I grew up in the Cincy area and would often go to Woolworth’s and Kresge’s and let all of the parakeets out. What a hoot! You could hear the old ladies (they were in they 30’s) screaming as we ran out the doors. I still have to resist the urge to free the parakeets whenever I see them in the malls and I’m over 50.
anyone remember our dads blocking off the streets so we could play … boys and girls… high point of the after school day… unstructured and everyone’s parents were involved by sitting on the stoops and on the chairs in the street…. Knew we were part of a community… we belonged and because of that we learned to care about ourselves and other people…Lots of that is missing today for young people…. Our dads used to block off the street so we could play Stoop Ball and Ringalevio…. and yes, the lamp posts were the goals and some of the stoops were safe places… We all looked forward to coming home from school and “going out to play”…boys and girls together… first dating experiences came out of those games…. fun times
Ding a ling!!! Ding a ling!!! Ding!!!! Ding!!!!! That sound was music to our ears. Growing up in a Garden apartment complex near Queens College, that sound would cause every kid on the block to stop whatever game they were playing, and run home or call up to their window for money. I lived on the second floor and I preferred to call up for money… (no cel phones then!) “MO-OM”!!! “The icecream Man is here!!!” In gobs of white tissue, my mother would throw down the required 15 cents, and off I’d go to buy icecream from the Good Humor Man. Cola or Blue italian ices were the “hot” items of my day. Our neighborhood Good Humor man man was a tall, thin, silverhaired, mustached man named Jack, whom everyone loved. Dressed in sparkling whites, (shirt, slacks, shoes) “Jack the icecream man” would let neighborhood kids ring his bell, and ride his truck for a block or two. It was such fun, and the high point of a summer’s day! Back then, delivery men were on a first name basis with their customers …. We had Jack the icecream man, Louie the eggman, and Milt the Milkman …
I remember the game, “Mother, May I?”, except I think we called it something else..hmmm..maybe “take a giant step” or something. I grew to hate that game eventually — the person who played “Mother” invariably let all her friends take GIANT steps while the rest of us had to take baby steps. I was NOT part of that “in crowd” at that time. 🙂
Does anyone remember a candy bar called “Lunch Bar”? I think that’s the name but I could be wrong. The same luncheonette where I bought my weekly egg creams sold a little chocolate bar wrapped in a green and red wrapper. I remember that is was only 3 cents instead of the usual 5 cents that most candy bars cost. I had to make my weekly $1.50 allowance stretch — after I bought a few Superman, Flash, Green Lantern and Archie comics, there wasn’t much left. After the luncheonette closed down, I never saw the “lunch bar” again.
For little girls, I remember a game called something like, “Mother, May I?”. Someone would be Mother and the player would say, “Mother, may I take a giant step?” and Mother had the option of saying, “Yes, you may” or, “No, you may not”. If she said, “No!”, the player would have to beg and demean herself in front of Mother, eg. “Mother, may I take an eensy weensy step?” or “Mother, please, may I take an itty bitty step?” I can’t remember how the game ended; it may not have. It definitely involved a lot of begging and laughing.