Column: Readers list what they miss about yesteryear

Staff

Published Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Al Batt, Tales from Exit 22

I asked readers what they missed. I appreciate the overwhelming response. Here are some of the responses. I wish I had room for all of them.

Tim Engstrom: I miss when people sent postcards to each other when they visited places. (I sent him a picture postcard from Alaska.)

Helen Abramson: WCCO with Clelland Card and Maynard Speece. I can still hear Cedric doing his Birdy mit the jeller bill, hopped upon my vindow sill. Cockee shiny eye and said, “What are we gonna have for breakfast … Grandma?” And Maynard’s stories about his childhood on the farm.

Deborah Morse-Kahn: Playing red light green light at dusk down in the park by the creek until someone’s mother called them home for supper. Coming home with jars of creek water and mysterious critters inside.

Rod Searle: I miss having the luxury of picking up the phone and calling the operator, Pearl, and asking her if she had seen my wife in town because I needed something at the hardware store. She said wait a minute. When she came back on the line she said the truck was parked in front of the bank and she’ll transfer my call. That sort of service was better than having the car windows cleaned when we filled up with gas.

Jeanie Siewert: I miss: A&W root beer with a “bite” to it (current stuff is way too sweet), 29 cents a gallon for gas, pop in glass bottles, soda fountains, a soda fountain drink called

a “phosphate,” library card files, neighborhood grocery stores, stores being closed after 5 p.m. and on Sundays, those “X-ray” machines, with which one could see the bones of one’s feet when new shoes were purchased, going barefoot all summer, high school sports that did not require year-round training for one sport, and the little dog that I had as a child.

Ron Windingstad: I miss our old telephone number: two longs, a short and a long. I miss dickchonnaries, they were better than spellcheck. I miss District 38, one teacher and at the most 17 students. Drinking water from a pail with a dipper by everyone was cool, as were the times the Gypsies used to come around. I miss being called Ronnie. I miss playing fox and geese in the snow; wooden skies and the giant 20-foot high hill in the prairies; and my horse Smokey who really didn’t like anyone but me riding him. Henrietta, my favorite hen. I found her in a snow bank while riding to the store on Smokey — she laid an egg a day for years. I miss communal bathrooms — three holers, great for visiting. I miss the Sears & Roebuck catalog — always better than corn husks. Wednesday night horseshoes and Sunday afternoon basketball games in the haymow. I miss 21-cent gasoline, 10-cent Nut Goodies, 5-cent flypaper, “Sing-along with Mitch,” on black-and-white television; Art Linkletter and Arthur Godfrey on radio. I miss hearing people asking us what we miss — then you came along.

M.L.: Riding behind a car in a toboggan during the winter on the streets of Freeborn. Sock hops after football and basketball games. Swinging from a rope and jumping into the Matawan gravel pit. Drive-in movies. Looking for “Spinner” hubcaps in the ditches with my friends.

Emmett Smith: Books I didn’t buy.

Rodney Hatle: Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. I happen to think Gene Autry was the better of the two.

Phyllis Meyer: Radio shows like “Let’s Pretend” sponsored by Cream-O-Wheat, Jack Armstrong: The All-American Boy sponsored by Wheaties, Fibber McGee and Molly, Jack Benny, Lux Theatre, and The Shadow.

I also asked if anyone had any surefire cures for the hiccups. I like to use either my high school yearbook photos or the picture on my driver’s license as scare cures. As far as I know, none of these are medically approved.

Sam Cross writes, “When you least expect it, have a friend dump a bucket of cold water (or other beverage) on your head. You see this happen to the winning coach at the end of football games. Cures his hiccups!”

Hank Wessels sends this, “It was always said when one had gotten the hiccups, think back to the last time you saw a white horse.

David Johnson adds, “You never get them when you are alone. Take a teaspoon full of peanut butter.”

D.P. writes, “Eat a marshmallow (not mini). If one doesn’t do the trick try another one. This has never failed my family, and we have never had to eat more than two marshmallows to stop the hiccups.”

(A marshmallow has cured Hartland resident Al Batt’s hiccups. You can read his column Wednesdays in the Albert Lea Tribune. He has a column that appears Sundays, too.)

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