Going to Grandma's house....well, Apartment.

 When I was little, the only grandparents still alive was my father's mother and my mother's father.

My Grandmother was married to her second husband, Joseph Brincil. They lived in a Tenement  apartment building in Manhattan. 

I have photo's of spending Thanksgiving there. How she managed to cook for everyone is amazing!  Her daughers and daughters in law would also bring dishes to eat and help with the setting up and cleaning up. She had 5 children, they were all married with kids. I know there had to be a kids table. 

My mother said grandma Maude  would get up around 4am to start cooking, so soon after dinner she could be out cold on the floor, drunk but also very tired. We have pictures of that too, and I was told she was playing games with us grandkids. 

I remember playing with my cousins. The Silk boys, Tommy, Kevin and Bobby. DeMonte boys, Tommy and Andy. Symmonds boys, Philip and John and my sisters. 

The apartment was a railroad apartment. You came in the apartment at the kitchen  and you walked straight down a hall through (no doors) bedrooms, usually two and ended at the living room that might have a small side room off the living room. 

At some point we would get packed in the car and the trip home back to the Bronx. 

I don't remember a great deal, large gatherings like that, consumed lots of alcohol. So, lots of laughing and talking loud and smoking. Just about everyone smoked.  

I will have to post about the Grandparents one day. 

Grandma with Grandpa Joe, my dad in a white shirt and Uncle Andy. I think they could be his sons.  In grandma's kitchen.  

sweating in the 1960s

Needless to say, we did a lot of that in the summer time.  There were no air conditioners ,just fans for the most part.  Yes, there were air conditioners but they were expensive and who could afford the electric bill! 

So, windows were open, screens kept the bug out.  An exhaust fan in the kitchen help blow the heat out. But it was always unbearably hot in the kitchen,in the summer.  Window fans offered tiny relief.  

To make mom suffer even more, a sheet was put up in the door way of the kitchen and living room. Plus the swinging door was closed to keep the heat out of the bedrooms making the kitchen an infurno! 

I can still see her, face red and glistening with a wet dish towel around her neck, cooking over the stove. sigh

Livingroom sofa and chairs would be covered in a sheet to sit on, so you sweat on that.  The sheet would be shaken out , turned and put back on for the drier side to be sat on. 

I had this little round trinket box ,mom gave me,  that had powder and a powder puff.  She told me, when you feel too hot (I used to faint in school too)  put some powder on your wrist where the veins are, that will cool the blood and make you feel better.  It was a placebo, but it worked. lol

Beds just had sheets and if you woke too hot and called for mom, she would come, shake out the top sheet, turn it and put if back on the bed, Plus you would turn the pillow to find a dry spot.  You were stuck with a sweaty bottom sheet. 

School was not much better. The windows were all opened, top and bottom but most classrooms did not even have a fan.  Sometimes a nun would say, put your pens down, put your head on the desk and let us rest a bit in the hot classroom.  

Deodorant was awful in the 60s! They were a roll on.  You had this liquid in a plastic bottle with a rolling ball on top so when you put the rolling ball on your underarm it would "roll out" the liquid. But many things would go wrong. To much might come out or it would stick and nothing would roll.  Also it was very COLD in the winter. You are not cold enough you have to put cold deodorant on!  It was also sticky. Just horrid! 

Getting dressed, doing your hair and make up in the summer while sweating was a nightmare! 

I always look back to the past with fond memories, but I never forget how terrible it was during a heat way in the summer. 

I will also do a post on good summer memories, since there were many. 

This was the type of deodorant we had. 

The Great Northeast Blackout-1965

I was 14 and living in College Point, Queens, New York when the power went out.  It was Tuesday, November 9th. I got home from Flushing High School, had dinner and I had just left the house to hang out with my friends down Grantville, 3 blocks away.  I was around the corner  when the lights went out at 5:27pm. 

I just thought it was a local outage. But continuing on my walk, I saw all the lights were out in the area.

When I got to Grantville, friends were there and of course we all talked about the blackout.  Some of us had our radios and we heard it was more than a local outage. 

It was....exciting!. 

To show that I was even weird back then....I was pissed that we had a full moon, because I wanted to see how really dark an area could be with no lights because I read that Jack the Ripper actually killed  with people only being feet away but they never saw him do it. 

We decided to jump into cars and drove to Flushing to see what was going on there. We only went to Mainstreet and Northern Blvd (By the movie house) Because traffic was horrendous, people were trying to direct traffic  to keep it moving with flashlights.  

The lights were out about 13 hours.  People were stuck all over the place, elevator, trains, buildings.  

Of course some people took advantage and robbed stores since the police were all busy and alarms didn't work.   

They said there was a baby boom nine months later. lol

We had more blackouts and brown outs after that, but nothing again like the Great One.

Some games we played

We were always outdoors.  If you were moping around the house you were given a bucket filled with soapy water and a scrub brush and you had to scrub the stoop. 
We rode bikes and we roller skated. Once, two blocks away they newly tarred the road. I probably drove the people on the block nuts because I would roller skate up and down that road for hours and for many days. lol

Besides the usual games of Tag and Hide N go seek, we played many other games usually needing a ball.

We played, War. You drew a big circle (depending on how many kids were playing) with a small circle in the middle.  You divided the circle and named each a country. Germany, Japan, England,  etc.  Kids would pick a country and stand in that spot.
Someone would stand near the middle with a ball and say...I Declare war on...Germany! Then pound the ball in the middle circle and everyone would run,  Germany would catch the ball, step into the little circle and yell, STOP. We all had to freeze. Germany could take (I forget how many) giant steps and then try to hit someone with the ball, who then became the next person to declare war.

Some games were girl games and some were boy games.  
Johnny on a pony was a boy game. You can see why...lol

Girls played jump rope, chinese jump rope and potsie. There was also double dutch jump rope. 

Potsie was a favorite and it was similar to hop scotch.  Lets not forget the hula hoop.

I would play punch ball, I was not good at stick ball. Checkers, chinese checkers, chess, pick up sticks. Hit the stick. 

Marbles, I did not play marbles. 

One of my all time favorite games was nok-hockey! I loved playing this game.  I got this exact game for Christmas one year. Now it goes for over $125! I wish I still had mine.

We played all kinds of board games too. Girls played with dolls, boys with GI Joes and trucks.

These are just some of the games we played, I don't remember seeing one over weight kid on the block, now that I think about it. Nope, not in the Bronx and not in College Point when I was young. In school there were a few chubby kids. 2 or 3 in our class.

We built forts and carts and climbed trees. 

In the summer, after a bath, we were allowed to sit outside on the stoop in our pajama's.  It was one of the few times we just sat. I loved the dusk/evening. Listening to the trees moving in the breeze, hearing frogs and crickets,  and of course, looking at the sky....always looking at the sky.

garter, panty girdle and nylons

More crappy underwear from the 60/70s 
I am sure the expensive underwear were more comfortable than what the average woman wore at a price she could afford.

I guess a garter belt in of its self was not uncomfortable. 

The average garter belt was plain and white. You clipped your nylons on at the end, making sure you did not go past the double top of the nylon or else you had an instant run in your stocking. As you can see you could adjust the length of the garters too.  It would be lumpy under pants, best worn with a dress or skirt. 

If you were in need of a girdle but not the usual heavy duty girdles, you could wear a panty girdle.

Not that comfortable but more light weight than the heavy duties.  And again, lumpy under pants. Although it was called a panty girdle, you did wear panties underneath. 

Nylon were miserable affairs, even when they started to reinforce them at the toes and heels to help prevent runs.

If you got past 2 uses out of one without a snag or run you were doing pretty good. If you saw a snag a dab of nail polish was good to help prevent a run.    Going to high school with a run half way down your leg ending with a dab or nail polish was not an uncommon sight.   

At least the nylons with the seam up the back was going out of style although you could still by them.

Like all these garments they came in different sizes.  Nylons also came in short, medium and tall.  How annoying when you bought the wrong height!  Too short and you had to make the garters longer which might show when you walk because skirts were short back then! 

Or too long you had to clip the garter right onto the nylon and not the double top which almost guarantees a run before you even got to school.

Pantyhose was starting to become popular and more comfortable than anything else being worn. 

That did away with garters and girdles and nylons for the most part. 

 Just like slips and half slips were hardly used any more.  It was not too long ago I got rid of my last half slip.  I had not used it in years,  

A bra from the past was a torture device invented by a man.

I HATED BRA'S! 
They were one of the most uncomfortable  garments made by man. No wonder we burned them in the 1960's! 

First of all think of a bra you are probably wearing right now.  Now think of your bra without an ounce of elastic or stretch material.  You can not imagine how uncomfortable that is.  And to think I could not wait to wear one. My first bra was a 30 AAA. I know why bother but you could tell if a person was wearing a bra or a tee shirt when you wore your St.Fidelis uniform,  and the boys would make fun of you if you wore a Tee.

I went to Flushing and bought my first bra and then called my mother from a phone booth and told her I bought one.  I was not sure how this subject would go down, so I did it this way in case I had to return it. But all my mother said was...what for?  

The back of the bra was about the same today, different hooks to adjust the size.  The bra's were all cotton and shaped into a point.  Yep, a point.  The straps were a BIG problem. You could adjust the strap, the thing is, if you had to reach up for something, the strap was too tight.  But if you left it looser, the strap would fall off your shoulder. A rub burn from the strap was a pretty common thing. Even the part under your bust could cause a rub burn.  I am not sure if expensive bra's had any elastic but I know mine and my families had none.  

No padding in the cups, tissues were a filler. Some girls would cut up undershirts or socks for fillers too because no one's breast filled a cup evenly. I searched but can not find the bra's I wore. Here is just an example.

My bra's were not this pretty and the straps were thinner around the back. But in this picture you can see the clips and how you adjusted the straps.

When elastic was being introduced, they still had those type of clips for adjustment. 

So even though bra's got better, much, much more comfortable, I still never liked wearing them.

AND don't get me started on Nylons and Girdles!  That will be another post. :) 

Fountain Pen

We used only a pencil in the first few years of school.  I think it was 3rd grade that we started using a pen. A fountain pen.
 It was a love hate relationship.  I had my fountain pen for a long time till I left  it on a bus on my way home from school. 

My pen looked like this only a maroon color.

Many things could go wrong with your pen. The split could widen and you had a blotch on your paper. A pen could leak from just about anywhere and destroy books and anything else in a book bag.

But what was worse...was when your ink bottle leaked.

I am pretty sure I have used this exact ink. I kept my bottle inside it's box as more protection if any spilled out.  Filling up your pen was a little dangerous. You could splatter and get the ink on the back of the uniform of the person in front of you. Or on yourself and then have to listen to your mother as she tries to scrub it out of whatever you got it on.

It was not unusual to hand in a paper with some blotches of ink on it.  And just about always some ink on your hands.

If you forgot to tell your mother you are low on ink, you had to beg someone in class to let you use theirs. 

In old cartoons and movies you see a boy, sitting behind a girl,  dipping the girls hair braid into an ink bottle. That never happened in my school. A nun would have slapped him silly if he did that.

Eventually, Ball point pens became more common and we were allowed to use them in school. We were so happy, but that did not last long.

Early ballpoint pens were horrible! 

They did not write with a smooth line of ink, sometimes. 

It might skip, it might not write at all. It might only use up half the ink in them and stop. You always had to have a few pens on you.

Here is the pen.

Some times the pen would only write on parts of the paper which made you wonder why the heck it would not write on certain areas.

They look like some of today's pens, but they are NOT.  They improved with time, thankgoodness.