steve ypsi
01-04-2003, 05:43 AM
Bandito , No shoes, that was a fact, from the time school was out none of the kids wore shoes and didn't wear them until school started again, the reason we didn't as well as most of my neighbor's was because when you are young your feet grow all year, well it was a money thing more than just not wanting to wear them, its funny at the start of every school year you would see kids limping because they had blister's, the reason for this was the shoes were always over sized so we could grow into them and last the whole school year or they were hand me downs that were to big. ask him about what we called stubbed toes, every kid got one at some time or another, when we would run across a road is where it seemed to happen the most. The big toe nail would some how get pushed up about to the point of being ripped off and another version was the most prevalent taking the skin off down to the meat in front of the big toe from the nail down, being what kids are, think about this, in the act of running the back foot comes forward fairly low and if the toe drug on the pavement the skin was ripped off because it is usually the lowest or longest hitting the pavement first..
Talk about shoes, the ultimate shoe was a high top shoe that came with a jack knife holster and small jack knife mounted or sewn on the top of the high top., I begged for a pair every year, never got them because they cost a dollar or more higher. Can you imagine these days with kids kicked out for carrying a small knife and the law suits.
Jim class was played in our socks, very few could afford the extra black and white canvas shoe they call tennis shoes now like Nike
Sand burr fights, ever had one of them? we also hardly wore shirts either, well when the sand burr's got hard we would pick them with the stem about 3 or 4 inches long, then you would chase another kids throwing them at his back, what a sight, 5 to 6 of the sand burrs sticking on a kids back and him running full speed, some one had to pull them off, most of the time one burr at a time because the stem would pull off leaving most of the burrs sticking in the victim. Kids don't know what fun is now a days. I had my share of sand burrs sticking in me.
My first fishing rods were cut off willow sticks with a piece of kite string and a hook. Hooks were like gold back then to a poor kid. Bobbers were a stick tied on the line. you were a lucky kid to have a real one piece bamboo pole.
first B B gun a red Ryder lever action, they were made in Plymouth mi, it was used and about wore out, man the kid that had one of the newer pumps that was way more powerful than the lever action was in heaven
Made my first zip gun at 12, you took a broken bike spoke and the adjuster part that came thru the rim and enough to the spoke to bend to hold in the hand, screwed the spoke all most all the way out, packed the hole with wooden match heads then a small lead shot I think about a 9 shot, we held them in our hand a held a lit match under it till it went off from the heat, made quite a bang.
In the 40's and early 50's most people didn't take their keys out of the car. put alcohol in the radiator in the winter
never knew a house to be locked, a lot of them didn't have locks. wasn't much purpose in locking a house, no TV, no VCR'S, No money, old dishes and pots and pans and clothes that were old, who would break in for this.
it cost 12 cents to get in the willow run center theater if you had it, The Martha Washington cost a unheard of 25 cents, it is on Washington street in ypsi and is now the dirty book store peep show thing.
about every third house had a phone. I have phone books from the late 40's and early 50's, they are about 5 X 7 inches and maybe 40 pages including the yellow pages.
Bottle returns were .02 if you could find one.
put the sign in the window with the part up on what block of ice you needed for the ice box, I still call them ice box's to this day.
Fired the wood coal furnace up at 8:00 but by midnight with no insulation it would freeze a glass of water solid, we never left the hand pump primed because the pump would freeze in the house over night. we didn't get cold if you stayed under the feather tick, that is a large bag filled with duck or goose down my mother made.
Did you ever wipe your butt with a slick page from sear's that was kept in the out house ? don't work very well. Kinda smeared it.
Bath time for us kids was on the week end, Man I hated being 3 rd or 4 th, it was in a galvanized tub and the water was cold and dirty and frothy looking from the old lye soap by the 3 rd kid. winter time it was less, hard to heat water on a wood stove to keep the tub going.
we had a scrub board until 1955 when we finally got electricity. the gas washers were to much money for my mother.
Ever read by the light of a coal oil lamp, you had to be a foot or two from it to read
Never had store boughten tooth paste, salt or Arm and hammer for us and one brush for the 3 boys
soap for washing clothes was made from the lye soap bars by shaving it thin and stirring it in the water.
I went to the dentist at 7 by myself and told him my mother would pay him later, he pulled the tooth and wrote my name and address down.
a big Fear was the A bomb in the late 40's and 50's, ever had air raid drills every week in school?
Next biggest fear was polio and the iron lung
third biggest fear, don't get caught doing some thing wrong and the dreaded whipping which was mostly screaming and crying and not really much pain
My brother got sent to reform school in Detroit for skipping school at 13 years old
There are a lot more things I took for granted as a part of life and it was a good childhood
Steve Ypsi
Talk about shoes, the ultimate shoe was a high top shoe that came with a jack knife holster and small jack knife mounted or sewn on the top of the high top., I begged for a pair every year, never got them because they cost a dollar or more higher. Can you imagine these days with kids kicked out for carrying a small knife and the law suits.
Jim class was played in our socks, very few could afford the extra black and white canvas shoe they call tennis shoes now like Nike
Sand burr fights, ever had one of them? we also hardly wore shirts either, well when the sand burr's got hard we would pick them with the stem about 3 or 4 inches long, then you would chase another kids throwing them at his back, what a sight, 5 to 6 of the sand burrs sticking on a kids back and him running full speed, some one had to pull them off, most of the time one burr at a time because the stem would pull off leaving most of the burrs sticking in the victim. Kids don't know what fun is now a days. I had my share of sand burrs sticking in me.
My first fishing rods were cut off willow sticks with a piece of kite string and a hook. Hooks were like gold back then to a poor kid. Bobbers were a stick tied on the line. you were a lucky kid to have a real one piece bamboo pole.
first B B gun a red Ryder lever action, they were made in Plymouth mi, it was used and about wore out, man the kid that had one of the newer pumps that was way more powerful than the lever action was in heaven
Made my first zip gun at 12, you took a broken bike spoke and the adjuster part that came thru the rim and enough to the spoke to bend to hold in the hand, screwed the spoke all most all the way out, packed the hole with wooden match heads then a small lead shot I think about a 9 shot, we held them in our hand a held a lit match under it till it went off from the heat, made quite a bang.
In the 40's and early 50's most people didn't take their keys out of the car. put alcohol in the radiator in the winter
never knew a house to be locked, a lot of them didn't have locks. wasn't much purpose in locking a house, no TV, no VCR'S, No money, old dishes and pots and pans and clothes that were old, who would break in for this.
it cost 12 cents to get in the willow run center theater if you had it, The Martha Washington cost a unheard of 25 cents, it is on Washington street in ypsi and is now the dirty book store peep show thing.
about every third house had a phone. I have phone books from the late 40's and early 50's, they are about 5 X 7 inches and maybe 40 pages including the yellow pages.
Bottle returns were .02 if you could find one.
put the sign in the window with the part up on what block of ice you needed for the ice box, I still call them ice box's to this day.
Fired the wood coal furnace up at 8:00 but by midnight with no insulation it would freeze a glass of water solid, we never left the hand pump primed because the pump would freeze in the house over night. we didn't get cold if you stayed under the feather tick, that is a large bag filled with duck or goose down my mother made.
Did you ever wipe your butt with a slick page from sear's that was kept in the out house ? don't work very well. Kinda smeared it.
Bath time for us kids was on the week end, Man I hated being 3 rd or 4 th, it was in a galvanized tub and the water was cold and dirty and frothy looking from the old lye soap by the 3 rd kid. winter time it was less, hard to heat water on a wood stove to keep the tub going.
we had a scrub board until 1955 when we finally got electricity. the gas washers were to much money for my mother.
Ever read by the light of a coal oil lamp, you had to be a foot or two from it to read
Never had store boughten tooth paste, salt or Arm and hammer for us and one brush for the 3 boys
soap for washing clothes was made from the lye soap bars by shaving it thin and stirring it in the water.
I went to the dentist at 7 by myself and told him my mother would pay him later, he pulled the tooth and wrote my name and address down.
a big Fear was the A bomb in the late 40's and 50's, ever had air raid drills every week in school?
Next biggest fear was polio and the iron lung
third biggest fear, don't get caught doing some thing wrong and the dreaded whipping which was mostly screaming and crying and not really much pain
My brother got sent to reform school in Detroit for skipping school at 13 years old
There are a lot more things I took for granted as a part of life and it was a good childhood
Steve Ypsi