1950

Funny how all my best and favorite memories are from the 1950's.  That was such a great decade to grow up in??  For sure, times were more wholesome then.  In the early 1950's, when I was 10, 11, 12 years old, it was safe to walk almost anywhere, alone.  We walked to the theater downtown and back home...even after dark.  That's what my best friend Becky and I did most every Saturday.  We only needed a quarter.  That would pay for the movie, as many times as we wanted to sit through it, and also buy popcorn and a drink.   Most Saturdays my brother Jackie was there too because a Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Whip Wilson, Lash Larue, or Red Rider movie would be playing.  Speaking of Roy Rogers; Jackie had a Roy Rogers outfit and I, a Dale Evans; guns, holsters, hats and all.  None of the other neighborhood children could call to be Roy or Dale!!!  Jackie was Roy, I was Dale, period!!!  One particular Saturday I so vividly remember, Cinderella was playing.  Becky and I were at the theater when it opened...we loved the movie so much...we sat through it several times, not realizing the hours that had passed, not realizing the sun was going down.  We walked out of the movie theater just in time to see Daddy driving past, searching the streets, worried to death.  I didn't get to go anywhere the following Saturday!!!  

We walked everywhere...the skating rink, movie theater, Lee's Dime Store to spend our allowance, the gym to see basketball games.  I didn't like basketball games but tagged along with my older sister and her boyfriend "Garland".  Daddy said I could.  Of course, I had to walk several steps behind them so they could hold hands...I remember not watching the game at all, but pulled little lint balls off the many many different colored sweaters piled on the bleachers.  I had a good size lint ball made by the end of the game so I flattened it and stuck it on some girl's back.  I thought it would be funny when someone told her she had lint on her back!!!  That was probably the meanest thing I ever did...except for the time I threw a rock and broke my sister's glasses.  That was an accident though.  I was trying to mail a paper doll dress to her.  I wrapped the dress around a rock and sent it airmail...the dress fell to the ground and the rock continued on...

Oh, there were sidewalks everywhere.  We lived at the top of a hill and loved to roller skate.  Our skates were the kind that fit over our shoes and tightened with a key.  Many a time have I rolled down the sidewalk past our house, gaining such speed that by the time I got to the corner it was impossible to stop or to round the corner.  Nothing to do but go airborne and out into the street...talk about skinned knees.  That's probably why I have knee problems now!!! :)  Good thing there were not many cars on the streets back then.  Our house was next to a ball park with a tall wooden fence that separated our yard from the park...Several breaks in the fence made it possible to climb through...Such was the case here...with my red dungarees, black and white saddle oxfords, and bobby sox...I must have rolled my hair the night before!!! :)

I remember getting our first television set.  A cabinet that sat on the floor with a small, kind of rounded screen, black and white!!  TV shows were clean back then...I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, Jackie Gleason, all the variety shows; Dean Martin, Perry Como, Red Skelton, The show with the bubbles...oh, Lawrence Welk!!  Of course, the best was The Mickey Mouse Club that started coming on after school.  Later on, when I was about 13 year old, it was American Bandstand!!!

I remember all of us, as a family, watching TV for a while at night.  Mama, bless her heart, would let us put a coke or pepsi in the freezer compartment until it would almost freeze.  We would have popcorn and our frozen drink in the bottle while watching TV.  Once in a while one of us would forget about our bottle in the freezer and it would freeze and explode...Oops!!!

Daddy was big in textiles, a manager of Robbins Mills...yep, the same mill where "John Edwards" parents worked.  This was daddy arriving for work one morning...

 Mama stayed home, put 3 meals a day on the table,  kept the house spotless, and cared for us children.  Late afternoon, before Daddy got home from work, we had to get a bath and put on clean clothes...then we could have a small coke.  We had to stay clean until daddy got home and we had eaten supper.  In the summertime we could then go back outside and play until dark.  We really played too..."Ain't no boogers out tonight" was our favorite game, or catching lightening bugs in a jar.  Jackie and I asked mama one night if we could sleep outside and use the jar of lightening bugs for our light.  I'm sure she said okay!!!  

This is Jackie, and me, ready for school...

 Daddy was in New York on business quite often.  I can still picture the tan colored Samsonite suitcase he carried.  When daddy got home and opened that suitcase, we knew there would be a special gift for each of us.  That's where my Saucy Walker doll and Tiny Tears doll came from.  Daddy brought jewelry to mama.  The beautiful rhinestone bracelets and necklaces that were so fashionable at the time. He brought us unusual books and once brought me a set of play silverware in a wooden case, just like mama's.  Wish I knew which airline he was flying on during that time.  I recall saying once, "when I grow up I want to be an airline stewardess".  On one of his flights, Daddy asked a stewardess if she would write to me and she did.  I was very proud of that letter.

Mama and Daddy...

Shelby and me...I know I was an aggravation to her...Those hair styles!!!

Jackie, used to say he wanted to be an army man...

In 1954, when I was 12 years old, my baby brother Randall was born.  We were all crazy about Randall....

If I could choose a time in my life to go back to...it would be, without question...the 1950's

Love,
Henny Penny