At my advanced age I can be one of these grandparents talking about "those good old days". But they weren't, you know. Those days gone by were simpler, I think, certainly less expensive, and kids didn't have so much "stuff". But nostalgia is funny, making things past seem better - more fun than they actually were - viewed now in retrospect.
Take the "graveyard phosphate" we kids enjoyed (before Coke and Pepsi and all the other drinks got so big). Saturday movie "matinees" actually started at 10 a.m. and lasted three hours minimum. We enjoyed a double feature, cartoon, comedy, coming attractions and newsreel - for a dime. After the show we trooped across the street to what I can only label as a "greasy spoon" diner, named the Coney Island, for a little repast. This included the "phosphate", a soda counter drink I haven't heard of in many years.For another dime the "soda jerk" squirted the phosphate into a large glass, then went down the line of flavor spigots, adding a squirt of each. Thus the facetious name "graveyard".
The 15-cent hot dogs there came with chili and onion bits slopped inside the bun. These, sometime later, would be called "chili dogs". Of course we had already had a nickel bag of hot-off-the-popper popcorn and a nickel candy bar or two during the movie, so the cash outlay mounted up to about 50 cents.
Extra nickels went into the mini-jukeboxes installed in each booth at the diner. The cacophony from each jukebox playing a different tune simultaneously was not a musical treat, but it was part of the Saturday habit. And a 50 cents outlay was well worth it to parents who then knew where we were and what we were doing the entire Saturday!
Black licorice "whips" were favorites at the penny-candy showcase. They are still around, but they're shorter and sell in packages for more serious money. Even priced at a penny, though, we often had to resort to a common substitute. We would haunt road construction sites and glom onto chunks of the road-covering tar to chew. It tasted terrible, but that wasn't the point. It was chewable and our parents hated for us to chew it. Especially when we let it get too dry and it bonded onto our teeth. It looked terrible and almost had to wear off. Sometimes, to keep us from chewing it, they'd give us a nickle for a package of Black Jack gum. Haven't seen that around in quite a spell either.
Other penny candies then popular were the mini-bottles made of wax that enclosed a few drops of a Kool-Aid-like drink, red-tipped white stick candies supposedly resembling cigarettes, and Red Hots, small red spicy chewables.The red coating, when wetted with spit, could be spread on the lips, so young girls loved to pretend it was something their mothers wouldn't allow, lipstick.
Another source of summer sustenance was the ice wagon. It was a horse-pulled wagon filled with huge ice chunks that the delivery man chipped to ordered sizes, hoisted with metal tongs onto a leather shoulder apron, and carried into kitchen "ice boxes" (later called Frigidaires by one progressive company). We would pick the wayward chips out of the wagon and suck them on especially hot days.
I mention Biscuit Soup on occasion when breakfasting out and it surprises me that waitresses have never heard of it. It was passed down to me from my grandmother to my mother to me. It was common during the '20s depression, as a way to use up days-old biscuits. Heat up a few cups of milk in a pan, with a couple spoonfuls of butter and a few shakes of salt and pepper in it, drop in a couple biscuits. In a couple minutes you have delectable biscuits awash in buttery milk. I still prepare it.
Back an era, nuts were not sold shelled and packaged as they are now. Mixed nuts, usually on holidays, were merely put out in bowls, along with a set of picks and a nutcracker, and eating them became a do-it-yourself chore. Brazil nuts or "niggertoes" (so called long before language niceties banned such a name) were.tough to crack, so the youngsters left those for the adults, which was perfectly fine with the adults who thought they went very well with the "home brew" that often came up from cellars for clan holiday get-togethers.
Every boy who got his first jackknife learned to play Mumbledepeg with it, usually from his dad. It then went with the boy wherever he went. The more blades it had, the more precious it was for bragging rights. The game consisted of placing the blade point onto various parts of the anatomy, holding the knife in place with a finger on the base of its upright handle, then whipping the hand forward and down so the knife would flip and stick into the lawn. Even with only two players the game could last an entire lazy afternoon since it started with flipoffs from the feet, then progressed to the knees, hips, fingers, elbows (it paid to be ambidextrous), shoulders, chin, nose, ears and (very carefully) the head. The better players always wanted to play the "miss and start over" rule.
Other "toys", I guess they could be called, were discarded pieces of neon tubing, which could often be found in trash bins behind sign shops. Straight pieces made great dried pea or spitwad shooters. Curved pieces took a lot more practice and skill.
Making darts was another skill we learned. We took a burned wooden matchstick (matches, for lighting wood stoves, sold in boxes), cut slits in an X across the non-lighting end with our jackknives, took a pair of pliers and forced the threading end of a needle into the other end of the stick, and tied it in place with a number of loops of thread around the stick where the needle was implanted. Then we cut two short strips of heavy paper to fit into the X slits, to serve as flight guides. An empty egg crate made a better, and safer, target than a playmate. We used to hunt flies with them, not too successfully. A dart with a couple inked hashmarks on it, though, was good for a week's bragging rights by its owner.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Thursday, April 17, 2014
THE KEY TO ETERNAL YOUTH: Lie About Your Age!
Women have clichedly (new word?) been famed for "untold ages". Nothing takes as many years off a woman's age as the woman herself! In fact, about the only time a woman wishes to be a year older is while she's having a baby.
As a single senior I dated a single senior lady who was in an intriguing dilemma. She didn't want to have any more birthdays, but she didn't want to give up getting birthday presents either. Like so many ladies, she wanted to stop telling her age about the same time her age started telling on her. About all men could know then was that she was between the ages of consent and collapse.
Every woman seems to know inherently that the secret of everlasting youth is to lie about their age. That way, via planned forgetfulness, they can age gracefully through all the latter of seven stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, junior miss, young woman, young woman, young woman.
Lying enhances the self image, I've been told, and, in some special instances, it can even become economically logical. Like in the story a census taker in Serman, Texas, once told. She was doing her duty all morn in one of the less entrancing sections of town and, having just finished an interview, she was leaving the building to go for lunch. Surprised, she heard, then turned to see the interviewee trotting pantingly down the sidewalk, calling after her.
"Lady, I done made a mistake," the interviewee greets her. "I done give you my insurance age, 36, but I should of give my government old-age pension age. That's 42."
Fine As Wine
We would all like to believe that, like wine, we improve with age. But we have to face facts ultimately. That's only true if the grapes were really good in the first place.
The other side of this subtractive (another new word?) thought, however, is that many women could add years to their lives if they would simply tell the truth about their age. Some get around to that radical idea eventually, about the time, as I stated earlier, their ages starts telling on them.
This is when math gets a working over. Women get a passion for tinkering with the rules of progressive arithmetic. They have their own "new math". According to the distinguished French playwright Marcel Archard, women will divide their age by half, double the price of their clothes, and always add at least five years to the ages of their best friends. That may be where Dr. Robert W. Williams, when associate professor of medicine at Boston University, got his proferred definition of middle age: "Someone 10 years younger than you are."
This touchy problem of age attribution is tougher on men than on women, of course. In discussing self-preservation methods with another single senior-dating male, I asked, "What do you do when a woman asks you to guess her age?"
"I guess my real guess to myself," he grinned slyly back, "then I knock off about 30% and, generally, come near to making myself adored."
Wisdom like that does not automatically come with old age, though. Nothing does, except wrinkles.
Age is, after all, relative. No two people age at the same rate, anyhow, other than mathematically. Thus, a woman should be only as old as she feels and looks - to herself, not to how she looks to another woman - mathematics be damned.
All of us should remember -that, no matter how old we are, we are younger than we will ever be again!
As a single senior I dated a single senior lady who was in an intriguing dilemma. She didn't want to have any more birthdays, but she didn't want to give up getting birthday presents either. Like so many ladies, she wanted to stop telling her age about the same time her age started telling on her. About all men could know then was that she was between the ages of consent and collapse.
Every woman seems to know inherently that the secret of everlasting youth is to lie about their age. That way, via planned forgetfulness, they can age gracefully through all the latter of seven stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence, junior miss, young woman, young woman, young woman.
Lying enhances the self image, I've been told, and, in some special instances, it can even become economically logical. Like in the story a census taker in Serman, Texas, once told. She was doing her duty all morn in one of the less entrancing sections of town and, having just finished an interview, she was leaving the building to go for lunch. Surprised, she heard, then turned to see the interviewee trotting pantingly down the sidewalk, calling after her.
"Lady, I done made a mistake," the interviewee greets her. "I done give you my insurance age, 36, but I should of give my government old-age pension age. That's 42."
Fine As Wine
We would all like to believe that, like wine, we improve with age. But we have to face facts ultimately. That's only true if the grapes were really good in the first place.
The other side of this subtractive (another new word?) thought, however, is that many women could add years to their lives if they would simply tell the truth about their age. Some get around to that radical idea eventually, about the time, as I stated earlier, their ages starts telling on them.
This is when math gets a working over. Women get a passion for tinkering with the rules of progressive arithmetic. They have their own "new math". According to the distinguished French playwright Marcel Archard, women will divide their age by half, double the price of their clothes, and always add at least five years to the ages of their best friends. That may be where Dr. Robert W. Williams, when associate professor of medicine at Boston University, got his proferred definition of middle age: "Someone 10 years younger than you are."
This touchy problem of age attribution is tougher on men than on women, of course. In discussing self-preservation methods with another single senior-dating male, I asked, "What do you do when a woman asks you to guess her age?"
"I guess my real guess to myself," he grinned slyly back, "then I knock off about 30% and, generally, come near to making myself adored."
Wisdom like that does not automatically come with old age, though. Nothing does, except wrinkles.
Age is, after all, relative. No two people age at the same rate, anyhow, other than mathematically. Thus, a woman should be only as old as she feels and looks - to herself, not to how she looks to another woman - mathematics be damned.
All of us should remember -that, no matter how old we are, we are younger than we will ever be again!
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
THE MUNCH BUNCH: Yum's the Word
Some eating and dining places - there's a big difference between the two, I've found - have had a knack with snacks that has impressed customers.
I had occasions to check on some of these house specialties while living in Southern California some years ago. Most of these innovations could probably be copied successfully today.
I found that even the serving of a cup of coffee can be impressive, yet gracious, if accomplished with style. It was the Sheraton-Wilshire Motor Inn that serviced sleepy breakfasters with 14 1/2 ounce cups of coffee, the largest in L.A. A fringe benefit - arm workouts lifting about a pound and a half with each sip.
A weekend trip to Las Vegas provided the most unusual dining innovation. Along with the meal at Caesar's Palace came a comely slave girl, in typical diaphanous Arabian Nights costume, to pour the wine for each course of dinner and, if wished, hand feed grapes to the male customers. Her twin hovered in the background with a camera to take a souvenir picture of this scene, for a few bucks extra.
As with other establishments bowser bags were furnished to take home those extra choice filets your eyes devoured but your stomach couldn't handle. Lesser places on the Strip, I noted, provided guests with Ivy League napkins (that buttoned down the shirt front) and heralded humorous fortunes inside garlic sticks.
Reuben's in Santa Monica extended its take-home options to Herring Hampers, Bagel Bundles and Lox Boxes, while the Young China Cafe in Hollywood facetiously offered Dragon Bags. A waitress at Hollywood's Seventh Veil said they were considering Shiska Shirts for their shishkabob-to-go and Shiska Suitcases for family portions.
\ Teenagers at the time had their own supper club in Hollywood, called the Stratford-on-Sunset. It offered an after-dinner dessert named The Tempest. This gastronomy had 18 scoops of ice cream to it, plus the usual nuts, fruit and creams garnishes, and it was advertised as free to anyone who could swill it all in one sitting..
At the other extreme were the calorie-conscious who lunched at Andre's in Beverly Hills. The dessert cart there tinkled a silver bell on its rounds so these stay-slim-at-all-costs gals could look the other way as it passed. Rand's Restaurant, in the same area, used a bell, too, but for a very different reason. Its Happy Hours drew big spenders who liked to spread the joy around by "buying for the house". So owner Ray Rand installed a cow bell and any patron who felt expansive could clang it to signal his largesse to the assemblage. It became an instant status symbol.
The personal touch status symbol at Tarantino's had repeat customers picking up glasses with their names in gold on them as they came in. And the Santa Ynez Inn, after hosting about 3,000 wedding receptions, copied the name-in-cement idea made famous at Grauman's Chinese Theater for actors. Their brides and grooms were immortalized by setting their handprints and autographs in the cement floor of the Terrace there.
Personalization was taken to a high art at the Hollywood Beverly Hills Hotel. Management there kept a dossier on every repeating guest so they were prepared for that guest's second visit, whether it was doggie delights for the pet poodle at 2 a.m.- should you and your poodle be so demanding - or milk baths. One Texas oilman ordered bear steaks his first visit and the embarrassed kitchen staff couldn't furnish them. But when he returned the next year the steaks were ready for him, having been flown in from Alaska.
Beachcomber, Jr provided pull-up stools, which table hoppers could carry around with them as they socialized with friends at other tables. The Civic Center's Redwood Room catered to patrons with overflowing skins. A half-moon arrangement, called "the fat man's corner" by the help, boasted five extra inches on its seats.
Dodger Stadium's builders conceded that three-hour double-headers necessitated similar "contour" seat comfort. They even installed a few love seats, so couples could enjoy all three of America's national pastimes concurrently: eating, loving and baseball.
I had occasions to check on some of these house specialties while living in Southern California some years ago. Most of these innovations could probably be copied successfully today.
I found that even the serving of a cup of coffee can be impressive, yet gracious, if accomplished with style. It was the Sheraton-Wilshire Motor Inn that serviced sleepy breakfasters with 14 1/2 ounce cups of coffee, the largest in L.A. A fringe benefit - arm workouts lifting about a pound and a half with each sip.
A weekend trip to Las Vegas provided the most unusual dining innovation. Along with the meal at Caesar's Palace came a comely slave girl, in typical diaphanous Arabian Nights costume, to pour the wine for each course of dinner and, if wished, hand feed grapes to the male customers. Her twin hovered in the background with a camera to take a souvenir picture of this scene, for a few bucks extra.
As with other establishments bowser bags were furnished to take home those extra choice filets your eyes devoured but your stomach couldn't handle. Lesser places on the Strip, I noted, provided guests with Ivy League napkins (that buttoned down the shirt front) and heralded humorous fortunes inside garlic sticks.
Reuben's in Santa Monica extended its take-home options to Herring Hampers, Bagel Bundles and Lox Boxes, while the Young China Cafe in Hollywood facetiously offered Dragon Bags. A waitress at Hollywood's Seventh Veil said they were considering Shiska Shirts for their shishkabob-to-go and Shiska Suitcases for family portions.
\ Teenagers at the time had their own supper club in Hollywood, called the Stratford-on-Sunset. It offered an after-dinner dessert named The Tempest. This gastronomy had 18 scoops of ice cream to it, plus the usual nuts, fruit and creams garnishes, and it was advertised as free to anyone who could swill it all in one sitting..
At the other extreme were the calorie-conscious who lunched at Andre's in Beverly Hills. The dessert cart there tinkled a silver bell on its rounds so these stay-slim-at-all-costs gals could look the other way as it passed. Rand's Restaurant, in the same area, used a bell, too, but for a very different reason. Its Happy Hours drew big spenders who liked to spread the joy around by "buying for the house". So owner Ray Rand installed a cow bell and any patron who felt expansive could clang it to signal his largesse to the assemblage. It became an instant status symbol.
The personal touch status symbol at Tarantino's had repeat customers picking up glasses with their names in gold on them as they came in. And the Santa Ynez Inn, after hosting about 3,000 wedding receptions, copied the name-in-cement idea made famous at Grauman's Chinese Theater for actors. Their brides and grooms were immortalized by setting their handprints and autographs in the cement floor of the Terrace there.
Personalization was taken to a high art at the Hollywood Beverly Hills Hotel. Management there kept a dossier on every repeating guest so they were prepared for that guest's second visit, whether it was doggie delights for the pet poodle at 2 a.m.- should you and your poodle be so demanding - or milk baths. One Texas oilman ordered bear steaks his first visit and the embarrassed kitchen staff couldn't furnish them. But when he returned the next year the steaks were ready for him, having been flown in from Alaska.
Beachcomber, Jr provided pull-up stools, which table hoppers could carry around with them as they socialized with friends at other tables. The Civic Center's Redwood Room catered to patrons with overflowing skins. A half-moon arrangement, called "the fat man's corner" by the help, boasted five extra inches on its seats.
Dodger Stadium's builders conceded that three-hour double-headers necessitated similar "contour" seat comfort. They even installed a few love seats, so couples could enjoy all three of America's national pastimes concurrently: eating, loving and baseball.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
My New Game: Free-Hand Pinochle
Pinochle is a friendly card game. That's why players usually prefer the standard four-handed game over the three-handed "cutthroat" game. But four players are sometimes not available. So I set about trying to find a mix of the two that remained friendly.
I've come up with "Free-hand" Pinochle, which other members of my family have preferred calling "Dummy" Pinochle and "Bonus" Pinochle. All three names fit, since it is played by three players, has a "free" or "dummy" hand played by whoever wins it, and this "free" hand is played by the bid winner like a Bridge's dummy hand.
The game is simple to play for those already engaging in Pinochle, since no new rules have been added, other than the new - and I think exciting - element, the ability of the bidder to finesse tricks a la Bridge from the lay-down hand. Here is how it is played.
Deal four regular 12-card hands face down. The three players in the game pick up their hands and bid them. The fourth hand remains face down until the bid winner names trump. Then he turns the hand over and organizes it in suits, leaving it face up.
Then the bid winner selects four cards from this free hand, to make his playing hand as strong as possible, and discards four cards back into the free hand, but places them face down. During play he may refresh his memory of them by looking at these cards whenever necessary, letting no one else see them.
Now melds are made by all three players and counted. The free hand may be melded or kept secret by its owner.
The bid winner plays first. He also plays the dummy hand in its turn. He is, thus, playing against the other two players in the game, who automatically become partners for the round.
Since partners may change with each deal and bid, so scoring is kept individually. Melds and tricks taken count as in regular Pinochle. Each partner, after each deal, gets to claim the points made by that partnership during that round.
The first player to total 1500 points is the winner.
I've come up with "Free-hand" Pinochle, which other members of my family have preferred calling "Dummy" Pinochle and "Bonus" Pinochle. All three names fit, since it is played by three players, has a "free" or "dummy" hand played by whoever wins it, and this "free" hand is played by the bid winner like a Bridge's dummy hand.
The game is simple to play for those already engaging in Pinochle, since no new rules have been added, other than the new - and I think exciting - element, the ability of the bidder to finesse tricks a la Bridge from the lay-down hand. Here is how it is played.
Deal four regular 12-card hands face down. The three players in the game pick up their hands and bid them. The fourth hand remains face down until the bid winner names trump. Then he turns the hand over and organizes it in suits, leaving it face up.
Then the bid winner selects four cards from this free hand, to make his playing hand as strong as possible, and discards four cards back into the free hand, but places them face down. During play he may refresh his memory of them by looking at these cards whenever necessary, letting no one else see them.
Now melds are made by all three players and counted. The free hand may be melded or kept secret by its owner.
The bid winner plays first. He also plays the dummy hand in its turn. He is, thus, playing against the other two players in the game, who automatically become partners for the round.
Since partners may change with each deal and bid, so scoring is kept individually. Melds and tricks taken count as in regular Pinochle. Each partner, after each deal, gets to claim the points made by that partnership during that round.
The first player to total 1500 points is the winner.
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