Family Reunions

I was surfing through the Herald & Review web site archived pictures and I ran across several pictures of the bears that used to be at Fairview Park. That got me to thinking of all the fun times we used to have going to the parks in the summer for Landgrebe get-togethers.

That main pavillion was host to many of them. Those bears were a sure attraction. ANd down from the big pavillion was a little place that sold candy. I especially remember those little candy necklaces that you wore around your neck and bit off bits of candy. By the time you were done your neck was so sticky!

Once, Marena and I found a chameleon that had been left behind from some fair they'd had the day before. I don't remember who took it home...I just remember finding it and playing with it all afternoon.

And how much fun did we all have at Joyland? It was up from the pavillion where Marcia's Waterfront restaurant is now. I know they had bumper cars, those swings that flare out the faster the ride goes and a train ride. I'm sure they had a ferris wheel but I don't remember riding it. Later they added a miniature golf course.

Once I remember going to Allerton Park for a get together. And once we went to Weldon Springs. I was in my early teens and someone came back to our tables and said that a couple was "making out" on the grassy hill just down from our site. So all the mothers made sure none of us kids went in that direction while all our dads "went to check out just what was going on"!

We used to get together all the time when I was little and we were fewer in numbers....Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. We met at Joyce's, Leonard's, Marie's, Larry's, Ruth's, Grandma & Grandpa's and eventually twice a year: one at Jasper Trailer Park and one at Mom's.

It was always great to get together, but as I overheard Eric say at one of Julie's reunions as he looked over the food table: "Man, nobody puts out a spread like the Landgrebes." Amen, Eric!

Laundry in the 60s

In the house where I grew up there was no
laundry room because there was no washer
or dryer. Mom washed our clothes once a
week in an old wringer washer on the back
porch off the kitchen. One of my favorite
childhood memories was waking up to the smell
of bleach wafting through the house. That meant
Mom was washing the whites and I could stir the
clothes in the rinse tub!

Washday, as we called it, was never the same
day each week. Back in those days, there were
women who washed on Monday, ironed on
Tuesday, vacuumed on Wednesday, dusted on
Thursday, etc. In our house, we had to wait for “a
good drying day” to do the laundry, one where
the air was dry and hot with a good breeze
blowing. On such a day, my sister and I had to
run to our neighbor’s houses and ask if they
were going to burn garbage that day. If not, we
were to tell them it was washday at the Foster
house.

Back then everyone burned garbage and there
was nothing worse than hanging out your
laundry only to have some inconsiderate or
thoughtless neighbor burn their garbage,
sending the smoke billowing through your clean
clothes. Then you’d have to rewash and rehang
the entire line.

I loved laundry day. Loved stirring the clothes in
the wash tubs, watching mom run the clothes
through the wringer to wring every last bit of
water out of those clothes, lugging the basket out
to the clothesline, grabbing a handful of
clothespins from the pin caddy and hanging up
the clothes to dry in the good old fresh air. The
pin caddy was usually a hand-sewn bag on a
clothes hanger that held all of your clothespins
and hung on the clothesline. You pushed it
ahead of you as you hung the clothes. If I wanted
to get to Mom, I’d put about five pins in my mouth
and mumble, “Hey, Mom” so she’d look at me
and gag. She couldn’t stand to put clothespins in
her mouth.

Every one had their own method of washing the
clothes, their own laundry helpers and product
brands they relied on to get through, their own
method of folding the clothes. For us it was
Oxydol laundry detergent, Clorox bleach, Downy
fabric softener, straight clothespins (as opposed
to the ones with springs).

We used pant stretchers to hang Dad’s work
pants so they would have a perfect crease down
each leg, front and back. Towels were folded in
half, then half again, then in thirds so they would
fit better in our small linen closet. Everything was
folded, including underwear (I don’t know why,
they just were. At least in our house they were.)
Of course, wash day always followed ironing
day. (Permanent press was unheard of). If I was
good (!) Mom let me sprinkle the clothes, roll
them up and put them in a wooden basket with a
plastic liner. Then she would spend the day
ironing clothes as we watched soap operas on
CBS. Love of Life, Search for Tomorrow, As the
World Turns, The Guiding Light---we watched
them all as I waited patiently for her to finish so I
could iron Dad’s handkerchief’s. (I don’t think he
really liked ironed handkerchiefs, but they were
something small that I could iron and it kept me
relatively quiet while I waited for her to finish.)
Everything was ironed, including sheets (again, I
don’t know why.)

One fall, a laundromat/dry cleaner opened in
town and for years it was the only one we had.
Washday became wash evening for half of the
year, but we still did our laundry on the back
porch every spring and summer until Mom got a
job at the local restaurant. Then the job of doing
the laundry fell on Kathy and I and we used the
laundromat year-round. They hauled the wringer
washer away and planted flowers in the rinse
tubs. The pin caddy is still hanging on the old
back porch. We use the pins to hang wet
swimsuits on the new collapsible clothesline that
stands just outside the back door.

I don’t think they even make Oxydol detergent
anymore. Wood clothespins and rinse tubs are
high priced antiques at flea markets. We wash
and dry a load of laundry a day at our house and
think nothing of it. But every once in awhile, a
“good drying day” comes along that brings back
fond laundry memories.

Over Easy Speckled Eggs....Mmmmm!

When Hop & I were dating, he came to pick me up one day right before lunch and he hadn't eaten. I offered to cook him breakfast and asked how he liked his eggs. Over easy is what he wanted. Well, I had never cooked over easy eggs but decided to give it a try for my honey. I grabbed the CAST IRON SKILLET (yes, I know---what was I thinking??), put in the Crisco and put in the first 3 eggs...went to turn them and they were stuck! Same with the next 3. I think I ended up cooking an entire dozen just to get 3 that looked halfway decent. There were black specks on them but I covered them up with pepper! Bless his heart, he ate every bit but to this day, whenever I cook breakfast, he reminds me to use the good skillet :)

Canning...A Lost Art

I was looking through Mom's recipe box and I came across her old
canning records. Here's her record from 1967:
CANNED:
115 quarts green beans
32 pints beets
14 quarts carrots
13 pints relish
25 grape jelly
8 strawberry preserves
54 pints carrots
19 quarts tomatoes
16 quarts tomato juice
2 pints tomato juice
FROZEN:
5 jars vegetable soup
11 quarts corn
7 quarts green beans
3 bags cherries
Strawberries

Amazing!

Playtime memories

In a much simpler time, families often visited each other
on a regular basis. The kids usually went off and played
by themselves while the adults conversed over a game
of cards. And my cousins had the neatest toys...

I remember going to Merlin and Nancy’s (#1)...Rick and
Eric had bunk beds which I thought were the coolest!
And I seem to recall Yogi Bear or Dino the Dinosaur
punch bags...you know the kind that had a weight in
the bottom so if you punched it, it would bounce right
back up at you. Do you remember those, Ricky?

I remember going to Marena’s...one of the chairs to the
table and chairs had a bad seat that would fall through
if you wiggled too much and Marena always made sure
I got that chair! She also had a child’s grocery cart that
was a lot of fun. And when Tommy wasn’t looking,
there was an old car behind the garage that we would
crawl into and play.

We had a lot of fun in their basement...Marena and I
would play while Kristy played her 45s on a record
player that sat on top of the ironing board in the back. I
especially liked “It’s My Party & I’ll Cry If I Want To”,
“One-Eyed, One-Eared Flying Purple People Eater” and
“Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini”. If we
were lucky, we could catch her singing along and make
fun of her.

Once we went bike riding and filled the tires up with air
at the gas station on the corner by Marena’s. We came
home and parked the bikes in the driveway, ran up the
steps and in the house to watch cartoons. A few
minutes later we hear a big BANG! We had filled one of
the tires too full and it had popped, sending the bike
flying in the air to land on the porch! No more bike
riding that day.

I think Marena also had every flavor of “Fizzies” that
they made (Kathy & I got one flavor pack that we had
to share and couldn’t get another flavor until the
opened flavor pack was gone!). Marena had them all.
“Fizzies” were fruit-flavored tablets that fizzed like
alka-seltzer tablets when you put them in water, thus
making you a Kool-Aid like drink to enjoy. Of course we
never put them in water...we put them on our tongues
and let them fizzily dissolve there. It was great!

At Becky’s house on Mueller, they also had bunk beds.
Two sets if I recall. The most fun I remember was their
house on Edward...Brenda & Barbie’s room had a little
alcove where they had a kitchen furniture set (I think 3
pieces: cupboard, refrigerator and stove...was that
right, Becky?). But the neatest thing about Becky’s was
that she had a canopy bed...oh how I wanted a canopy
bed. And troll dolls...lots of troll dolls. And sometimes
we could go to Cloyd’s Market and get a bottle of pop.
Or they also had another little neighborhood store
where you could get penny candy. Sometimes we’d get
to go to Monroe Park and do a craft. When you stayed
at Becky’s, the nights were kind of scary because you’d
hear the ambulances racing to Decatur Memorial
Hospital...their sirens made the most awful wailing
sound in the dead of the night...

At my house, we would play office: we used a treadle
sewing machine that we pretended was a typewriter
(don’t ask me why, I don’t know....we would pump the
treadle while we pretended to type on the top...hey,
we were using our imaginations, that’s more than most
kids do these days) and we taped buttons on our
Fisher Price Chatter phone that said Hold, Line 1 and
Line 2. In the summer, we would play outside in the old
Chevy car Dad had with the wooden 2x6 front bumper.
We had two trays like they used at Dog n Suds and
we’d put them on the car door and honk. Then the
other one would race out of the shed and take the
order (this game never lasted very long; Mom would
tire quickly of hearing us honking the car horn and
make us stop).

If we were lucky, she’d give us each a quarter and we’d
ride our bikes up to Rigdon’s Variety Store. Rigdon’s
had the BIGGEST display of candy in the world...those
dots that were stuck on paper, paraffin pop bottles
with fruit syrup inside, hot dog gum, taffy, tootsie rolls,
pixie sticks--- you name it and she had it. And a quarter
bought you a big bag full!

I remember once we got mad at Mom for something.
Marena and I decided we were gonna walk along the
railroad tracks near my house down to Uncle Carl’s and
Aunt Mary’s. We walked and rested, walked and rested
for what seemed like HOURS and thought for sure that
it wouldn’t be much further....then we heard Mom
calling us home for lunch! We couldn’t have walked very
far if we heard Mom calling, but you would have
thought we’d walked miles!

Those were my childhood memories...the best playmate
in the world was a Landgrebe cousin!

One door closes...

K's Merchandise is closing its doors.

After 21 years, I will be looking for another job. Like the line in a Tim McGraw song..."the ending of an era, the turning of a page." I will leave behind more good memories than bad, more close friends than mere acquaintances.

For years, these coworkers have been my sounding board, my barometer on world affairs. My feelings on most issues were formed and molded every day on breaks at 10 and 3. We need to get web cams and meet everyday at 10 just to keep in touch.

Because that's what I fear. Losing touch. We'll start by having lunch every week. Then every two weeks. Then monthly. Then we'll remember each other with Christmas cards every year. Eventually even those will cease.

Although our intentions will be good, we will find new jobs and forget K's. We will have new coworkers, new friends. But none will be as close or dear to my heart as these amazing people in K's Ad Crew.

It truly is the ending of an era...