Gym Class

Gym class was not a fun time. In retrospect, there were funny things about it, but in and of itself, it was NOT a fun time.

The first thing to know is that we had to wear “regulation” clothes: white athletic shorts, white t-shirt, white socks and white tennis shoes. While this may sound pretty restricting, there are two big things to remember. 1) Everyone, and I mean everyone, wore the same thing; and 2) there were hardly any other sports clothing options. There were no huge sports departments in stores, or sports stores even, that carried endless rows of incredible clothing. These regulation clothes were unflattering at best, usually oversized (because we were still growing kids, and mom wasn’t about to buy you more than one set per year) and completely accentuated the fact that you didn’t have any physique yet. These clothing qualities, of course, helped identify you as an easy target in such educational group games as “Dodge Ball” and “Red-Rover”.

And really, if gym class did nothing else, it was always guaranteed to give you a good dose of public humiliation in front of your peers to shoot down what little self esteem you might have! Unless you were one of the few kids who were gifted with athleticism and/or popularity, you can bet that each day in gym class was an exercise in trying to balance doing well enough to get by with not totally blowing it and becoming the laughing stock of the day. Rope climbing; calisthenics; wrestling; track… there were endless ways that you could embarrass yourself.

I ended up filling out athletically AFTER high school, so I’m always a bit of a surprise when I run into old friends. For indeed my days of gym class were that of a scrawny kid just trying to get by without looking stupid. What memories do you have of gym class??

Lunch at School continued...

So – I talked about the great lunch pails I took to school growing up. Today I thought I’d expound on a few similar memories.

How many of you remember getting milk in glass bottles at school? Before the nice little wax-cardboard ones we're all so used to now, we had our milk in glass bottles with little sealed paper caps. This was in early grade school, so it would’ve actually been in the mid to late ‘60s. Seems like hardly a week went by when someone didn’t drop and break one in the cafeteria causing quite the stir. And of course there was only one “variety” – milk! (I would guess it was what we all call “whole milk” now). We didn’t have any other options!


I also remembered what I consider now to have been the ultimate in “pinching pennies”. My mom would make lunches for us 4 kids, dad, and the occasional kid or relative that may have had an extended stay at our house. We were required to bring our lunch sacks (read “small, brown, paper bags”) home every day and make each one last for the whole week! As if that wasn’t bad enough, we also had to save our baggies if they weren’t messy. While the economics of this made sense, given our middle-class status and the sheer number we would’ve gone through, it always presented the challenge of avoiding being seen by classmates as I neatly folded my bag (with clean baggies inside) and tried to slip it into my back pocket undetected. Now - of course – my mom would be heralded as a forward-thinker, eco-green proponent, and role models for families everywhere… but back then – it was “Aww, mom!?!”, and “the OTHER kids don’t have to save their lunch sacks!”. Kudos to mom for sticking to her guns.

One last thing – We only got to buy it like 4 times a month, but the best lunches we ever got to buy at school? Pizza! Hot, square and loaded with great toppings!

Taking Lunch to School

Metal lunch pails (also called lunchboxes)! When I was a kid, these were a must have! Of course, they were what everyone else had, so I had to have one, too! The measure of how cool you were was whether or not you had the latest lunch pail of the latest cool thing – usually a TV show, cartoon, rock band or teenage idol.

The really top-of-the-line lunchboxes had the matching thermos that had the plastic cup on top for bringing mom’s homemade soup. These usually had a cool spring loaded metal clip that held the thermos in place. What’s sad is that I don’t even remember what ones I had, although I don’t think I ever had the fancy ones with the thermos. I do remember vividly the feel of it in my hands; the way the little clasp locked tightly to hold it together as I carried it to and from school; the way it would look when I got home and the remnants of the days lunch – or worse – of that part of the lunch I didn’t eat, were stuck to the sides of metal … ewww!

Like so many things from the ‘70s, these have become collectible and, in some cases, rare and valuable. There’s a cool blog that has a very inclusive list of all the lunch pails available back then. you can see it here: http://www.skooldays.com/decades/lunchboxes_1970s.htm

There's also a site called collectorsquest.com with pics and the story of this guy who has amassed quite a little collection. see it here: http://www.collectorsquest.com/collection/574/vintage-metal-lunchboxes.html

No excuse

I got really busy.
I published a book.
Christmas came...
My other responsibilities piled up.
I kinda forgot about it...

All of this isn't a good excuse, I know, but I am finally back and ready to blog all things '70s. Since releasing my book, I've had a lot of positive reviews and I've learned a lot about the world of publishing. Of course my book is all about growing up in the '70s. Many people have shared with me so many cool things about their experiences growing up. I'll try to share on one or two specific memories per post and see how that works out, ok?

The local candy store. I grew up in a suburb north of Seattle and we had a few little stores in the area, but none had the same compelling attraction as Godfrey’s. Mom took any of our appliances there to have them fixed when they went on the fritz - apparently he was quite the tinkerer/handyman, but my siblings and I loved going there because he had the best, oddest, couldn't-find-at-the-local-7-11 candy.


Of course we walked there. It was only 5 or 6 blocks away - although since we lived above the Puget Sound, it was all downhill there and all uphill home. We must've been quite the site - Mom lugging some sort of broken appliance in a shopping bag, and all of us kids running along beside her. My brother and I would be especially excited and would most likely be daydreaming about all the goodies that we'd spend our whole 25 cents on.

As we walked in, Mom would greet Mr. Godfrey and begin to explain her latest appliance woe, but us kids would totally zone them out and begin the arduous task of scanning the endless bins of penny candy in an effort to begin to decide which of the sweet treasures we would actually buy. There were candy cigarettes, atom bombs pixies, rock candy strings, candy sticks (root beer was the BEST), smarties, pixy sticks - you know - a tube of flavored sugar, Necco wafers, laffy taffy, sweet tarts, little tootsie rolls, caramels, slo pokes, lemon drops, root beer barrels, jawbreakers, candy necklaces, licorices, gummy bears, etc. etc. etc.

Mom always let us buy our allotted amount, but we had to consume in moderation... so picking what to eat first and what to save for last was sometimes just as difficult as figuring out what to buy.

I realize that this was such a simple pleasure compared to what it takes to appease kids today. It was a good walk in the fresh air; it was spending time with the family; a chance to watch someone who was a good fix-it guy and store owner working and relating with the local neighbors; a lesson in decision making (all those candy choices); an opportunity to learn about commerce – even on a very small scale – as it related directly to my pocket; and a great lot of fun and something to look forward to, especially for a little kid.

What types of penny candy do you remember when you grew up? Did you have a little local store like me? I’d love to hear your stories.