Milkmen, and Other Artifacts of a Lost Era

Not only were girls not allowed to wear pants to school, they couldn't be Class President.

Vice President and Secretary were okay, but not Treasurer.

That still pisses a classmate of mine off.

In Junior High, the boys had to take shop. The girls took homemaking. That consisted of learning how to cook and sew. The school had an apartment, where the girls learned "useful" tasks like making beds, and cleaning toilets.

And they didn't wear watches . . . there's a clock on the stove . . .

In 1st grade, we were taught how to tell time. There were no digital watches then!

and smaller feet...so they could get closer to the kitchen sink... genetic thing....part of God's plan.....

bear- May your ass freeze on that snow! :wink:

HEY PEOPLE WAKE UP___YOURE STARTING TO SCARE THE KIDS

I remember that my elementary school had one black teacher and one black student.

Maybe it was because I was so in love with Sidney Portier in "To Sir With Love" and had taken to wearing corduroy mini skirts a la LuLu, that he became my favorite teacher and inspired, if not an ablity, then a least and enduring love, of science.

Years later, the student and I were reacquainted and became quite good friends. It was so interesting to hear her speak of her childhood on the "right side of the tracks". Even though my family was poor, we obviously had advantages that we never really considered.

They were both good teachers.

It was a Thursday, I'm pretty sure. The Yankees were beating the crap out of my new heros the Pittsburgh Pirates with Mantle hitting a home run about every time he swung a bat. I hated the Yankees even then.

I was using my secret weapon, a radio the size of a pack of cigarettes, imagine, my dad said, when he saw me opening it on my birthday, a radio you could hold in your hand. A transistor radio, and it had an earpiece so you could listen to it without anyone else hearing the sound. I had no clue what a transistor was, all I knew was I was sitting with my history book wide open on my desk staring blankly at the pages as Sister Mary Bridget talked endlessly about some guy named Vasco de Gama with the earwire snaked up through my shirt when there was a deep flyball to left...It looks like....

Somebody groaned. It wasn't me, I know it wasn't, but Sister Bridget came down the aisle like a Nike missile from the silos outside of town and yanked the earpiece out of my ear.

"Give me that radio," she said, I was sunk. I opened the desktop and handed her the lovely red rectangle.

"What's the score?" she said.
"Huh?"
''Come on, you weren't listening to me, were you at least paying attention to the game?"

Maybe I wasn't sunk.

"Yankees are killing them. Like 9 to 3, seventh inning"
"Read aloud from page.."she looked down grimly, "154."

I had no idea that sister was from Pittsburgh, but it saved me. She didn't call my folks and the next Thursday, during history, because

"It is an historic moment after all."

sister set up a radio in her classroom. We all listened as, in the bottom of the ninth, (just like in the movies) Bill Maserowski smacked the ball over the fence to win the Series for the Pirates.

It was the first and last time I ever saw a nun dance with joy.

I got my radio back the next day.

One moment defined: I was in the schoolyard with my best friend. Mazeroski connects and modern life as I knew it ...ended.

yeah.....that moment... that day....

man.

When I was a kid in school, the only teams I even heard about were the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. I was dimly aware there were other teams, but not one soul ever talked about them, with the exception of mentioning Willie Mays. Thus, a kid from Fresno, California, had to choose between the winning Yankees, with Yogi, Whitey, Mickey, or those other guys, the usual losers. It made for a lifetime Yankee fan. Even today, I prefer the Yanks over my home team.

Coming out of the closet like this must be a sort of bittersweet moment Edgar.
As a safety patrol I was present as a guests at Griffith stadium for the Yankees-Senators game. Whitey pitched and Frank Howard hit a monster shot off him. Didn't matter. Yankees drubbed. I'll never forget Eddie Brinkman, one of the most fluid fielders I ever saw in the infield.

This was around 1960 and I was in Grammar School. The male faculty were all baseball fanatics and during the World Series they would bring a radio into the class room and we would have "study periods" during the broadcasts. I still think radio broadcast games are better than televised games.

Why do they play them all at night?

(oh, I sound old.)

:-D

My mother remembers October 3, 1951. She's from Brooklyn and was 18 that year. She was volunteering as a companion to a blind man who loved baseball, so they used to listen to Giants and Dodgers games together. Of course, they both heard the broadcast of Bobby Thomson hitting the "shot heard 'round the world" off Ralph Branca. :-D

Now i'm gettin' all sad. Why the hell did the Giants leave New York--and for an idiotic, worthless park outside San Francisco . . . i'm gonna go be sad somewhere for a while . . .

You know Joe, I still prefer listening to games on radio. I like to imagine the scene and when the commentators help out such as in a football game when they say:"The Hurricanes are moving from left to right on your radio dial", it gives me chills.
Even more fun is listening to Miami games on the Spanish station.

Set, I'll join you. I lost my Senators twice.

...don't forget the Drive-in Theater...kids under 12 were free. I can remember my brothers and me, and some of the neighbor kids all packed in the back seat to see a movie. In the winter there were heaters next to the speakers to keep the car warm. If it was summertime, you had to keep the windows up to keep the mosquitoes from eating you alive. Sometimes we would put our blanket and pillows on the roof of the car and watch the movie from there.

As we got older, my mom and dad would take separate cars to the drive-in…we all sat in one car while they sat all alone in the other.