Is It Just Me…
When so many of us are wondering about the future, it might be time to take the time and buckle up. Let’s take another ride in the way-back machine.
Remember rat tail combs, all day suckers and pea jackets? Jungle juice at the sock hop, cars with curb feelers, monkey balls and suicide knobs on the steering wheel, the ones with a picture of a pretty girl in the knob.
Tough guys were called hard rocks. Sometimes fights would turn into a rumble where it was common to see someone shoot the boots. Remember how great it was to get a new pair of rubber boots in the spring. They were magnets that pulled you directly to the puddles. Walking on thin ice was a good thing.
Remember the smell of pipe tobacco both before and after the pipe was lit. Not unusual for a lot of homes to have a pipe rack and always pipe cleaners somewhere. I still like the smell of a good cigar. Remember seeing people roll their own? Plain tips, cork tips and eventually filter tips.
Did you ever have a Nougat bar at the Lyceum or go through a whole box of Nibs at the Met. The Roxy, the Odeon, the Beacon, the Tivoli, the Oak or the Capital. And don’t forget the Rialto. Gosh, who could. Which was your favourite?
I remember there was nothing quite so wonderful as a chicken salad sandwich and a glass of milk at Kreske’s. It was across Portage from Genser’s wasn’t it?
These days, athletes talk about being in the zone. Remember life before postal codes when we all lived in different zones. I lived in Zone 10. You? Did you ever get a report card you thought was pretty good except for the teacher’s comment section that had the hand-written words, “if he only applied himself”?
When the television set went on the blink did you take the tubes out and check them down at the drug store? You wouldn’t want to miss the Saturday night wrestling. Whipper Billy Watson, Verne Gagne, Killer Kowalski and let’s not forget Little Beaver.
You also wouldn’t want to miss Wagon Train, Whiplash, Gale Storm in Oh Susannah with Zasu Pitts. We had British comedies such as the Eric Sykes show and Hancock’s Half Hour. Richard Greene was the real Robin Hood and remember a young Roger Moore when he was Ivanhoe?
Remember the voice of Robert Newton opening the Long John Silver show?
If sailor tales to sailor tunes,
Storm and adventure, heat and cold,
If schooners, islands and maroons
And buccaneers and buried gold
And all the romance, retold
Exactly in the ancient way,
Can please, as me they pleased of old,
The wiser youngsters of today:
So be it, and fall on! Har, Har!
Well traveler, this is as far as I can take you today. Hope you enjoyed the ride. You get a free pass on the next trip.