Growing up in a small town back then
For some reason there were soldiers in my home town during the Second World War. Maybe they were recruiting, I don't know. I was only six when that war ended, but I can recall a few soldiers marching in formation on our front street. It was gravel back in those days and they stopped to rest under the large silver maples in front of our house. They had their rifles standing in a tripod formation in the grass while they took a break. I stood inside and peeked out through the window at them. Maybe I was scared at this new phenomena in my neighborhood.
Just after the War we would occasionally have a small plane fly over the town and drop leaflets advertising one thing or another. We'd always run to catch some like it was a treasure, but then that was about as exciting as it got around that town in those days. I should well imagine towns complained about the litter this caused and that practice stopped not long after it had started.
In the summer we would occasionally hear street vendors. There would be a truck, a tractor with trailer or some such conveyance cruising slowly down the street with someone walking behind loudly announcing the produce they had brought to town to sell. Straaaw - BERRIES! Fresh, red, ripe Strawberries! Get your strawberries here!
If we put a sign in the front window that said "Cleaners", one day a week a vehicle would stop and pick up anything that needed to be dry-cleaned then return it the next week. This was before a local fellow opened a dry cleaners behind the barber shop. Polar Coal and Ice delivered to the door. I always thought that an odd combination, coal and ice. Fortunately they didn't deliver both with the same truck or we would have had a different definition of "black ice" back then. There were regular deliveries of milk and bread and such but they didn't last too long. I think the people in town preferred giving their business to the local stores.
What was the name of the fellow that performed a taxi service? For a few bucks he would pick you up, take you to the county seat to shop, then bring you home.
The town of my youth was a pretty complete, self contained little community. We had garages, filling stations, an implement sales and repair, groceries, a furniture store, hardware, doctor, dentist, pharmacy, bank, post office, barber, beauty shop, dry cleaners, lumber yard, grain elevator, passenger and freight depot, commuter service to state capitol via rail. Bus service to the county seat for a while, schools, a fire department, funeral home, pool hall, restaurants, the soda fountain in the drug store, and the free movie once a week during the summer. Society changes and many towns the size of that one have all but vanished. The advent of our mobile society has superseded many small town businesses. We'll run into the city to shop at malls, go to the county seat to the supermarkets, buy over the Internet, find a Wal-Mart, Lowe's or Home Depot, specialists instead of general practitioners, oral Surgeons instead of dentists. It gives us much greater choices but I think we lost a lot in the process, but it was a great place and great time to grow up.
My memories of our little Hoosier town in the forties and fifties is a Norman Rockwell painting.
Just after the War we would occasionally have a small plane fly over the town and drop leaflets advertising one thing or another. We'd always run to catch some like it was a treasure, but then that was about as exciting as it got around that town in those days. I should well imagine towns complained about the litter this caused and that practice stopped not long after it had started.
In the summer we would occasionally hear street vendors. There would be a truck, a tractor with trailer or some such conveyance cruising slowly down the street with someone walking behind loudly announcing the produce they had brought to town to sell. Straaaw - BERRIES! Fresh, red, ripe Strawberries! Get your strawberries here!
If we put a sign in the front window that said "Cleaners", one day a week a vehicle would stop and pick up anything that needed to be dry-cleaned then return it the next week. This was before a local fellow opened a dry cleaners behind the barber shop. Polar Coal and Ice delivered to the door. I always thought that an odd combination, coal and ice. Fortunately they didn't deliver both with the same truck or we would have had a different definition of "black ice" back then. There were regular deliveries of milk and bread and such but they didn't last too long. I think the people in town preferred giving their business to the local stores.
What was the name of the fellow that performed a taxi service? For a few bucks he would pick you up, take you to the county seat to shop, then bring you home.
The town of my youth was a pretty complete, self contained little community. We had garages, filling stations, an implement sales and repair, groceries, a furniture store, hardware, doctor, dentist, pharmacy, bank, post office, barber, beauty shop, dry cleaners, lumber yard, grain elevator, passenger and freight depot, commuter service to state capitol via rail. Bus service to the county seat for a while, schools, a fire department, funeral home, pool hall, restaurants, the soda fountain in the drug store, and the free movie once a week during the summer. Society changes and many towns the size of that one have all but vanished. The advent of our mobile society has superseded many small town businesses. We'll run into the city to shop at malls, go to the county seat to the supermarkets, buy over the Internet, find a Wal-Mart, Lowe's or Home Depot, specialists instead of general practitioners, oral Surgeons instead of dentists. It gives us much greater choices but I think we lost a lot in the process, but it was a great place and great time to grow up.
My memories of our little Hoosier town in the forties and fifties is a Norman Rockwell painting.
posted by Fish-2 at 8:33 PM
7 Comments:
Beautiful story, reminds my of my home town. The "Ice & Coal" truck driver always broke us kids a big chunk of ice on hot summer days..and that was when it was sawed from the lake and stored in sawdust over winter. We would cycle to the local depot and the train engineer let us oil the drivers on the big locomotive.
"lift' some green apples and sit up in a tree watching some construction project. No need for
i-pods back then.
Yep, Norman Rockwell all right. Thank God there are some little towns like that still left.
Good memories there, Fish, thanks for sharing as it reminded me to think of some of the small town memories I had growing up in the 50s. One memory is boyhood friends and I (3 or 4 of us) used to carry our .22 rifles and pellet guns right there in the open as we would trek through town on the way to target practice in the hills that behind the town.
Try that one today! :-)
Wonderful post, Fish. I've often thought that the children who have missed that era have missed so much, and they definitely have! Of course they won't miss what they never had, but it's still rather sad.
BB, I still think there's no childhood entertainment that can be the child's own imagination.
Patrick, amen
AGT, same here. We'd carry our rifles or shotguns down mainstreet, stop at the drug store, set the guns behind the front door, and get a cherry coke or such. There was no hysteria about kids with leathal weapons. Most learned to shoot years before we learned to drive (a far deadlier machine).
Gayle, we had to learn to entertain ourselves rather than expecting the world to entertain us. I think that gave us a better preperation for life.
Man ... that brings back memories... I used to live up north, further then where I am right now, in just such a town in a valley. Everything was just as you described until a fuel trucks brakes failed, and it rolled and burnt down main street. Decent fire trucks were 300 miles away. It was after that we had to move to the city... :-(
I was reared on a small farm (my dad worked away - but the farm sustained our food supply)
My parents childhood was much more difficult than mine. Mine was more idyllic, as your was.
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