Nostalgia for the 50’s

“Have you noticed that nostalgia for the 50’s is running rampant on Facebook?” I asked my daughter.

Author’s mother and Grandmother

She raised her eyebrows. “Maybe in your slice of the demographic…”

“Slice of the demographic? Slice? Like stale bread?”

“You called it, not me.”

I was thinking about this while putting the toddler in his car seat. Recently my daughter had informed me that I was supposed to take the child’s winter coat off in order to tighten the straps sufficiently.

“Have you any idea how long it took me to get him to put that coat on?” I cried. “In my day,” I added “We didn’t even have seat-belts. When your Uncle Glenie fell out of our car after Uncle Alan opened the car door my mother noticed it. She was only a mile or so down the road. She just turned right around and fetched him. Back then…”

“Your not going to start with 50’s stories are you?” my daughter asked warily.

“I have one from Uncle Alan.” I replied cheerfully. “He, Sheree and Glen, who were five, five and four were playing in a sandbox in the backyard when Alan found a large piece of glass, and went to toss it. Unfortunately his toss intersected forcefully with Glens’ arm. When he went and got my mother, “her face got a little strange” is how he put it. She tried to make a tourniquet, and then put the bleeding child into the car.

“Not her best day huh?”

“It get’s better. She then realized that she’d locked her pocketbook and keys inside the house. Fortunately, her father worked in the post-office, which was next door. Unfortunately as my mother ran down the dog thought she was playing, and ran round and round her, tripping her. She went into the post-office with bleeding hands and knees.

“Honey? What’s wrong?” asked my grandfather.

“Just quick! Give me the keys to my house!” she cried.

Alan and Sheree quietly watched as my mother drove out of the yard; and then backed up.

“Walk down to Grandma’s.” she yelled as she drove off.

Alan remembered taking the woods route; down the trolley car path, go left, through the field, down the hill, over the stream, through the briar patch, and past the tall, tall pine tree, into Grandma’s back yard. Grandma’s door was never locked, and the two five-years olds headed directly to the toy box.

“What happened?” asked my grandmother.

“Oh. Glenie hurt himself again.” Alan replied nonchalantly.

“Did Glen hurt himself often?” My daughter asked cautiously.

“By the time he was five, he’d been to the emergency room five times for stitches. And that doesn’t even count the near drowning in the neighbors pond.”

“Can you say DSS?” commented Tracy.

“We had self-reliance.” I replied stiffly. “And, we had Grandma.”

“And me,” I mused. “I babysat a lot, I think, from the age of 7. My mother was just next door, working at the post-office. I kept my brothers busy by taking all the couch pillows and seeing how high they could jump. Once, we all climbed out the bedroom window, made our way onto the back hall, and from there jumped onto the ground…it was a fire drill…” I justified.

“Ahh…Grandma Lynn had that minimal parenting thing down pat…” my daughter commented.

“And it bought my brothers to God!….Glen…”I sighed reflectively… “out of gratitude for still being alive…Alan out of repentance for trying to kill him so often…”

I sighed again. “Do I really have to take the toddlers coat off? I miss the 50’s.”