basketball. I remember that we had a small can of something called neatsfoot oil that I used to rub into my glove from time to time to keep it soft and supple.
Board Games — I remember a number of different board games that we played throughout the years. The various board games that we had included — Monopoly, Clue, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Sorry, Checkers, Chinese checkers, Chess, Concentration, Parcheesi, Risk, and Battle Cry Civil War
Playing Cards — Always had a deck of cards around the house. We would play two games mainly, war and go fish. At my grandparents’ house, I played pinochle with Grandmom and Grandpop.
Enclyclopedias — First set we got in the late fifties was a set of Golden Book encyclopedias geared for the younger ages. You got one book a week at the supermarket for forty-nine cents a book. That set got me hooked on reading encyclopedias. A few years later on we got a used set of World Book encyclopedias. I think they were published in 1958 and we got them about ’62 or ’63. I loved reading those encyclopedias. I would sit and read them like other people would read a novel. They also came in handy for school work (of course there wasn’t any such thing as the internet back then).
Odds And Ends
Here are some various random recollections that continue to stick in my memory banks from that late 50’s, early 60’s time frame, in no particular order.
W T Grant — this was a national chain small department store (think walmart but much smaller in size) everything for sale on one floor. They sold everything from pencils to household appliances. They even sold wall paintings there. One year i bought one of those framed paintings for Mom for Christmas (still have it to this day) and brought it home with me on the bus.
Robert Hall —Robert Hall was a chain clothing store where my brother and I used to get our Easter suits every year. Mom would always make sure when we were young that we had new suits for Easter. I remember one year I even had a matching fedora hat! (Holy 1950’s Batman!). Robert Hall also had this very catchy jingle on their radio and tv commercials (where the values go up, up, up and the prices go down, down, down, Robert Hall this season, will show you the reason, low overhead, low overhead).
E J Korvettes — a large department store that opened across the way from W T Grant in the summer of 1961. it was much larger than Grants and had three stories, an escalator and an elevator. It was right at the bus stop and was adjacent to a Woolworths, Thrift drug store and J C Penney store. I used to love to walk around the store and see all the stuff they had. This was my “go-to store” for all my family gifts (christmas, birthday, etc).
Bank Taffies — When my parents had any business to conduct at the bank I always wanted to come along when I was really young because when the teller would see me I would get one of those bank taffies that they gave out.
Aunt Marge — Not really an aunt but we called her that, she was a friend of the family. Once in a while, my Mom or my father would drive over to her house in Camden. She was always on the upbeat side. The big attraction here was a bowl of menthol infused hard candies that she kept in a bowl in her living room. She always allowed me to take some while I was there. Those things were ultra strong (peppermint flavor). They could clear out your sinuses.
Catsup Sandwiches — Occasionally on the days before grocery shopping day, we would essentially be out of food. One time my brother made himself a catsup sandwich. Just what it sounds like, two slices of white bread and some catsup. After he first made one, I tried it. If you were hungry, it wasn’t that bad. Afterwards, I used to make them also.
Drive In Theatres — Once in a while, we went to a local drive-in theatre. There were a whole bunch of them back then. Usually there was a double feature and in between the movies they would show those tantalizing commercials for the different foods available at the concession stand. I’d be in the back seat of the car practically drooling.
Adolphe’s — This was an independent drive in food stand called Adolphe’s that we went to every so often. They had the best hot dogs. We used to joke that the guy’s name was probably Adolf and he made sure to change the spelling of his name.
Webers & Stewarts — Oh those frosted heavy glass mugs of draft root beer. Absolutely delicious. Both Webers and Stewarts had that distinctive orange building. You would sit in your car and the waittress would bring you the mugs on a tray that was hung on the window (You would wind the window down about half way).
Water Fountains — Back then every public place (schools, government offices, large companies, parks, stadiums, etc.) had one or more public water fountains. When I was very young, I remember that there was a neighborhood girl that used to push her baby sister in a baby carriage on a daily walk. She passed by our house and Mom let me tag along for the walk. The highlight of the walk was when we stopped in the service area of a local Chevrolet dealer to get a drink of the ice cold water from their water fountain. There was a particular park that Mom took us to that had a playground where we always worked up a sweat and made sure to get a good long drink from the water fountain before we left. In the late 50’s, early 60’s, I don’t ever remember seeing any bottled water for sale anywhere (except those big jugs in office water coolers).
Sears Roebuck — Sometimes we went to the Sears Roebuck store on Admiral Wilson Blvd. in Camden. I remember they had this little food stand inside the store that had a gigantic root beer barrel that sold root beer and hot dogs. They had the hot dogs on one of those rolling hot dog cooker things and you could inhale that pleasant hot dog aroma from far away.
Johnstown, Pa — One time we drove out to Johnstown, Pa ( a long drive, about four hours or so) to visit with a woman and her family who lived in Johnstown, Pa. She was a woman that Mom had worked with at Bell Telephone before Mom got married. They had a large corn field. I remember eating several pieces of corn on the cob and as many hot dogs as I wanted and afterwards had a great time with their kids running through the corn stalks playing tag and hide and seek.
Haddon Heights Park — There was a county park in Haddon Heights that Mom took us to frequently. Plenty of shade trees, a playground, a ball field, walking trails, an amphitheatre, a pavillion for picnics and a water fountain. After playing in the playground and having a sandwich at the pavillion, my brother and I would walk over to the amphitheatre and take turns giving speeches.
Fort Mott — This was a decommissioned army fort that was built in the late 1800’s. It was later taken over by the state and turned into a state park. It was pretty far away from our house so we only went there once in a while. It was in Pennsville at the mouth of the Delaware River. The fort had battlements and a picnic pavillion. It was right on the water. When we were pretty young, Mom took us there and she packed bologna sandwiches for us. As we were walking along eating the sandwiches, all of a sudden big flies started going after our sandwiches. My brother said, “The flies are attacking our sandwiches. Let’s make a run for the car. We didn’t want to give up our sandwiches.
Fort Mercer — This was a revolutionary war fort about 8 miles or so from our house. It was cared for by the county. Mom took us here frequently. I loved going to Fort Mercer. It was right on the Delaware River. When we arrived at the fort, we drove to the parking area. There were cannons interspersed throughout the park. These were cannon salvaged from sunken British warships. There was a huge statue on a pedestal of General Hugh Mercer. There were different trails and a walkway bridge that we could walk under. There were the remains of battlement trenches. There was a colonial age house on the premises that served as a hospital during a battle at the fort when Hessians attacked the fort. The house still had a cannonball embedded in the exterior of the house. There was a picnic pavillion. They had those binocular things attached to a post where you could look down the river and at Philadeplphia. The fort was under a flight route for planes going to and coming from Philadelphia International Airport. Sometimes a hugh freighter would go by on the river. To get close to the river, you had to go down about a hundred steps or else walk to the other side of the park where it was leveled out. Fort Mercer was a free and fun place for me and my brother.