Military Sports

[ODonovan]

One thing about the party line you could keep up on the gossip. My mother used a bell as well. Thanks for sharing.

Bill, thank YOU! It's more valuable that you will ever know, just having the connection to that time you provide. I always thought I was born a bit too late. Most of my toys were WWII-themed and the bad guys I fought against were almost always the Axis, even though it was the middle of the Cold War and the Commies were the enemy of the day. I was never big on rock music, even growing up in the '60s and '70s. I would always rather hear a good vocalist, especially one fronting a big band or even a good jazz combo. It was a better time, back before the middle of the century, in many ways. (In other ways, not so much. Thank you, modern medicine and internet.)

My pal was a goat "billy whiskers" no less. An uncle made a harness and two wheel cart. He would drive like a horse. Also played "hide and seek". Unfortunately, he ate part of the neighbors sheet off the close line and some of her flowers. "Billy Whiskers" disappeared one day.

Errr... The neighbors didn't happen to invite your family over for a barbecue by any chance, did they? R.I.P. Billy Whiskers, gone but never forgotten.



-Irish

 

[XBe02Drvr]

In those Olden Times children/teens actually played OUTDOORS!! and TV was rare not to mention most channels didn't begin broadcasting until late AM and ceased before midnight. "Smartphones" were undreamed of and a telephone IF you had one were invariably party-lines. Oh yea, we actually walked or rode a bike most of the time. A car was generally reserved for serous travel except maybe on Sundays as a treat

DITTO! Except we lived on a 1791 rundown former farm at the end of 5 1/2 miles of very rough dirt road. TV? There were two sets in the entire neighborhood. We had a 1940 radio on which we listened to Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony. Life revolved around the farm pond, the trout stream, and our derelict three story barn. My dad had to repeatedly borrow the neighbors .30-30 to defend the garden from the wildlife. We never hunted, but never lacked for venison! We had a two section 16 party telephone line served by a manually plugged operator station. "Number please?" Most folks in the neighborhood used their distinctive party line rings to announce their comings and goings on their car horns. If you had a dire emergency, three really long blasts on your car horn would bring help quickly. (Often by tractor rather than truck or Jeep.) A different time and place.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[billrunnels]

DITTO! Except we lived on a 1791 rundown former farm at the end of 5 1/2 miles of very rough dirt road. TV? There were two sets in the entire neighborhood. We had a 1940 radio on which we listened to Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony. Life revolved around the farm pond, the trout stream, and our derelict three story barn. My dad had to repeatedly borrow the neighbors .30-30 to defend the garden from the wildlife. We never hunted, but never lacked for venison! We had a two section 16 party telephone line served by a manually plugged operator station. "Number please?" Most folks in the neighborhood used their distinctive party line rings to announce their comings and goings on their car horns. If you had a dire emergency, three really long blasts on your car horn would bring help quickly. A different time and place.
Cheers,
Wes

And I thought we had it bad

 

[XBe02Drvr]

And I thought we had it bad

We didn't think of it as "bad"; it was just the way life was. When I was 11 we moved to our state's capital town, a booming metropolis of 8500 residents, and culture shock set in. Suddenly we could walk to school, ride our bicycles everywhere, and be downtown in five minutes. (Faster by bike than by car) But I missed the trout stream, the sugar woods, and the pigs and chickens and sheep. And there were too many people too close together
Cheers,
Wes

 

[billrunnels]

We didn't think of it as "bad"; it was just the way life was. When I was 11 we moved to our state's capital town, a booming metropolis of 8500 residents, and culture shock set in. Suddenly we could walk to school, ride our bicycles everywhere, and be downtown in five minutes. (Faster by bike than by car) But I missed the trout stream, the sugar woods, and the pigs and chickens and sheep. And there were too many people too close together
Cheers,
Wes

Adapting to change would be difficult. Early experiences tend to be lasting in our memory bank. Often I look back and think it was better then than now. My first job following WWII was a telegraph operator and it was my best.The things that made it best had nothing to do with the job but the activities in my life at the time. Dating my wife to be, playing Industrial League basketball, baseball being "foot loose and fancy free". The good old days

 

[mikewint]

Wes, our early lives were pretty close. To the age of 5 we lived in the city with my grandparents. G-pa had a huge 3 story house and we had the second floor. Watch Christmas Story and that is REALLY close. The HUGE convection octopus coal-burning furnace & coal bunker in the basement (the whole house shook when the coal truck filled the bunker). Shoveling the clinkers every day (saved to throw on the driveway ice). Dad's "new" '49 OD green Dodge, 12-ft ceilings, and a front-room that held Dad's 16x8 foot train set every Christmas with ease.
Afer 5 years they had saved enough for their own place and we moved out to "Indian Country". About 5 acres with a 3-bedroom farm house and a really nice barn. Dad paid $10,500 and they needed a loan. The house had only electricity and Dad's first job was to build a backyard rack for 4-55 gallon fuel oil drums for the only heat in the house, a very large fuel-oil burning stove in the kitchen. When that sucker was on full blast the kitchen was 100F and water would freeze in my bedroom. In the spring Dad bought our first horses.
Personally I was in a young boys heaven!!

 

[billrunnels]

Wes, our early lives were pretty close. To the age of 5 we lived in the city with my grandparents. G-pa had a huge 3 story house and we had the second floor. Watch Christmas Story and that is REALLY close. The HUGE convection octopus coal-burning furnace & coal bunker in the basement (the whole house shook when the coal truck filled the bunker). Shoveling the clinkers every day (saved to throw on the driveway ice). Dad's "new" '49 OD green Dodge, 12-ft ceilings, and a front-room that held Dad's 16x8 foot train set every Christmas with ease.
Afer 5 years they had saved enough for their own place and we moved out to "Indian Country". About 5 acres with a 3-bedroom farm house and a really nice barn. Dad paid $10,500 and they needed a loan. The house had only electricity and Dad's first job was to build a backyard rack for 4-55 gallon fuel oil drums for the only heat in the house, a very large fuel-oil burning stove in the kitchen. When that sucker was on full blast the kitchen was 100F and water would freeze in my bedroom. In the spring Dad bought our first horses.
Personally I was in a young boys heaven!!

Great story. Thanks for sharing.

 

[fastmongrel]

 

[mikewint]

One of the "wonders of the age": G-pa had installed in the big house an "Iron Fireman" system. Neighbors and friends came from all over to view this "wonder" and watch it work.
The system had, wonder of wonders, a THERMOSTAT, that controlled the damper and the coal feed. When the temp dropped the thermostat opened the damper increasing air flow to the furnace making more heat. If that weren't enough an auger feed from the coal bin to the furnace operated at set times to convey fresh coal from the bin to the furnace.
Unfortunately the clinkers still had to be shoveled out by hand every day

 

[billrunnels]

One of the "wonders of the age": G-pa had installed in the big house an "Iron Fireman" system. Neighbors and friends came from all over to view this "wonder" and watch it work.
The system had, wonder of wonders, a THERMOSTAT, that controlled the damper and the coal feed. When the temp dropped the thermostat opened the damper increasing air flow to the furnace making more heat. If that weren't enough an auger feed from the coal bin to the furnace operated at set times to convey fresh coal from the bin to the furnace.
Unfortunately the clinkers still had to be shoveled out by hand every day

Quite the system. Do you remember the "warm morning" heaters? You could bank the the fire at night and have live coals in the morning to put briquettes on for early heat. Sure beat starting from scratch.

 

[mikewint]

Bill I was maybe 4-5 at the time so those duties never came my way. I don't recall when G-pa had the system installed but I have vivid memories of the coal truck deliveries, and the rumble of the auger system. I can also vividly remember that HUGH monster furnace in the basement with the octopus duct work. The clinkers spread on the driveway remained in the summer and more vivid memories of Mom digging them out of my knees when I fell on them...then came the iodine.
Maternal G-parents lived in another huge house with just barely electricity in each room. They still had an ICE-box and I remember the Ice-wagon delivering blocks of ice. The ice-box had a back door that opened out onto their back porch. So the ice-man opened that and dropped the new block right into their ice box. Then G-pa quickly covered the new block with a towel to keep it from melting too fast. If I was really good and G-pa wasn't looking she'd chip a corner off the block and give it to me to suck on.
I was also G-pa's secret beer smuggler. When G-ma wasn't looking he'd call me over and give me his beer pail. "Hol Bier fur mich". Like a good G-son I snuck down the back stairs, down the alley to the corner tavern. I'd hand the bartender G-pa's pail, he'd fill it and I'd sneak back up the stairs, wait till G-ma was busy and give it to him.
G-pa also had a roomer that lived with them for a time. They called him the Kaiser. I don't remember much about him. He spoke only German. My most vivid memory was of his Pickelhaube helmet that he kept in his room
Simpler times...

 

[billrunnels]

Bill I was maybe 4-5 at the time so those duties never came my way. I don't recall when G-pa had the system installed but I have vivid memories of the coal truck deliveries, and the rumble of the auger system. I can also vividly remember that HUGH monster furnace in the basement with the octopus duct work. The clinkers spread on the driveway remained in the summer and more vivid memories of Mom digging them out of my knees when I fell on them...then came the iodine.
Maternal G-parents lived in another huge house with just barely electricity in each room. They still had an ICE-box and I remember the Ice-wagon delivering blocks of ice. The ice-box had a back door that opened out onto their back porch. So the ice-man opened that and dropped the new block right into their ice box. Then G-pa quickly covered the new block with a towel to keep it from melting too fast. If I was really good and G-pa wasn't looking she'd chip a corner off the block and give it to me to suck on.
I was also G-pa's secret beer smuggler. When G-ma wasn't looking he'd call me over and give me his beer pail. "Hol Bier fur mich". Like a good G-son I snuck down the back stairs, down the alley to the corner tavern. I'd hand the bartender G-pa's pail, he'd fill it and I'd sneak back up the stairs, wait till G-ma was busy and give it to him.
G-pa also had a roomer that lived with them for a time. They called him the Kaiser. I don't remember much about him. He spoke only German. My most vivid memory was of his Pickelhaube helmet that he kept in his room
Simpler times...

That it was. I expect your G-pa had a square card with the numbers 25 - 50 - 75 - 100 ( one on each side ) to place in the window. The number on top told the ice man how much ice you wanted.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

The HUGE convection octopus coal-burning furnace & coal bunker in the basement

Before the 1791 farmhouse got its furnace, the only heat we had was a Glenwood coal stove that sat on the hearth in front of the defunct monster fireplace with its pivoting crane and cast iron pot. It would heat the dining room to Sahara like temperatures while the water in the kitchen froze. (Fortunately, due to the ductility of lead, the pipes never burst!)
My brothers and I would crawl out of bed, throw on a bathrobe, run downstairs and get dressed in front of the Glenwood. One day, my brother and I got into a shoving match when I was at the "birthday suit" stage of dressing and my butt got shoved against the raised lettering on the stove door. I carried the Glenwood brand around in scar tissue on my backside for years afterwards, much to the amusement of my classmates in the shower after gym class!
But I didn't have to work in a mill 29 hours a day for 8 pence a year, so life wasn't so bad after all.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Dad paid $10,500 and they needed a loan.

Dad and Mom bought the defunct farm with 16 acres including a sugar woods for $1500, on a mortgage held by the farmer who sold it to them, and 9 years later, when we left, it still wasn't fully paid off. Dad was a school teacher whose pay fluctuated yearly (no union contracts back then), and never topped $4700 a year in that job.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[MiTasol]

Played a lot of Rugby when I was in the Army though sometimes it was more of a way to build up a thirst than actual competitive sport. Rugby has been called a drinking game occasionally interrupted by 80mins of running about chasing a funny shaped ball.

I was a member of the Hash House Harriers for years, often referred to as alcoholics with a running problem

 

[MiTasol]

DITTO! Except we lived on a 1791 rundown former farm at the end of 5 1/2 miles of very rough dirt road. TV? There were two sets in the entire neighborhood. We had a 1940 radio on which we listened to Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony. Life revolved around the farm pond, the trout stream, and our derelict three story barn. My dad had to repeatedly borrow the neighbors .30-30 to defend the garden from the wildlife. We never hunted, but never lacked for venison! We had a two section 16 party telephone line served by a manually plugged operator station. "Number please?" Most folks in the neighborhood used their distinctive party line rings to announce their comings and goings on their car horns. If you had a dire emergency, three really long blasts on your car horn would bring help quickly. (Often by tractor rather than truck or Jeep.) A different time and place.
Cheers,
Wes

Very like most of Papua New Guinea right now, except the highways are worse than your dirt road and everyone has at least one mobile phone - most people have two because most of the time the Telikom and Digicell systems do not talk to each other. Broadcast TV and Radio? Port Moresby only. Cable TV?? POM, Lae and Madang only