1950′s
I was thinking yesterday about mouton coats. Everyone I had a “car date” with in the late 1950′s wore these in the winter months. At the time I thought they were really elegant (the coats, I mean). I may have to buy one on EBay. I also thought about Bank day in elementary school. Seems like every Tuesday we brought a little money to be recorded in a bank book the teacher kept. She called us up one by one to make our deposit. I always enjoyed this time because we could do our own thing while the teacher took the money and wrote down our deposit amount. It usually took about 10 or 15 minutes. At the end of the year we got the book to take home. I saved enough through school to buy part of my first car, a 1952 Chevrolet hardtop that someone had customized with mouton-like carpet. Total cost was $795.00.
I also liked our annual field trip to Mrs. Bairds Bakery. They always gave us a piece of French bread slathered with butter at the end of the tour. As I recall, the trips to Mrs. Bairds alternated with tours to the Water Works. I don’t remember if they gave us a glass of water at the end of that tour.
I talked with Al Loftis yesterday. He was one of my colleagues when I taught at Lander College in South Carolina. When we lived there in the early 1970′s he had a female mutt named “Sally,” and we had a female Scottish Terrier named “T-Bone.” He told me yesterday that he had just gotten a Labradoodle, who turned out to be a pretty intelligent dog. I asked if his new dog was smarter than Sally. He said that the new dog was a lot smarter, that Sally was just a “country girl.”
