6 July 1955 “Better Use For Leisure Time”

I have mentioned before that since starting my project some of the 1950s ‘educational films’ I used to laugh at now seem to actually be good life guides. It is interesting how what once was easy to mock and think, “How silly, who even lived like that? What a strict time.” Now, however, I often find some of them rather good advice. So, I wanted to start this post with this short.  I like how it mentions how things were in the past for father and mother. I really think it is worth watching, so watch it first and then read along.

It really does show how today the work concept of 40 hr weeks really had begun then. Yet, here is the advice that says, look how far we have come to have only 40 hrs a week to work, so use your time wisely. Yet, I feel most of us (I know I certainly did!) waste or while it away. There really is a lot more satisfaction to ‘filling your free time’ with activities than just sitting about.
Here is another example of a movie I once laughed at.

In fact it was used in the funny Mystery Science Theatre 3000 episode. It is true, what they joke about over the movie is hilariously funny, I grant you that, but now watching the movie without their jibing over it, I realize this video, too, is full of sage advice: Helping one another, looking good for other memebers of the family as well as themselves, dinner conversations more about pleasing one another than monopolizing the conversation and being rude. We may see this now and think, “How robotic” but really it was certainly seen rather stiff even then, but the element of truth of kindness and concern for others is quite true and wouldn’t we enjoy our time together more if we do think and act a little more in this vein? I think so, what do you think? I know when they say such things as “Pleasant unemotional discussion” it sounds stiff and odd, but really, wouldn’t you rather have a pleasant conversation at dinner and I think they really mean, no shouting or arguing, as it does affect digestion.
That brings me to another point I have noticed in today vs. then: We are very concerned with diet and food and how it affects us etc yet so many people eat their food in front of TV or in uncomfortable ways, propped on laps or out of pizza boxes. It has got to be better on the digestion to sit square and properly in a chair at a table, napkin on your lap, good conversation, than slapdash on the sofa watching the idiot box; just a thought.
Well, speaking of food, I bought some lovely blueberries the other day for a pie and wanted to try this quick and easy pie crust in one of my books. I did and it was quick and easy and so good I have to share it with you.
It was very easy and if there are any of you out there not quite ready to try your hand at homemade pie crust, this is the one to try first. There really can be no mistake, as you do not roll it out, everything happens in the pan. Simple and easy.
Here it is before it went in the oven: and after: It served up rather pretty, I think and it tasted wonderful. The crumbled ‘extra crust’ on top gave it a nice crunch.
Included in last nights dinner was a fresh salad made entirely from my garden. I snapped this shot in my garden as after picking the salad fixings in my antique bowl, I thought it looked picture perfect. There was lettuce and crisp cabbage and sweet snow peas and some chervil and basil as well. There is such a feel of satisfaction and contentment in eating from your own grown foods. I wonder, if we get the nerve up, what it will be to eat a chicken dinner from one of our own ‘homegrown’ birds. I know that the eggs are so wonderful and bright compared to store bought.
Well, as tomorrow is talking point Tuesdays, maybe I will just end today’s post with the Talking point: What do you think of the two movies I included today. I know they may seem severe, but do you think there is any truth or good advice in them? Would you think your life could be improved by taking some of the advice. What out of the two do you already do? And, finally, do you think it realistic in the modern world to try to follow such advice? I am anxious to see how you all feel and what you think.
Until later, then, Happy Homemaking.

29 June- July 4th 1955 “Half Way There”

This telegram is from 29 June 1955 and speaks of Maine and Boats, two of my passions. I love the “Want a boy” ad in the corner. I don’t know if telegrams still exist, but they certainly seemed magic at their inception; sending messages over wires. Here are some WAC’s during WWII doing just that.

This is a photo from June 29 1905, which would have been fifty years earlier to my 1955 day. Look how much has changed in dress in that short period of time. Really, when you think of it, 1955 to today ( a little over 50 years) certainly shows a change in styles and overall formality, but nothing to match this change. Imagine what it was for the young girl of 1905 to be the grandmother of 1955? How odd and independent would seem her granddaughters and how novel the idea of the ‘teenager’ must have seemed. Certainly, they went through time gradually with everyone else, but what they had to recall from their day must have seemed almost stone age to the youth of 1955.

Here is a magazine cover from today in 1955 featuring Marilyn. Darling bathing costume, don’t you think?

Here is a photo from a 4th of July 1955 picnic I found on someone’s Flikr site. I hope they won’t mind, but it is paying homage to the photo. I thought it was a nice representation of casual summer wear.

Yesterday, the 3rd, we celebrated our 4th of July as we usually do, on a Sailboat watching the Wianno Yacht Club fireworks. They set them off from a barge anchored in the harbor and we pull up in boats and have cocktails, food and watch the festivities. It was nice. I wore cuffed dungarees, red boat shoes a blue and white boat neck shirt and a red and white scarf in my hair. Casual and patriotic. We enjoyed it and the rain actually let up for the day.

Over the past few days I have sat down to write. My lax behavior in posting had nothing to do with being ill nor not having the time to do it. I have been merely digesting. Contemplating and evaluating have been my constant companion these past few days. Here I am: half way there.

In one of my previous posts Hairball asked me the following question.

“Can you believe your year is almost halfway done? What would you say are the best things you've learned from 1955? Any surprises? Would you say there are any myths people have about the '50s that have been dispelled for you? Has your husband changed in any way during this project?”

This was very fitting at the time, as I have been doing much thinking of ‘what has come and what will come’. I have sort of hit a spot in my life and this project where I am turning more introspective. I have almost been away from the computer these past few days. Almost retreating from it, not necessarily intentionally, but in some sort of ‘time traveling’ healing pattern. I am almost like an animal wounded, which needs to go off and lick its wound alone. Though, my only attack has been self-inflicted.

Perhaps, that analogy is misleading, for I have not been sad nor disappointed, only contemplative. Wondering where I am now, in my life, with the project and who I am or would like to become. I feel almost chrysalis like and am turning and turning in my cocoon waiting for the right moment to break free. 

I think I will merely start by answering the questions. The first part of the question, “What would you say are the best things you’ve learned from 1955?” Wow. I honestly don’t know where to begin with that.

When I started this project it was to be an interesting past-time idea. I love history and felt living it would be exciting and fun. I was new to blogging and wanted to see what that was about. Here I am, only six months down the road and quite honestly I feel as if I have lived lifetimes since.
When I think of the December 2008 me and the current 1955 me, I am amazed. It is as if I am an old woman looking back at the silliness of youth and not with a fondness but with a gasp to my ‘inconceivable behavior’. Really, I have grown so much these past six months.

I think part of this project had a little of the hiding in the closet for me. This past year has been hard on me emotionally as my mother with Alzheimer's and my fathers failing health. The sudden sort of break up of my family left me somewhat shell-shock and retreating into a past that was not my own, though not intentionally done with that in mind, my have been my psyches way of dealing with it. Whatever reason, I did it and here I am.

Any Surprises? I actually think the main surprise to me was other peoples reactions to my project. First, there were those who would literally approach me and thank me for looking nice. I had touched them so that the barrier between stranger disappeared and for a moment we touched. Could there be something there, in the clothes and looking nice, from that past that better fostered neighborly behavior? If we were all so decked out it wouldn’t seem to stick out as much, but would it still put a smile on our faces and make us more approachable. And that is it, as well, perhaps in my garb, my tidy clothes and hair, my smile and appearance is more approachable. I look good for myself and it means more to others. It makes all those 50’s films for school children and teens about looking good and respecting yourself and others, which we now laugh at and think “how quaint”, to have more than a kernel of truth to them.

The biggest surprise to me, was the result of one of my friendships. You may have noticed early on in this project, ‘Vintage Friend’ played a major role. Somewhere along the way, I lost her. I don’t know what it was that did it.  I know we were close and she shared a lot of my passion for my project and then it was just gone. I think it is true with people that sometimes we are there for each other when the time is right and we need one another and then perhaps they are gone. We each served whatever purpose there was for our friendship and it was all it was to be. Realizing that and knowing that I am not responsible for others feelings towards me yet feeling that being proud in myself and what I do is the opposite of the selfish attitude of ‘I come first’ in the modern world. It is a very slight difference and it took this project to show it to me. If one stands alone for what they feel is right for themselves and others around them and that alienates them from others who have been around, you still have to follow what you feel is the right path. The real friends will follow along or lead you on their path as well. There is no bitterness, at least on my part. Sometimes people grow in different directions. It could have happened rather I did the project or not, I don’t honestly know. Yet, it did happen during the project and so it does feel to be a part of the chrysalis transformation I have been feeling, so I thought to include it here.

I could be very wrong in this next idea that has been kicking around in my head, but I have come to think that perhaps these moments in time, these decades we are drawn to, somehow just “got it right”. It certainly could be looking through rose-colored spectacles, but there does seem to be this frame of time that just aligned everything in sync in a way that many people respond to today. That time (the 1920s-the mid 1950s) where human kindness, individuality, passion, restraint, fun, seriousness, maturity, frivolity, technology seems to have come into a sort of syncopation. Not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but in a way that people continually respond to these times. Even in the 1980s there was a nostalgia for the 1950s by those who were not there. There seems to be, in these past decades from the 20s-the mid 50’s, a certain element that makes one want to just say, “Stop the clock, we have got it right!” I know there has come much change in the realms of freedoms for women and minorities since then, but they really began then. I think if somehow we froze the other elements of those decades, the natural progression of fairness would have continued, but in a more honest vein. Somehow now our PC ideals have us want to celebrate diversity and yet ignore those very distinct features that make us different. I am not really explaining myself well, perhaps, but somehow I feel that during that time the level of technology and consumption seems to have finally hit the even mark with human condition and kindness and after that it sort of became eschewed more towards change and shock value for itself. The level of communication and machine was really at a pace that we could have said ‘stop’ for personal consumption and let the rest go on for overall health and medicine. I am not sure if I am explaining myself here properly.

Even the level to which computes have come seems to demonstrate what I am thinking. What I now use my computer for I most likely would not need to continue to get newer computers. I can view video and blog. Yet, they will continue to make websites and pages require more ability from the computer so that we are forced, if we wish to continue to participate, to buy a new one every few years. My question is, when will ‘they’ (the consuming world) push us too far? When will we one day wake up and say, “Well, I don’t want to buy another cell phone with more gadgets because my 6 month old version is obsolete. I don’t want to buy another computer because  this one is not fast enough to load web pages. I just won’t do it” When and if would that ever happen? I don’t know. And even for myself, I don’t know.

The more I am confronted with the modern world the more I feel as if my generations have been duped. Somewhere in the middle 60’s Madison avenue came along and sold out all of our futures through advertising. We were asked to exchange human skill and personal pride for ease and money and pizzazz. And, we did it. Now, we all live in our shiny little packages not questioning the very act of giving over large portions of our free time to the advertising machines to allow ourselves to be plugged in and sold to. We must buy the new fashion or the new idea or the new car. We have to have attitude and it’s all about ‘me’ etc. I feel like we just about had it right and then BAM, we sold out.

So now, moving forward with the next six months of this project, I am left asking myself, “Now what?” Do I continue to feel I am peeling back the layers of what our present society is whilst within this project and then just set it aside on January 1 2010? Could I? Wouldn’t it be easy to just turn on the TV, go to old navy and Wal-Mart, buy my meals prepared, just put on the jeans and old t-shirt? Yes, it would be easy, but can I do it? I think I could and that scares me. I don’t want to. But, I know, if I were to do it in a matter of months perhaps it wouldn’t matter any more. Why bother. I can’t be bothered, just get up, get by and go along with the flow.

But, and this is the most important lesson learned, that is not the life I want. I don’t want to put my hands at my side and blindly walk through the present with mindless ease to my grave. I don’t want that. If there is toil and frustration in making my own food and growing it and mending my old socks and making my own clothes and walking instead of driving and thinking and reading instead of just passively watching, I don’t care. I want it! Because the joy and laughter and accomplishment that will come with those continual trial and errors of actually living, really participating in my own life, will be more sweet than a life time of bland passive ease.

“Has your husband changed at all during this project?” As I have stated before, I am lucky in my husband. He is a darling gentle person who goes along with the flow. He loves me and supports many of my crazy schemes. What I have noticed in the past six months is that he seems more apart of the deal of our marriage in that he is fine with being the ‘bread winner’ and happy that I take care of the home and bill paying. It is really a very logical separation of chores for living. He is more aware of people at work who are two income houses and wonders that they probably spend more due to both parties working. I think he values what my ‘job’ entails and feels valued for what his does for us as well. Perhaps, in a way, he might feel more secure to focus only on his work at work, as he knows when he comes home he will not have to wonder what to eat or if his clothes are clean or the house etc. It, somehow, leaves us more time to share when he is off work, as things run more smoothly. I don’t think he grudges me my time home, nor I his not having to worry about food, chores, clean laundry and bills. The equal division of these necessities of life makes for a better marriage and stronger friendship, at least in my case.

I am not sure where the road will lead with this time travel I have undertaken. I know I am not sorry for the trip. We shall see what we shall see.

I feel bad that I have not posted these past days, but I have been really using my ‘free time’ to just digest what I want the next six months to be and to mean to me and my family.

Now, to make up for that, let me see what I can give for our frugal Friday and Gardening Saturday that I have missed.

My two frugal tips today are both for the food budget. Many people love waffles and think they are too hard to make at home. They might even buy those horrible frozen things that you pop in the toaster or wait until the go out to order one at a restaurant. Waffles are easy to make and cost effective.

Waffle irons, too, are basically unchanged since the 1930s. My waffle iron is from the 30’s and was purchased for under a few dollars and they are easy to find at yard sales, junk shops etc.

This is my favorite waffle recipe and sometimes I even cut it in half, as I did this morning, for hubby and I.

The trick to good crisp yet fluffy waffles is to make sure and beat the egg whites stiff. This might seem like a lot to do for breakfast, but it is really fast. I take all the dry ingredients and the egg yolk, oil and milk and just throw it in my pitcher/bowl with a spout. I don’t even sift. I then just whip that up. Then the egg whites are so easy to stiffen with a few seconds of your mixer and then fold them in. Just plop them on top of the other mixture and take your spatula and literally ‘fold’ them over with the spatula. These are wonderful and crisp and really fast and they do freeze well, so why buy them pre-frozen when you can make a bigger batch, eat some fresh and put the rest in the freezer for later.

My second tip is, believe it or not, home-made potato chips. I tried these last night. Potatoes are very inexpensive and two full size potatoes make enough chips for two to share for lunch. I have an old grater that has the long thin slicer on it and the other day I looked at while grating cheese and thought, “Huh, I bet that would slice a thin potato” and it did. I just heated the oil sliced and the crisped up in under 40 seconds, then pop on a paper towel or napkin to soak up the oil and sprinkle a little salt or any flavoring you like! Fresh and made to order and much cheaper than a bag of chips! When you start to think more about what you use and then wonder if you could make it yourself and then cost compare it, you would be surprised what you can make and how much you can save in so doing.

I thought this article on propagating your own houseplants very informative and also cost effective. And what better hostess/shower/hen’s party/house warming gift then a plant you propagated from one of your own?

Until Monday, then, have a great holiday (American's) weekend and a great holiday for all else as well. Happy Homemaking!

29 June 1955 "Talking Point Tuesdays"

I have been busy, as usual, and wanted to address Jitterbugs questions to me about my project reaching its halfway mark. I am still really thinking about it and compiling my thoughts, so don't think I forgot.

Today, being "talking point Tuesdays" made me want to put to you something in the comments from my last post. A commentor asked Jitterbug how she was able to change from a night person. This let me to wonder, we vintage gals here do seem to want to change things about our own modern world. So, I put to you, what WOULD you like to change (even if you are not sure you can or it could happen) about yourself that you think would be more vintage and make you more happy. And what could you change (again, rather you think it could happen) about our modern world that would, in fact, be more vintage. And finally, what would you like to change about yourself (Realistically) and your own little bit of the world (again this time realistically)that would be more vintage and make you happier and more content.

So, let us discuss!

26 June 1955 “Frugal Fridays and Gardening Saturdays”

I was thinking as we have Talking point Tuesdays, Frugal Fridays might be fun. Then, with me still feeling a little swoony yesterday and with my playing catch up on my housework, I found I hadn’t time to finish the blog.
Feeling sad about it this morning, I went out to my gardens with my camera.

We have had much rain here in New England of late. I haven’t had to water my garden the entire month of June! Last night we had the most wonderful thunderstorm and I awoke this morning expecting the usual: more rain. But, the sun is out and everything is fresh and dew soaked.

Here are some of the shots from my gardens:Here are my little grapes actually growing this first year. Perhaps there will be a few bottles of 50’s gal vintage 1955, set aside this fall. Here is my new clematis. I bought it for these striking blooms. I have another that trails along my rustic picket fence, but that blooms later and is covered in little delicate white flowers, that look as if a sea of fairies are aloft above the garden. Here is a close up of my Digitalis, or Foxglove. These are so tall this year early because of all the rain. This plant is almost six feet tall, and its majestic pink and white heads bob over the fence waving to passersby. This is a shot of one of my many Hydrangea bushes. These are often seen here on Cape, as our soil has the right PH to make them the most unreal blue you can imagine. I love this chartreuse green of the early buds. You can see in the close up shot how Hydrangea flowers are made up of so many tiny little four petaled flowers. Lovely, indeed. Here is a close up of one of my tickseeds. So pretty and bright this time of year. Just look how my kale and cabbage is getting on. I think I may be able to make some kale and sausage soup this week!

Look how well my snow peas are doing. I love the light through them, as you can see the painterly like pattern of their little ‘veins’. Don’t you want to pop one of these into your mouth? I have to say, when I pick them it is often, “One for me, one for the bowl”. There is nothing to compare to eating a fresh food straight off the vine, grown by your own hands.

So, I thought, “Well, why not discuss gardening (vintage and other) on Saturdays?” Certainly it is a day many of us may find ourselves in the garden. So, today I have melded these two together, but hopefully as I get my strength back and my momentum, we shall have these as two separate posts.

Now, frugality: though certainly going out of style here in 1955 somewhat, an older wife such as myself might look amazed at my fellow housewife in her early 20’s at the market. She could easily fill her new metal push carriages full of frozen ‘TV dinners’ prepared foods, endless pre-made sugar sweets and cookies. I, at least I like to think I would, would have WWII fresh in my mind.

During my illness the past week, I spent a lot of time reading. I was able to get back into novels, but I found myself really pouring through the 1940’s war time magazines.

As I have mentioned before, as part of this project, I didn’t want to feel as if I was just ‘plopped down’, as it were, in 1955. I wanted some back story. Being in my late 30’s in 1955 would have made me be a very real participant in WWII here in the Home Front. Though we American women did not suffer as greatly as our European and particularly English sisters, we had our own fears and certainly rationing. The magazines of this time are really full of such ideas and articles. It got me thinking, why shouldn’t I be even more frugal today? I should!

Every time I think this project has led me down a road and I think, “well, yes, now I see that is the best way” another road opens to show me even more paths lie ahead. For example, with my coffee, I already have lessened the amount I used to drink, why? It is expensive, really. I used to drink it throughout the day, particularly when I was in my studio painting, I would go through pots and pots, so much so that I had to decaffeinate myself. I am back to caffeinated now, though they did have caffeine free in 1955, because it would be silly to buy both kinds, as I used to. So there already is a savings. I buy less coffee and use less coffee, as I make a pot for hubby and I in the morning and he takes the rest in his thermos. For the remainder of the day I make due with a pot of tea.

Now, for both the coffee and the tea I have found a very frugal solution and perhaps many of you do this already, but I have just started this past month. Here is how it happened.

Hubby had left with a kiss on the cheek and I returned to my morning routine, dirty kitchen, dining room to clear and so on. I put on my apron, grabbed my ole’ faithful percolator and took out the metal basket to toss away the grounds. ( I am just going to interject here, that here is another ‘green’ solution that was the norm in the past. No paper filters! A metal basket that holds the coffee, you rinse it out and thoroughly scrub it once a week. No paper waste!) I stopped myself.

“Wait a minute”, I thought. “Why on earth am I going to toss these?” It is true that they go into a compost container that ends up in the garden for mulch later, but still, one pot of coffee? I thought, if this were the 1940s and we had coffee at all, a rare treat then, I would not be so willy nilly about it. So, I refilled the pot with cold water and set it to work while I tidied up the kitchen and dining room. Then, as I was done, so was the pot. I grabbed a cup and took to my little corner chair in the kitchen. What do you know, it was wonderful.

I had tried this in the past, which of course was the future, but I had an electric drip coffee maker. It always made it weak the second time. The percolator did not. It was as strong as if I had added more coffee and I did not. I also find a third pot can be made just as strong with the adding of one or two more scoops of coffee, thus you get another pot with only a few more grounds.

I have even, on days that I hadn’t realized how low the coffee supply had come, done so with my hubby. I didn’t tell him and he had no idea. It tasted the same and used less coffee. Now, with my tea I do the same. I make a tea pot full with four bags. If I want more later, I simply add only one more bag to the other bags and a full pot of tea and it tastes as fine to me. Of course using loose tea and a reusable tea ball or a strainer is more vintage and more green.

I find by merely using my imagination, a tool I fear may not always be at the ready for some modern people, that I can often find such solutions. Try it. Stand in your kitchen or somewhere in your house and think, okay the war is on and I am not allowed to buy more of such and such, what do I do? Or I can’t get any more fresh fruit for the week, how do I made do? You will be surprised with your own results. Though indelicate to speak of, I even find such things as toilet paper a real luxury. Think of the thin tissue paper you were probably allowed in the past, and before that, they were really green as they used cut up papers, magazines and who knows what else, of course now we are talking about not even having a septic system. But I do recall in the 1900 house program, the middle class family did have a plumbed loo but it was in the back garden as they were scared of germs and cut scrap paper was what they used.

So, frugality is only a fun imagination away. Think of it as playing house or make believe and then be thankful we don’t have to do it for real. But, one never knows what lies in the future, so better to be prepared and why not help shave down your food and household budget? We are all a little strapped now in this current economy.

I read a story of one homemaker in the Depression, that as she could not afford the yeast to make bread, she merely made a version of pan cakes which were easier and cheaper and used those as ‘sandwiches’ with a little butter and sugar sprinkled in.

Sometimes my pantry, if I have not paid close attention to its restocking, teaches me to be frugal. The other day Gussie and I were set on making chocolate chip cookies, but alas, no chocolate chips. So, I invented my own recipe, based on my old standby in my Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book.

Really, a chocolate chip cookie dough is a great base to go off and create any version. In mine, I made it as usual but in lieu of chocolate chips, I took my bakers powdered chocolate and used three TBS powder and one TBS oil and mixed it into liquid (as you would for a chocolate cake) and added that to the batter. Then I found I had a little spare coconut, so I sprinkled that on top. They were lovely and wonderful tasting. I will make these again, for sure. I call them ‘poor man’s chocolate chip cookies’. Really, if you had any spare bits and bobs of nuts, a few choc chips or even plain, chocolate chip cookie dough really is wonderful and wonderfully cheap. I have a recipe that uses real butter, which I may return to when I am no longer in 1955, but as bad as it might be shortening is a staple in a 1950s kitchen. I believe I have listed the choc chippers recipe before, if not and you would like it, I will post it, but really any chocolate chip cookie dough recipe will work.

To me, this image represents what I want to get away from in the 1950s. Certainly, this seemed wonderful and the thing to do, but we have to remember, the threat of the bomb coming and the memory of WWII lead to this stockpiling. But, really, it was the dream of the 1950s advertisers to play on that very fear. Over buy and stock up ‘just in case’. Really, my age in 1955, I don’t think I would have done this and I would have also recalled how ‘hording’ was very looked down upon in the war time years, as there was only so much to go around. Today, the fear of bombs is replaced with the falsehood of ‘savings in bulk’. Such stores as BJs exist on that falsehood. Perhaps it might be cheaper to buy twenty of something, but when it needs to be kept frozen or refrigerated, you are basically paying more money in the energy to run the appliance, when the stores are already doing that for you. The more I look to the 1940s to understand my place in 1950s the more ‘wise’ I become to the way in which, even to this day, advertising has controlled and manipulated our spending and thus the way we live now. But, I digress, you know I have to throw a little ‘rant’ in there now and again, right?

Now, to the garden:

I think growing your own food is certainly something to chalk up to wise frugality. Particularly if you can start many things from seeds. I hope to, as a project next year or possibly this fall, to make a little green house, so I can start my garden earlier and perhaps, even, try my hand at growing tomatoes in winter!

I believe I showed this title in a past blog. It is from 1949, so the war is over yet the frugality is still important. This magazine has some great tips.

I am going to share this whole article on growing your own vegetables, as I find it so interesting. You should be able to click on each page and see it full size.

The bit about watering young plants with buried cans in very green and ingenious. This saves water and cans from the garbage. The idea of mulching (fog 9.) it with old newspaper is such a good idea. I remember reading about Lasagna Gardening a few years back, thinking it a new idea. Here it is, the frugality of the past. I like the coil spring idea of fig. 14. I assume this has you using your old springs from beds( before box springs) and such, another green reusable idea. It does make me think of this silly old video I saw once.

I have a pile of socks to darn for my hubby. I realized, of course, I have no idea how to darn a sock. No one has ever taught me. I have seen the little wooden mushrooms in antique shops which are used for this purpose. Yet, I have never attempted it. Then, it got me to thinking that certainly darning for nice hand knit wool socks must be different than a tighter weave cotton sock. I found this link for darning a blanket and socks. Here it is. And here is a great video showing how to darn a wool sock. True, the video itself is not vintage, but certainly the skills are and that is what is important. The article that I linked to said you can darn an cheap cotton sock by using a bit of old t-shirt of old sock, so I suppose one would stitch the patch in. Really, mending is certainly a dying skill. Again, not to harp, but the ability to run down to Old Navy or Wal-Mart to buy a shirt for a few dollars has lead to our loss of a skill set, cost to our pocket books, feeding the consumer need, and contributing to the horrors inflicted upon fellow human beings in communist countries such as China. Is it not true, that by our buying those products we are supporting their horrors? It is so easy when it is not in front of our faces. Any way, besides all that, mending will certainly help in all matters frugal as even if a new shirt is only 10 dollars it is still free (somewhat) to mend what you have and keep the 10 dollars, non?

Speaking of mending and taking care of things, Gussie, Hubby and I had a discussion the other day at the dinner table about caring for things. I mentioned how as a child my own mother (herself from this very generation) would tell me not to sit on the arms of sofas and chairs, don’t lean back or tip in a chair, don’t sit at odd angles etc. I realized at the moment we were discussing it, how such a social behavior, passed down from generations, was as much about frugality and waste not want not as it was about being ‘ a lady’. Certainly, the furniture will last longer and be in better condition if it is treaty kindly. Today’s attitudes of act and sit and be ‘free’ may seem another form of social freedom, but now looking into it, I see how such an attitude makes it a ripe world to continually sell and resell cheap and shoddy things. Think about it. IF we are not taught to care about or sit properly in furniture it will break. If it is cheap we don’t care as oh well we can buy another anyway. The whole mindset of that lazy care free attitude is actually just another element into waste which is counter ‘green-culture’. Again, I really think as we begin to think more about being green, just buying some ‘simple green’ at the store is not the solution. The very fabric of our society and its morays and norms will need to be called into question and realize to preserve and persevere means treating things as well as people with care and consideration. IF we want something to last, we need to treat it thus and perhaps we could and would want a nicer think hand skilled locally that cost more if we realize if we care for it it might be around for our grandkids, which is cheaper overall and means less things thrown into landfills.

Again, the paths the project leads me down often surprises me. In some aspects it can seem scary to have the very basis of your daily life and how we interact and consume called into question. But, when we realize, it is not done to make oneself feel better than another or to feel superior or ‘right’ but in fact to help us all to realize that such changes in behavior and attitudes towards one another, spending, how we treat things and how we care for our homes and prepare and grow our foods and, yes, even how we sit in chairs, is really a means to a better ends. Anyway, isn’t it more fun, ladies, to sit in a nice chair in a clean room with our legs, ankles crossed, sipping tea out of nice china we care about eating home-made treats. And, honestly, it doesn’t have to always be about a tea party. I really think the very way in which we live is not bad, per se, but certainly has come about by the very over-spending consumer culture in which we live. How can we expect young people to respect and treat one another with respect if we show it so little to one another and even our own furniture and pocketbooks. We may all be surprised at how our modern culture is, but we must realize it is changeable and can happen with us one at a time. One thing I have notices is care and consideration is contagious. Without even saying it, others will see it, view it as different and then nice and pleasant and want some themselves.

You never know, you may wear a nice dress and hat somewhere and inspire a stranger to do the same and she will feel the pride of it. Perhaps, a guest will notice how nice it is to dine on homemade desserts eating out of nice dishes in a room without a TV on and think, “Why can’t I do this at home, as well” We don’t need to move to stiff formality at all times, but certainly if we respect things more, when we have that day of relaxation with popcorn on the sofa with a movie, it will feel all the more sweet for the relaxed attitude.

Spreading respect and happiness in self-sufficiency may sometimes get viewed as you seeming ‘holier than thou’ but when others see it is really a form of happiness that they want to share with their friends, they may want to join in rather than ridicule. Even when something is old, if it is new to you and others, it might first be viewed with suspicion, but when done with goodness and kindness at its heart, people will pick up on it and want to be a part of it. I really think our Apron Revolution is needed in these times more than ever.

So, go out there and spread respect, frugality, and self-sufficiency through example. It is the kindest and softest sort of uprising I can think of!

Happy Homemaking.

25 June 1955 “I am back, somewhat. News, products, computers”

Well, everyone, it is so lovely to be back. I am not 100% better yet, but it feels good today to sit in my little sitting room again, my view of the garden, my little dogs curled on the yellow sofa and the soft chirrup of my bird singing away in her little cage.

Well, let’s get back to it then:

Here is the New Yorker for today. I think this cover, with its pattern of leaves over the various gardening figures, would lend itself very well to a fabric or wallpaper, don’t you? If it were done in a solid color it could be a 1955 version of Toile, non?

This is from the 15th of this year 1955, but still thought it a good example of how much the 1950’s were about positive change.

I love this bit I found accompanying the photo:

On June 15, 1955 Walter M. Brown was awarded a Ph.D. from what is now North Carolina Central University. Today he is a professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Education at North Carolina Central University. He holds a B.A. and Ph.D. from North Carolina Central, and an M.A. from New York University (NYU). Dr. Brown is also an accomplished calligrapher. He is a member of the Carolina Lettering Arts Society and the Triangle Calligraphers’ Guild, and has taught calligraphy at NCCU, Durham Technical Community College, the Durham Arts Council, Butner Correctional Institution, the Chapel Hill Museum, and the Duke Institute for Learning In Retirement.

Don’t you love that he taught and was proud of calligraphy? I have to say rather black or white, I would rather see such a person as a role model for my child than a rapper. Education, pride and self-reliance seems to be out of fashion replaced by the desire for things.: fast new cars, ‘bling’ etc.

  I just thought this a cute ad from today from a newspaper. I see that “Batman” must have been a continuing series you waited for at the movies. That seems odd in today’s instant gratification world and yet how then the grandparents from the 1900’s must have thought the whole TV entertainment industry strange and fast-paced. “In my day” I am sure they said to their grandchildren, who rolled their eyes, watched howdy doody and played with their plastic toys. Really, this is the first such generation of consuming children. Those who had gone before, now now more. Even the elderly today are really from the beginnings of the consumer culture. That is why, in a way, I feel like we vintage gals need to hold the torch of the past to the cave walls and decipher the hieroglyphs of the past. We should keep pre-consumer skills alive and well. We may be seen as silly romantics today, but one never knows. There may be a time in our future when we have spent it all, money is devalued and a great recession would only allow the masses to try and care for themselves. If that time ever came, we could be those who could teach and help those fumbling in the dark.

 

When I saw this bit from the Mickey Mouse Club, which would be on now, I first thought, “I can’t imagine any modern child having the patience to even get through this segment”. I also found it rather interesting that they would show a child how to make their own cookies and also assume that a parent would give the responsibility to a child to handle an oven etc. I don’t have children, so I am not sure how it is done today, but I get the feeling that children are much more ‘babied’ or ‘coddled’ today than they were in the past. I know, in the 19th c. certainly, younger children were expected to do ‘adult things’ sooner and read sooner including things like Latin on one end of the scale and home economics and shop on the other.

It seems we have a much longer life expectancy now, but instead of trying to follow the old path of learning as much as possible early on, the babyhood of entertainment and ‘jangling the keys in front of baby’ goes on longer. Or parents spend money and time in things like soccer and dance, which though good athletically, what about education and play being the exercise? Again, I will NOT pass judgment as I have not earned the right, not having any children, only making observations. It does seem, though, given our longer time on this earth in the modern world, we would want to fill up that time with knowledge and achievement rather than time-wasting. But, what do I know?

I did notice another thing about this little clip, the ‘recipe’ was “go to your cupboard and get your ‘Minnie mouse’ cookie mix”. So, here, really, begins the advertising to the children. When you consider the early days of TV, I am sure the greatest audience was the child. It was new and becoming the norm for them to have TV in their lives, so advertise to them. Surely they would tell mother what they ‘wanted’ from the store. My generation in 1955 would have lived most of my life without even the concept of TV, so I would have been a poor audience to advertise to that way. They would have got me in the ladies magazines.

As I mentioned, early on in this experiment, I was already a magazine reader. I quickly found myself indulging as usual with my vintage magazines. As I can see, looking through earlier posts, my ‘desires’ and esthetic began to change merely by being presented with the advertising of the day. It had sat idle for fifty years, but all it took was the spark of the page turning to have me coveting vinyl flooring, ‘new appliances’ etc. Although, I began to see how economical I could now do over such a kitchen, as these items were cheap or no longer loved. It got me thinking again about recycling and advertising.

There are so many things already made. The dump, antique stores, salvage yards, yard sales, attics, basements, etc. They are all full to the brim with things already made and still working.

Case in point, I used to have a coffee pot fetish. My hubby laughed at me for always buying the latest and most gadget-ed thing and I never had only one. Now, everyday I use my percolator. I think it cost me but one dollar at the local church basement sale. My old Kirby does me justice as do my everyday dishes.

I know advertising has been a part of our lives for a while now, but it still amazes me to what degree it affects us. Especially now that the new ‘green’ is in. Producing more products to purchase hardly seems green. It is true in some respect that if you are not the person who is going to simply make their own cleaner from simple things, than perhaps we are saving the environment that way; but, honestly, it is just a lazy excuse. Sure, they may make a brand (at a higher cost I might add) of something that is not as full of chemicals, but how do you think they make it? There is still a factory pumping it out some where, there is still plastic bottles, etc. It is just replacing what we should be doing with an easy answer. I really fear that when it comes right down to it, there will be no easy answer.

I don’t know how long we can go on in this vein of consumption. Perhaps another one hundred years, I don’t honestly know, but I do fear how any new concept of ‘how can we change’ is always repackaged and sold to us in an easy answer, “Just get out your debit/credit card and buy the answer”.

My time of illness sort of allowed me the opportunity to do something I had been considering for this project. Go without my computer. I have to say, though not intentional, it did afford me to see the day more 1955. It was not a good way to try it, for I could not see if I got more done, as I have been exhausted and in bed often, but it did allow me, even more, to enjoy books. I have always been a bibliophile. Yet, these past years have seen me turn to the printed page less and less. Now, in the quiet house in the sick bed of 1955, I turned to books.
I reread E. M. Forrester’s Howard’s End to name but one.

Yet, I am not sure, now, that I need try a week sans computer. I don’t know that it is relevant. Certainly, I am continuing my project, but it is becoming more and more about what I CAN do and what I should NOT do.

My research and my writing, my posting to all of you, I would miss. Indeed, I have missed it. So, I do hope you will forgive if I forgo the experiment of no computer. Certainly, I am in 1955 in a way, but I feel as if I have my little time machine that allows me to hop to and fro to share with you what I have discovered. After all, what sort of ‘time-travel writer’ would I be if you could not read my words?

Until tomorrow, then, Happy Homemaking. I am slowly getting back into the swing of things.

23 June 1955 "ill"

I am sorry everyone, I have been ill for the past few days and still getting over it. I don't want you all to think I have abandoned you. I do hope you will come back and continue to be a part of our community here, but I need to get my strength up before I can even manage to post.
Keep up the discussions and I will be able to hop in when I am better. Thank you all for your patience. Perhaps, it has been all the rain we have had here in New England, but here I lie, exhausted and one of my concerns, besides getting so behind in my chores, is all my gals on Blogger, so do know I am thinking of all of you.
Until later, then, happy homemaking.
Any good home remedies for a Spring Cold?

20 June 1955 “Sorry, Solid Potato Salad, and Discussion”

Here it is, another day, and no post. I am very sorry. I am so busy and my normal routine has been topsy turvy with rental viewings, hubbies work schedule all over the place and just general business. It is no excuse, certainly. As one of my main tenets of this project has been to properly organize and find time for all things. And, yet here I am again. I have so much to talk about but have not had the time to put it down very well and I do hate to think of too many slap dash words thrown together.

I have pictures of my garden. Some recipes to share. Ideas and Ideals growing in my fevered brow and very desirous to share, but one does want to do the thing right. I am certainly to be busy tomorrow, Sunday, but must and will make time Sunday evening to set down and get my thoughts and ideas out to share with all of you.

To tide you over and because it is a great video, here is a video of the Ross sisters from the 1940s who were not only great singers but amazing contortionists/gymnasts. Watch the video to the end and be amazed!

Again, in the meantime, I want to say I am so sorry to see our dear friend PL leaving us. She will be greatly missed and perhaps she will be persuaded to return to us once she has settled into her new home and routine. Also, let’s keep up the discussions:

Do you think if the economy continues to go downward, we will, even those of us with no interest in vintage, find ourselves embracing the ‘old ways’ (canning, growing own food, keeping poultry, making own clothes, eating out and prepared foods less) and if so, if the economy, again, spikes and the world seems brighter and richer, will we chuck these things aside again? In other words, will we learn our lesson this time?

Also, if the economy continues to become bleak will entertainment show more escapists drama of wealthy people and fantasy, or more real hard lined representation of those ‘in trouble and need’? And, will it affect how we entertain ourselves or do you think paying for cable TV would be the last thing a family would do to save money?

18 June 1955 "Rather busy"

I am sorry to everyone, I have had a rather busy two days with my little rental cottage I have spoke of before. Running about like a chicken with it's head cut off and all that. I shall be back tomorrow, I promise, with a proper post.

Until then, how about more discussion. How about this:

When the 1950's homemaker was faced with extra challenges to her regular schedule, how do you think she coped?

I was also thinking, a woman in her 60's still keeping house in 1955, would have had such a different beginning in the 19teens when she was just starting out. She most likely had at least one maid, possibly even live in. How do you think she coped and would she be buying all the new fangled products for cleaning, do you think, or would she have stuck by the old standards? And would she miss the friendship of the maid and having her about?

16 June 1955 “Talking Point Tuesday”

So, today's ‘Talking Point’ is three fold. First, if you had a time machine would you go back to the 1950s or another time? Would you go back if you could not return to your own time. And the final part of the question, using the time machine of studying history and research, what things (clothes, attitudes, etc) could we revive realistically to make a new ‘modern vintage’ lifestyle today?

Also, just so there is no misunderstanding of yesterdays post, I am still continuing my project. My ‘rant’ was my own realization that I can remake my present and be very much in the world and still have my 1955 lifestyle. That was meant for my future. I am still determined to finish out this year best I can 1955 style.

Now, for those of you who want to play, lets hear from you for today's ‘talking point’.

15 June 1955 “Cold War Fear, Duck and Cover, Anachronism and a New Kind of Vintage.”

Nuclear bombs, the atom bomb, was a very real threat in 1955. We tend to forget about the heavy threat that hung above the heads of those around then. Certainly, looking back we can see the happiness and joy, but never really know that feeling they must have had. Their fear had also the reality of having lived through WWII so I am certain they honestly lived with the threat upper most in their minds. But, again, as this generation is showing me, the ability to live fully and happily in the face of adversity seems to be their strong suit.

Today in 1955 was a nation wide civil defense test. Here are some films not very accurately portraying what you would do in case of the bomb:

Here is what children had to see in school as early as 1951.

Of course, the famous ‘Duck and Cover’ film.

In the 1950's, the issue of evacuation was not in any sense frivolous at the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. For example, while President Dwight D. Eisenhower began lobbying congressional leaders on behalf of the highway proposal he would submit on February 22, 1955, he was preoccupied with the Formosa Straits crisis that erupted when the People's Republic of China appeared ready to cross the straits and attack Chinese Nationalists on Formosa (now called Taiwan) over control of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. This was a major international crisis. In Eisenhower's Biography was stated about 1955, "the United States in early 1955 came closer to using atomic weapons than at any other time in the Eisenhower Administration."

On March 11, 1955,  Civil Defense Administrator Val Peterson told a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee that all citizens should build some sort of underground shelter "right now," stocked with sufficient food and water to last 5 or 6 days. His recommendation was based on knowledge of what a hydrogen bomb might do when intercontinental guided missiles are perfected. When that happens, he said, "we had all better dig and pray. In fact, we had better be praying right now."

In addition to this, there was really no certain explanation or realistic idea of what would happen if there were a bomb and subsequent fall out. Massachusetts Governor Christian A. Herter, said:

“For example, we have no idea whether or not raincoats are preferable to cloth coats, whether hands or faces should be kept covered, whether or not riding in an automobile with all windows closed provides a degree of protection, and whether or not radioactive particles permeate windows or the walls of buildings, or seep into cellars.”

 

Thus, the concern for urban evacuation became a real problem. The possibility of urban evacuation was put to the test on June 15, 1955, when the Federal Civil Defense Administration staged Operation Alert in cities around the country, including Washington, D.C. As The New York Times observed on June 16, "This was the first Civil Defense test in which the Government actually left Washington and in which account was taken of the lethal and widespread effects of radioactive fall-out."

This fear and worry being a constant thread in the fabric of their lives, those of 1955 went on. They married, had children, built homes, loved, laughed and generally did it all in style, because one never knew. Or, perhaps, because one did live for the moment in joy and planned for the future and its uncertainty. This attitude, though we are not currently threatened by bombs (except the growing problems with Korea that I don’t want to contemplate right now or perhaps because of them!) could be one we could adapt. A sense of momentary joy and happiness coupled with well planned future eventualities. It beats the modern live in the moment be always entertained and never think of tomorrow.

This got me to thinking about my own life and my plans for my future and how I want to continue in the vein of Vintage. I am something of an anachronism at present and that lead me to ponder that very state.

Anachronism: a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially : one from a former age that is incongruous in the present.

This is the rough definition of anachronism, which I have oft felt was a good example of my own place in the world. Yet, with my time travel to 1955, I am beginning to feel less the need to feel ‘out of my own time’.

Certainly, living within the past in a sense makes one feel more adjusted to their own present, if the past is that for which they long. It is a sort of ‘setting it right’. Aligning one, finally, to a time that feels more natural.

However, of late, I have begun to see the necessity and yearning to be more ‘in my own time’. No, that doesn’t mean I am getting cable, low-rise jeans, a job where I can talk about the latest ‘24’ episode around the water cooler. It means, that I have come to realize, I am not happy with merely ‘longing for the past’ or yearning for the ‘good ole days’. Now, after on some level trying somewhat successfully to recreate the past, I want a new and better future (and present) that is made the way I like. I feel as if with keen study one can choose those elements from the past and make them into a new and better future. I want my life to be not a modern tableau of the past, but a new future built from the means and ways of the past.

The synonym of anachronism is out-of-date, outdated, dated, old-fashioned, old, obsolete, archaic, antiquated, outmoded, obsolescent, passé and the antonym is contemporary. I don’t care if I look ‘out of date’ but I don’t want to feel as if I am obsolete. I think making a new “present improved with the archaic” is possible and can make a contemporary existence that just has not yet been done.

I don’t think any other time in history could we, as we can today, really pick to live the way we want. The ease of technology and success in healthcare allow us to focus on the other parts of life that matter to us. It is in some ways seen as old-fashioned to live without a TV, or stay at home while your husband works, or have one car, or allow your children to go out an play without supervision. Yet, these are all things we have control over now. If our yearning for these is true and strong, why can they not become contemporary ideals for others?

I wonder sometimes, when I try to trace my constant love of the old, has it something to do with making one feel more invincible or safe? If we feel we are living in the past, then the future is more certain. We can see it and read it in old text and pictures. Does it give one the sense of being immortal or pushing back that eventual fear of the grave a little more? I don’t know, but sometimes I wonder.

I do know that my connection with things of the past has always in some way been a part of my life. And, even though the late 70’s are now the past and a time that I was alive, I do not long for them. Is it because it was a time I actually lived? It is, now, the past. Or, is it because in my own living history do I feel we were still very much the way we are now, grown children looking for entertainment and looking to the “ME” first? I honestly do not know, but I do know what I like and now admire about the past and I do also know I want to make these things into a new and better future.

I have always been drawn to the 19th century, for example, but again, am thankful for the present with medicine. Surely, my husband and I may have been dead long ago with the then present medical care of the time.

But, this feeling, this longing and need to study and view and decorate and even to the extent now,  garb myself in the past, it is a tangible thing. It has validity and purpose and worth to me. Not, I think, in some silly sham way of ‘playing at make believe’ for that would have been the old ‘modern’ me. The new ‘antique me’ realizes how much one needs to be a ‘grown up’ in the past. How important it is. So, with this new found need and joy towards maturity, how does this manifest itself with vintage? I don’t want to give up the things I have come to love in order to live in the modern world. I don’t want to feel that I have to set on the wayside the ideals and hopes I have come to feel as a 1955 homemaker, merely to feel I can ‘relate’ to those around me. I want to live in the present in a mature and responsible way, to take on more projects and responsibilities “within the vein of the vintage”. My dresses may look out of date, but I designed and sew them my selves. I may not be watching the latest show on TV, but I am here and now living in the present if I choose to take that same time to clean and read and create. If my entertainment is old and new movies, the new will be carefully chosen to be worthy of my free time, not just some summer block buster that cost a disgusting amount of money so we can sit mindless for two hours drooling at a screen in the dark watching the cool explosions or disemboweling of people.

I think the vintage sensibility and the vintage design esthetic has a very real place in the modern world when coupled with one old fashioned idea: ‘to think’. To consider the world and ponder and decide what is ‘really going on’ and decide to choose on the side of self-fulfillment even when that means it is harder work, or more likely to ostracize you, or be a less popular route. Because, at the end of the day, rather it is 1955 or 2055, I have myself to account for to myself and I don’t want to feel that I have let myself down or just ‘gone along with the flow’ because it was the easy or popular thing to do. I want to make a happy fulfilled future built with the maturity and ideals of the past. Is anyone else game?

Until, tomorrow, then:

Happy Homemaking.