GROWING UP IN THE 40'S - Part 7

My Grandparents lived near the Grove Park Theater and the theater always had a Saturday morning matinee.  (The theater is now a pawn shop)  They always had a cartoon, a cowboy movie, and a weekly serial.  Some of the kids were even wearing,... OH MY GOD, Does he have a toy gun on?  Yes!  Someone call the police!  I'm sure that they all grew up and became serial killers. 

Of course the movie was always full of kids and just a few parents.  The serial lasted maybe 15 minutes and always ended that weeks episode with the hero in a situation where you were sure that he would be killed.  The next week, ... It's a MIRACLE,  he was able to jump out of that car just before before it went over the cliff or he got out of the burning building just before it blew up.  Well, it was real to us little kids.

We earned the money to go to the movie by working during the week. We would cut grass, carry advertising circulars, or do home chores to make enough for admission.  Maybe we were overpaid for doing some of our home chores but our parents and grandparents wanted us know that you should work for what you received.  A trait that seems to be rare in today's world.

You will be happy to learn that we were the vanguard of the environmental movement even though we didn't realize it at the time.  We didn't use machines powered by that planet killing gasoline.  We used only environmentally friendly landscaping tools.  Believe me, it was not our choice.  

Yep, you pushed the mower, chopped with the hedge clippers, and stepped on the edger that some of our clients wanted us to use.  You would just get the mower moving briskly along and you would find that stick or rock the hard way as it would lock the blades and you would jam the handles into your stomach.   We would look the yard over pretty well before starting to mow but you would always miss some and we were careful to not throw rocks into our customers yards.

Speaking of being environmentally conscious, back then all soft drink bottles were made of glass and you had to pay a deposit or bring your empty bottles when you bought soft drinks.  The bottles were returned, cleaned and reused.  We didn't fill the land fills with plastic that won't rot for a thousand years.

People even drank water from the tap instead of buying bottled water that usually comes from some city water supply, anyway.  If you go to a Quick Trip station to fill up your car with gas and buy a bottle of water you should be aware that the water cost was higher than the gas per ounce.

Milk was delivered or bought in the store in glass bottles that were returned to the dairy, sterilized, and reused.  (We once had a neighbor that had the milkman deliver her milk and the milkman was so dedicated that he would return to her house after he finished his route and he would stay there a long time. Must have been for good customer relations?)  That big white milk truck with the red printing on the side sure stood out.

Cloth diapers were used that were washed at home or by a diaper service and reused.  Few folks had a clothes drier back then.  Well, they had a solar powered drier made from wire in the back yard.  You learned not to run through people's yard at night, in the dark.  Guess how we learned not to play chase after dark.

Grocery bags, lunch bags, etc. were made of paper that was a renewable resource and many were recycled in the school paper sales.

Newspapers were returned and made into different things and the school PTA made money for the school by having paper sales.  We had some neighbors that would save the newspapers for the kids to collect for the paper sales.

(Jumping ahead to the 1970's.)  While we are on the subject...   The NEW YORK TIMES NEWSPAPER (All the news that fits, we print) had a front page story and the panic went on for months that WE ARE GOING INTO ANOTHER ICE AGE!!!  That, of course later turned into the "GLOBAL WARMING" hype until they found out that the globe was not warming anymore and it then became "CLIMATE CHANGE".  That way they won't have to keep changing the spiel every few years.  

They were even able to carry it on after some whistle blower in England leaked some of the emails where they were contriving the stats at that UK University.  But, good ole Al Gore was able to make millions off of selling indulgences by planting a tree somewhere in Brazil to make up for a factories smokestack pollution.  He said that the oceans would rise and flood the coastal cities but after his wife kicked him out he went to California and bought an ocean side mansion.  I guess the Pacific ocean won't be one that raises.

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down.
George Burns