It’s My Generation’s Turn for “Back in the Day”

Every generation gets to brag about how they survived when they were in their youth.

My generation had to endure our elders saying things like “we walked two miles to school, even in winter.” My dad actually did walk (or cross-country ski) about two miles to elementary school. But it wasn’t uphill both ways.

Now it’s my generation’s turn. We had neighborhood elementary schools and we walked to them. We had sidewalks and we used them a lot. And they were wide enough for two.

A cursory review of my childhood photographs might indicate that we were impoverished. We all looked slimmer than folks today, even the older adults. Younger people might wonder if we got enough to eat back then.

It was tough back then, I’d tell today’s youngsters. In the 1950s to 1970s we had to suffer through whole dinners of just meat, potatoes and vegetables picked that morning from someone’s garden. For breakfast we had to eat stuff like bacon and eggs one day, then pancakes followed by oatmeal. Soup and sandwiches were the standard for lunch. We were only allowed to have cereal on weekends. Can you believe it?

We also had to endure a lot of homemade things like bread, doughnuts and jam. We couldn’t afford the store-bought versions. Mom made all that and much more so seven of us could survive on my dad’s income. We even used the dreaded oleo instead of butter.

No Leftovers Left

We seldom had leftovers because we ate it all. It’s probably a good thing because there were no microwave ovens yet to reheat it and reheated leftovers on the stove just burned it. 

For years we drank Tang and Kool-Aid instead of orange juice and pop. One indulgence we were allowed was Hershey’s Instant Chocolate Milk. It had a prominent spot right near brother David’s glass. We drank whole milk until someone smarter than us decided we should drink two percent milk, then eventually one percent. Maybe that’s why we looked slimmer back then. We drank a lot more milk back then than now.

We couldn’t dream of getting fresh fruits and vegetables out of season. Strawberries were available only if we picked them ourselves during their short season in June. We usually had apples only in the fall and early winter. Anything that could be canned or preserved was prepared in-season and stored in the basement or freezer once we could afford one.

We got new clothes mainly three times a year – just before school started, at Christmas and on our birthdays. We hated getting clothes for Christmas or birthdays. We wanted something to play with.

New jeans were always as stiff as a board until we broke them in. Mom would have had a fit if we wore jeans with rips in them, like kids do today. “My stars,” she would say, “to even think of paying good money for torn jeans.”

Patches Were Us

Mom was willing to do basic patching. The well-worn jeans were patched by a neighbor seamstress. They came back patched with remnants of some beyond-hope jeans. We would never wear them to school. We didn’t want to be seen anywhere in patched jeans other than for playing. And, heaven forbid, we could never attend church in jeans. Jeans lasted so long we had to outgrow them to get new ones. Our old ones went to a younger sibling or a neighbor kid, usually as patched relics.

We didn’t have to scroll through hundreds of cable TV channels since it didn’t yet exist. Channels 2,4,5,9 and 11 were available but we mostly watched 4 and 5 because they were less snowy. Reruns weren’t even a thing yet. No cable, no internet, no streaming. Video rental stores, long gone now, weren’t even around yet.

Cash was our only means of buying anything as kids. So we mowed yards, shoveled snow and raked leaves for many elderly ladies in the neighborhood. We had paper routes. We helped East End Floral deliver flowers for Mother’s Day, brother Bruce driving us around. Bruce made money off us younger boys when he would charge us for rides to town (in Dad’s car) even though he was going there anyhow. “You’re paying for the gas I bought,” he’d say.

There weren’t vaccines for diseases like measles or chickenpox so we just suffered through them. If the weather was decent and we weren’t sick we had to play outside or we might end up dusting the furniture. Except for Saturday morning cartoons, we couldn’t watch TV during the day. There was nothing worth watching anyhow.

We rode in cars without seat belts and if it was hot we rolled down the windows. We were used to the smells of vehicle exhaust and cigarettes everywhere. And all our trash was burned at the dump right next to the river. During much of this time, our liquid waste went downstream and we swam in it.

So, younger people, my generation was much different than yours, just as it’s been for every generation forever. So take notes.

And patch your jeans.