Quote:
Originally Posted by alwann
I remember summers growing up in Baltimore City (it was safe then) when old men in horse-drawn wagons would drive around the neighborhood selling fresh melons and corn. They'd cut out a plug from a watermelon for you if you wanted to check the ripeness.
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My mother, born in 1905, grew up in Baltimore, way, way before your time I am sure, but she told me about the horse drawn wagons and block ice being delivered for their "ice box" as she also referred to our electric refrigerator.
We moved from New Jersey to Albuquerque, NM in 1945 where an old local farmer drove a Model T Ford truck with the bed loaded with locally grown vegetables and fruit. He would stop and park it on our block. She always bought some fresh picked vegetables and fruit from him. One day he did not show up as usual. Turned out when he was seated in his outhouse a black widow spider had bitten him on his privates. He did not show until the next year but he did recover.
My mother cooked almost everything from scratch as she was a stay at home mother, a rarity these days. She had been a high school teacher of Mathematics and French but gave it up to raise her children. My father managed a small Safeway store so we always had good meat and other groceries. We rarely if ever ate out as we could not afford to do so.
My brother and I rode our bikes all over as they were our transportation to school, the movies, the swimming pool and friends' homes. There was no need to lock them at that time, either.
We played cowboys and Indians with cap guns and hand made bows and arrows. We made sling shots using inner tube rubber for power. I made a sling and learned to use it to throw rocks pretty accurately a very long way. I had a pump action Daisy BB gun I loved until its spring finally broke. I built model airplanes from scratch using balsa wood. Gliders, rubber band powered and finally glow plug motors. Those were the days!