I Remember When

The old rusty Nail

AN E-JOURNAL FOR OLD PEOPLE

 

I REMEMBER WHEN

Russell Burton, an Old Person

One of the many fun things about being old is our remembrances.  Of course, it’s more fun when you can tell them to someone who will listen, especially young people.  They always appear to be amazed about living back in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s.  Of particular interest to them it seems is the advances in technologies that occurred over those three decades.  So, let’s remember those days and with a smile on our faces.  In many ways it feels like a long time ago, which it was, but then maybe not that long ago for I can still feel the amazements – even the touch and smell of those days.

I remember my folks bought a new 1938 Chevrolet demonstrator for about $600. Back then a car dealer had one car that he used to drive people around to show how it rode and drove. He would roll back the mileage indicator and sell if for a discount. It still had a hole in the grill so that a crank could be used to start the motor in case the battery went dead.  A new feature that was there to show potential buyers, remember it was a demonstrator, was a little light that was screwed onto the bottom of the dash that indicated when the headlights were bright or dim.  Of course the following year, this indicator was incorporated into the speedometer. The headlight dimmer switch was on the floor board.

Also, that was the last year that the gearshift was located on the floor.  In 1939 it was moved onto the steering wheel shaft.  Of course, today it is back on the floor.  Another great feature was a push-button radio.  I believe that it got about 15 mpg gas mileage.  Gas then was about 5 cents a gallon. 

I worked at a gas station for a couple of years after high school was out.  On every car that came into the station, I pumped gas, cleaned the windshield, checked the tire pressure and the motor oil level, and collected the money for the gas and oil if needed. No credit cards then or self-service gas pumps. I was paid about 50 cents an hour wages.

Clothes were washed using a modern electric washer that was a tank of soapy water and an agitator.  When the clothes were washed the tank was drained and filled with clear water.  Water was then rung out of the clothes with two rubber rollers and then the wet clothes were hung up to dry on a clothes line.

Of course, in the 30s and 40s there was no TV.  Our entertainment consisted of playing the game of Monopoly, listening to the radio, and reading books.  The radio used vacuum tubes that burned out frequently not transistors. Of course people had hobbies that entertained them.  I was a stamp collector then, spending hours upon hours finding from which country each of my stamps had originated. Playing the piano was common.  My mother played one that we owned for many years. We listened to music played from a 78 rpm black recording disk using technologies invented by Thomas Edison.  Then came the 45s, followed by the wire, and finally the tape player.  Of course now, it’s all digital down-loaded onto an IPod.

I saw my first TV in 1950 in a store window at night walking down a small town street.  The picture was a bit fuzzy in black and white of course with a kind of round picture tube. It was an amazing experience.  Of course, those amazing experiences with advances in technologies are gone forever.  Now, new technologies arrive in stores daily.

Back then, many homes still had outdoor toilets.  So, a common Halloween stunt was to tip them over.  A house was called ‘modern’ if it had indoor toilets.  I remember visiting my grandparent’s farm in Nebraska and using their outdoor toilet.  They never did get an indoor toilet.

Recalling my summer visits to visit my grandparents, my grandfather worked about 250 acres using farm equipment pulled by two work horses.  Chicken eggs were gathered each day.  Milk from their cows was churned by hand into butter using the cream that had been separated with a hand operated separator from the milk.  The skimmed milk was fed to the pigs. Each Sunday we had roasted chicken from one of their unlucky chickens that had been killed by cutting off its head with an ax and dunked into boiling water to loosen the feathers.  Then feathers were pulled off the bird.  It was certainly fresh meat.

Of course in 1941 came World War II that dominated the news for many years.  Gas, car tires, butter, sugar, and meat were rationed.  We had a C gas book of stamps so we could only buy 5 gal of gas each week.  And, we lived in the country! Instead of butter we used oleo margarine that was called simply ‘Oleo’.  It came white with a small sack of yellow coloring that we rubbed into the white stuff to make it yellow and look like butter.  I understood that the dairy industry required that oleo be sold white so as not to compete fairly with butter that was hard to get anyway.

My father ran a German Prisoner of War camp in Arbuckle California, during the end of the war.  There are lots of stories to tell about those times.  I bet very few people in Arbuckle even knew that a POW camp was just outside their town.  After, the war it was turned into a Mexican National Work Camp.  In those days, Mexican men were allowed to come to the US to work the crops during the summer going home to Mexico in the winter with some much needed money for their families living in Mexico. The camp buildings were torn down many years ago.

In 1950 I entered college at the University of California at Davis.  At that time it was primarily an agricultural college but with a new Veterinary Medical School that I wanted to get into.  There was no tuition fee.  The only cost each semester was $35 to cover medical needs plus $6 for a football ticket for all of the fall games.  I did get into Veterinary Medical School in 1952 with an all men class.  Now days, most Veterinary Classes are dominated by women. Back then, about 1600 students attended Davis.  Now I believe about 35,000 attend that university.

I belonged to a fraternity house.  We didn’t have a TV because we feared that it would interfere with class studies.  So, I walked over to the Alumni Hall each Sunday evening to watch Jackie Gleason’s and Sid Cesar and Imogene Coca’s comedy shows. What entertainment that was, particularly when TV to me was so new.

I worked as a hasher in the fraternity house.  I washed and dried dishes, set the table, and served the food for 35 guys three times each day.  For that work, I was given my Board of $60 each month.  They still charged me $15 for my room that I shared with another guy.  To this day, I wash my own dishes by hand.

My other job that I had and needed the money to get through school was working for the U.S. Forest Service as a Back Country Guard putting out forest fires.  I rode a horse and had two mules to pack and carry in my food over a trail that took 6 hours to get to my cabin for the summer. I was allowed to return to town once during the summer. I mention this because it was not unlike my grandparents lived but even more primitive for I did not have electricity or water plumbed into the house.  Remember farmers got electricity in the 1930a because of Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Program.  I used an outdoor toilet, showered once a week with water running from a large bucket raised up by a rope under a tree limb.  Coleman gas lanterns were used for light at night, carried in water from a nearby Spring and I cooked with a wood fueled stove.  No refrigeration, so fresh food was only available when I first moved back there each year.  My entertainment was a battery operated radio.  The battery cost $10 and didn’t last very long, so the radio was used very sparingly for then $10 was lots of money. You know, I remember those days fondly for those were experiences that were challenging but rewarding in many ways. 

Well, I have reminisced enough for this issue of The Old Rusty Nail.  We must remember that we are special because we can only have these memories if we lived them. That is the only way to get them. You can’t go out and buy them no matter how much money you have. I wonder about the memories of today’s young people when they get old.  Will they enjoy looking back at them like I and I suppose you do?

As always look for a new column for old people each month on this Blog.