To Those of You Born  1930 - 1979 and survived the 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s and 70s!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-base paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had baseball caps not helmets on our heads. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when?

Thanks to my sister, Linda, for passing this on. She is six years younger than I am, so I wonder if she remembers the time when . . . 

All the girls had ugly gym uniforms?

 It took five minutes for the TV warm up? 

Nearly everyone’s Mom was at home when the kids got home from school? 

Nobody owned a purebred dog? 

When a quarter was a decent allowance?

You’d reach into a muddy gutter for a penny? 

Your Mom wore nylons that came in two pieces? 

Read the rest of this entry »

    Christmas always brings out the nostalgia in me and I am sure it does the same for you as well. If you have ever wanted to share your memories with others, here is your chance. I am going to post a few of the memories that are the most special to me and I am going to encourage you to do the same thing.

    Here is how it will work. You can add a comment to the end of my column or you can send me an email at lthames.com of your special memories and I will post it for you. Don’t worry whether you think your writing is very good because I am sure it will be satisfactory. If it isn’t, I will make some subtle changes to bring it up to snuff. After all, I used to be an editor, you know.

    All right, here goes my list. Keep in mind that these are just the memories that reverberate in my mind from time to time and they are not in any order, just randomly as I recall them.

    √ A favorite all-time gift — The set of six-shooters that Santa brought me the year my sister was born when my family lived in Selma, Ala. I was 6 years old. The guns came with a snazzy leather holster that went perfectly with the cowboy hat, chaps and Western shirt that I already had. I fancied myself as the next Wild Bill Hickok (as portrayed by Wild Bill Elliot in the movie serials that were popular in the ’40s and ’50s.) I kept that gun and holster set until about 20 years ago. Wish I still had them.

The video is of granddaughter Emma telling Nana what to write on a card. Read the rest of this entry »