Excerpt from Vibrantnation.com - Merry Christmas, Baby Boomers - Country Holidays Then/Now....
My four brothers and I grew up surrounded by family and friends.
In the forties and fifties, life was simpler. There was always “room for one more.” We rode the school bus five miles to Saco, Montana that had grades 1 – 12 in one building.
“You can view the one-room schoolhouse that Chet Huntley, the television newscaster attended there, years before he became famous.”
“Good night, Chet.”
“Goodnight, David.”
We didn’t have running water or indoor-plumbing, so had a “path to the outhouse” and carried buckets of water from the well. The lifesaver was my grandparents’ farm and ours were sitting on a natural gas dome that provided free gas for heating and cooking.
I remember Christmas, 1946 after I started school. Mom and I were walking by a hardware store below the local library, and I looked in the display window. I saw a box with miniature baking utensils – cookie sheet, muffin pan, cookie cutters… They were shiny, and I was drawn to them.
I wanted them very much, and I asked my mom, “May I, pleas-se have the utensils for Christmas?”
On Christmas Day, I was so happy when I opened a present, and there were the shiny miniature utensils. I lifted them from the box and started playing with them. I kept them in the cupboard with my mother’s pans and pretended to bake many goodies. The utensils did not wear out – no matter how many times I used them. That was the start of my “cooking.”
After we opened our presents, we would play games. Every year my parents would buy a board game such as Monopoly or Scrabble for the family. We bought several Scrabble games throughout the years, as my Mom, Dad, and a “bachelor Army buddy” of Dad’s who lived on a neighboring farm would play for hours in the winter…
I helped my mother bake when I was older. One year, we made large cutout cookies that were cowboys and horses. I don’t know what that had to do with the holiday, but after decorating the cookies, the cowboys sat on the horses. We shared them with extended family members.
Life is more complicated now. When my two girls were little in the sixties, part of the last of the baby boomers, I gave them an Easy Bake oven, and they baked many cakes. My granddaughter who was born in 1984 and great-granddaughter – born in 2004 had miniature kitchens complete with play stoves, sinks and equipment.
Now, in 2011, they have “coffee makers and microwave ovens,” as the “sounds of cell phones, and the clicking of computers; Blackberries, DS3s, GPS’, DVDs, MP3s dance through our heads….”
Times have changed - My oldest daughter and I celebrated our 50th and 70th birthdays this year,,,, I retired four years ago after working 38 years, and I paraphrased a poem, "Will my brain turn to jelly, the minute I retire? No way, my life has just begun - I have mountains to climb, rivers to cross...
I received First Place in Non-fiction for the Iron Pen Marathon this year. 24 hours to write a story, using the prompt, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band's album cover/mural on a Salt Lake City building. The cover portrayed the Beatles in the 60s, and the "heroes and heroines" of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries...
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Excerpt from Vibrantnation.com - Merry Christmas, Baby Boomers - Country Holidays Then/Now....
My four brothers and I grew up surrounded by family and friends.
In the forties and fifties, life was simpler. There was always “room for one more.” We rode the school bus five miles to Saco, Montana that had grades 1 – 12 in one building.
“You can view the one-room schoolhouse that Chet Huntley, the television newscaster attended there, years before he became famous.”
“Good night, Chet.”
“Goodnight, David.”
We didn’t have running water or indoor-plumbing, so had a “path to the outhouse” and carried buckets of water from the well. The lifesaver was my grandparents’ farm and ours were sitting on a natural gas dome that provided free gas for heating and cooking.
December 26, 2011 - 3:45pmI remember Christmas, 1946 after I started school. Mom and I were walking by a hardware store below the local library, and I looked in the display window. I saw a box with miniature baking utensils – cookie sheet, muffin pan, cookie cutters… They were shiny, and I was drawn to them.
I wanted them very much, and I asked my mom, “May I, pleas-se have the utensils for Christmas?”
On Christmas Day, I was so happy when I opened a present, and there were the shiny miniature utensils. I lifted them from the box and started playing with them. I kept them in the cupboard with my mother’s pans and pretended to bake many goodies. The utensils did not wear out – no matter how many times I used them. That was the start of my “cooking.”
After we opened our presents, we would play games. Every year my parents would buy a board game such as Monopoly or Scrabble for the family. We bought several Scrabble games throughout the years, as my Mom, Dad, and a “bachelor Army buddy” of Dad’s who lived on a neighboring farm would play for hours in the winter…
I helped my mother bake when I was older. One year, we made large cutout cookies that were cowboys and horses. I don’t know what that had to do with the holiday, but after decorating the cookies, the cowboys sat on the horses. We shared them with extended family members.
Life is more complicated now. When my two girls were little in the sixties, part of the last of the baby boomers, I gave them an Easy Bake oven, and they baked many cakes. My granddaughter who was born in 1984 and great-granddaughter – born in 2004 had miniature kitchens complete with play stoves, sinks and equipment.
Now, in 2011, they have “coffee makers and microwave ovens,” as the “sounds of cell phones, and the clicking of computers; Blackberries, DS3s, GPS’, DVDs, MP3s dance through our heads….”
Times have changed - My oldest daughter and I celebrated our 50th and 70th birthdays this year,,,, I retired four years ago after working 38 years, and I paraphrased a poem, "Will my brain turn to jelly, the minute I retire? No way, my life has just begun - I have mountains to climb, rivers to cross...
I received First Place in Non-fiction for the Iron Pen Marathon this year. 24 hours to write a story, using the prompt, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band's album cover/mural on a Salt Lake City building. The cover portrayed the Beatles in the 60s, and the "heroes and heroines" of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries...
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