Childhood Nostalgia
Girls in Glamourous Gowns, ©JKForward, 1970
Do you remember how you filled your free time at home before computers, smart phones and streaming TV demanded all of that time? If like me you are in your ‘60s (and even if you are not), come with me back to my childhood and teen years - in the ‘60s!
1. Slide shows and Home Movies
All hands were needed to pin a white sheet (was there any other colour?) taut against the closed living room curtains. We kids would assemble cross-legged on the floor, leaning sideways into the light cast by the projector to make shadow bunnies hop about and wiggle their ears on the makeshift screen.
Our mother (the family photographer) was in charge of putting one slide at a time into the projector slot, picking up each by its cardboard border filled with detailed descriptions in her tiny handwriting. In contrast to the black and white photographs that filled our family albums and the television shows we'd watch on our tiny rabbit-eared TV, the slides were in brilliant Kodachrome. It could be snowing and dark outside but here we were at the beach, the campground or a backyard birthday party. Red bathing suits; a blue jay landing on an outstretched hand; balloons and party dresses in primary and pastel hues - the colours seemed miraculous.
Our mother’s Swiss Zeiss Ikon camera, movie camera and projectors were her prized possessions. As with the slide projector, she was the one who operated the projector for the movies she had filmed. Our father sat back on the sofa dispensing unknowledgeable advice and tapping his Players unfiltered cigarettes into an ashtray.
It didn't seem odd to us that there was no sound as we watched these home movies. We called out the names of friends and relatives and heckled and narrated the jumpy, jerky action in the same way that I imagine used to be the case in theatres in the days of silent movies. We hooted at the serious faces of pre-teens attempting to dance the twist, and we loved to supply the dialogue and sound effects to scenes our mother had filmed of our plays and puppet shows.
2. Puppet Shows and Dress-Ups
Plastic-headed and cloth-bodied, a queen, villain, police bobby, cowboy and Red Riding Hood all had lead roles in our puppet shows. Rounding out the unusual cast of characters were a grey velvet wolf and a pale-yellow dog made from an old washcloth. A huge cardboard box was the theatre. Gingham curtains framed an opening that was cut out high enough for two of us to crouch beneath, a puppet on each hand. The best audience was our youngest sibling and a collection of her friends. They would sit entranced and be satisfyingly thrilled at shrieks for help from the queen or Red Riding Hood and their rescues by the police bobby or the cowboy. They delighted at "The End" when jellybeans would be strewn at them from the puppets' tiny hands.
As for dress-ups, church rummage sales were a never-ending source for the best of these. In the ‘60s, the slim sheath dress was the fashion- our mother had one in lime green and hot pink - no-one wore the net petticoats anymore that had been needed to flounce out the poodle skirts of the ‘50s. They could be got for ten cents or so at a rummage sale, as could worn-down high-heeled shoes; we had pairs we all fought over in red, pink and gold. No matter that our feet only half filled the shoes, or that the petticoats adorned our heads as flowing wedding veils; we felt glamorous in our make-believe.
3. Card games and Board Games
Snap, Old Maid and Go Fish were the first card games we learned to play. Any old cards would do, but we had special decks. The cards in our Go Fish game were shaped like very round fish, their stubby tails a part of their bodies. You called out for a colour, "Do you have a pink fish?" If the answer was no, “Go Fish!” would be the enthusiastic reply. On the Old Maid cards were Beatrix Potter-style animals: wood-mice, foxes, and rabbits dressed in frilly dresses or waistcoats. On this deck of cards, the spinsters (did you know the original meaning for this word is actually ‘a woman who spins for a living’?) were kindly-looking, rather stout owls wearing shawls and round glasses. When we played Snap, our mother frequently had to intervene at howls of 'Cheater!' as we were not very skilled at turning over the top card of our respective piles at exactly the same moment.
When we were older, around 6 or so, War was a favourite (I now realize how good this card game was at helping with arithmetic concepts.) Once we could read, Authors was a form of Happy Families where we needed to collect four titles by one author. I remember describing each author as they were illustrated on the cards rather than calling him or her by name. "Sad Purple Guy" was Robert Louis Stevenson because of his clothing; "Pointy Beard" was Shakespeare and "Bushy White Beard" was Longfellow.
Crazy 8s and Hearts and board games like Snakes and Ladders and Parcheesi were played after school when it was too rainy to play outside. A favourite board game was Masterpiece. It included beautiful postcards of paintings by famous artists that we bid for, auction style. The names I recall are Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Gogh and one lone female artist, Mary Cassatt. I would love to see a modern version made with postcards of paintings by artists like Elisabeth LeBrun, Sofonisba Anguissola and Georgia O'Keefe.
4. LPs and 45s
Our mother loved Cuban and Brazilian music, and so did we. We would leap around the living room to Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass and the music of Dámaso Pérez Prado (el rey del mambo), making a conga line throughout the house. Pre Beatles, we loved the Diamonds, and we followed the eclectic tastes of our parents in enjoying sea shanties and My Fair Lady, singing along with gusto.
Then by the mid-60s, the teen years were upon us, and we’d spend an entire allowance of $1 on a 45. My first purchase was the mournful Silence is Golden by the Tremeloes with Let Your Hair Hang Down, then and ever-after unknown, on the B side. As teenagers, we'd go into a bedroom with a small suitcase-sized mono record player. Not the greatest sound, but we didn't care. Favourites were anything by the Beatles, the Monkees and the Turtles.
5. Reading
And finally, on the days when our homework was done and we were waiting for 8 o'clock and Land of the Giants or Time Tunnel to start on TV, there was reading. Two full-length sofas and two over-stuffed arm chairs rimmed three walls of our living room, and reading on them was what they were for. If a parent wasn't stretched out full-length on a sofa with a book, two of us could fill one, a head at each end. The family cats (we had many) would tuck themselves around us. There was a fireplace in the room as well, and its gentle sound was a perfect accompaniment, made even cozier if rain was pattering on the windows as well.