Swinging Grammie Remembers The Old Days With Fondness and Love Elita Sohmer Clayman

I called JCPenney to reorder something I had bought online in November 2011. They have been advertising that their prices are so low now on everything; they need not call them sale items. They are always the same low prices. The lady told me that what I had ordered in November and paid twenty-five dollars for then was now forty-five dollars. I was going to order three sets and that was a difference of about sixty-five dollars with tax. I said so and she said that is the price and I said goodbye and thank you. I was talking to someone in Ohio; so I called back again and this time I got Mr. Frederick in Pennsylvania. I told him the old order number and he got it back on the computer and said, yes, I could have it for the same price as was paid in November. While he was looking it up, I started to tell him things about the old days because his name was Frederick and I went out several time with a Frederick who was called Freddie.

I told him about the time in 1951 where my boss bought the first Xerox machine and the artist in our company no longer needed to make two to three copies of an ad for the client. He had to draw it once and use the Xerox machine and there were two or three copies instantly. One for him and two for the client and hours and time were less. I told Frederick about the time I bought mom and dad an electric can opener, because in those days of about 1951 or so, everyone used canned veggies for soup, for vegetables at dinner and for juices etc. Dad took the can opener and opened it up, then emptied it in a bowl, washed the can out and opened the other side just for fun to see it revolve and neatly take the lids off. Our neighbors came in to see the Sohmer’s rich daughter Elita who was a good daughter and a sweet soul and had bought mom and dad this marvelous invention that cost twenty-five dollars. That was a lot of money in those years

I told Fred about the first television we bought way back when I was fifteen in nineteen forty-nine and how rich we thought we were with this gorgeous thing. Mom and Dad had gone to the World’s Fair in New York City in about 1940 or so and had seen this beautiful new invention. It was described as having a movie screen in your home and you could watch things in the comfort of a room without going out and paying for a ticket to sit in a movie house. It was called television. I told him about us having an electric big fan to cool off the rooms of the apartment, there were no air conditioners then; only in stores. Often people who were hot then from the weather would take a bus or walk to the grocery or department stores to cool off for a few minutes or hours. Also, there was what was called two party telephones that you had one number and a neighbor a few blocks away had the same number with a letter attached to it. Your number was Madison 0345 and the other folk’s number was Madison 0345J. Your tone rang twice and his tone rang four times. You knew that twice was for you and four for the other person. They were called two party phones and they were cheaper on your monthly bill. Finally, Dad said we could get a one party phone because my brother was talking to girls on the phone and the other party with the J picked it up at her house and heard every word he was saying. She called Dad and said he was talking sex talk to the girl and Dad said “we are getting our own private number now.” He did not want a nosey neighbor hearing anything that we all might be talking about. We sure felt rich having our own number and not sharing the time or the tone rings with strangers who could pick up the phone at any minute and listen to your calls.

My boss showed me in 1953 the new home he was building and it had this feature called air conditioning in the whole house. Also, he had bought a new car and it too had air conditioning. I came home and told Mom and Dad; this man must be a millionaire.

When I was going with my husband, I bought him a FM radio for the holiday season. It cost forty-five dollars and it only played FM stations Wow, I sure impressed him. Before that, all the radios played only AM stations. We listened to the radio each and every night for news, for comedy shows and for short versions of current movies. Also, for the weather, sports and the national and local news. The rest of the facts, we got from the two papers delivered daily, morning paper, and evening paper. That is how we kept connected to the city, country and life, reading the newspapers.

We did not have many bookstores in those days like we have Barnes Noble now. If you wanted to own a book, usually you bought it in the book section of the local department stores. They did not have the thousands and thousands of copies of books like BN has now.

If we wanted ice cream, there were no gallons, only pints and from the pint four member of the family ate the ice cream with delight and happiness. Some days the Good Humor man came around usually around dinner time and rang his bell and we would all run out and buy a Popsicle or ice cream cup for about ten cents.  If you were lucky enough to have a freezer top to your refrigerator, you tucked it in there until dinner was over and that was your dessert. We had a freezer top and a real refrigerator. Some neighbors had what was called an ice box and they put huge chunks of ice sold daily by an iceman to keep things cold. The iceman came around every day and hauled the huge hunk of ice into the person’s house. He did not come on the weekend, so you hoped it would last. We did not have the icebox; we were quite modern and had the refrigerator.

We had a washer machines to wash clothes, but no dryer. Mom hung the things on clotheslines strung across the ceiling of the basement. She did not like hanging outside because it did not look nice and also if it was a windy day, they would blow the clothing sometimes down or if it was dusty out, dust would form on the clothing. The washing machine was called a roller one. In order to get the remaining water out of each item, you had to pull the item through a ringer blade and that rid it of excess dampness. That was what was called a chore.

Dad bought a used car now called pre-owned cars when I was fifteen. By now, with a car, a window fan, a television, a FM radio, an electric can opener, a ringer washer machine and owning a few books for yourself, you truly believed you were ‘rich.’ Rich is as rich as you feel. We sure did feel wealthy then and perhaps we were because we lived in a simpler time when small things blended into your life and you blended into life the way it was back then. You could not yearn for IPods, cell phones, new cars; air conditioned homes and cars, DVD players, huge sixty inch televisions, granite counter tops, individual homes, trips to Europe, one story rancher houses, or anything of that sort. We did not know of them or heard of them or needed them.

Times have changed and everyone has three bathrooms in their home, no one has to wait like we did with one bath facility for four people. You take showers in shower stalls, some big enough to be the size of our one bathroom was; kitchens the size of two to three dining rooms we had and rooms called family rooms or great rooms where you can have an exercise bike, a huge TV and reclining chairs to watch television on screens the size of seventy inches or more. Our first TV was twelve inches. We have cassette recorders and cable television. We buy bottled water to drink, not tap water, we get carryout for dinner and we go to pharmacies inside of huge grocery stores; not the corner pharmacy where everyone knew your name and the medicine you took.

Times have changed, we have freezers full of huge cartons of ice cream, frozen cakes for use if someone drops in and downstairs freezers full of lots of items we bought in big box stores like Sam’s Club, Costco and BJ‘s. We pay for the privilege of shopping there with a yearly fee. There are no more mom and pop stores where the grocer called us by our first name. We pull up and fill up our own gas tank, very few people to help you other than to take your money. Kids have their own computers to do their homework on and calculators to do their math. We had to do it all by hand and mind.

Who is happier? I do not know. I only know that to tell the kids of today all of these things for their knowledge, they either look at you like you are possibly the oldest person they know or they might be interested in the history you speak about. As my son Jeffrey at age three told my mom, his grandmother, when she moved into her new apartment after Dad died; he said Gingham, “you must be poor because we have three bathrooms and you have only one.” He was not insulting her; he was stating a fact like his three year old mind knew. He was use to three bathrooms and seeing she had one which was fine for one person; he felt sad, not knowing that one was enough for one person.

It is what you are used to and know and when you did not know of anything out there like air conditioners, three bathrooms, can openers, huge shower stalls, FM radios, Xerox machines etc., you were content in your environment. You did not need any of these items other than the one line phone system for privacy. You were happy, joyful and satisfied. That was a fine feeling and I am glad I was around then because, it makes you appreciate more with the conveniences we have; and think in the future our grandchildren will tell theirs what they had and their grandchildren will think that they lived in old times, because there will be even more adventures in life and more material things and each generation thinks their time was fine and adequate.

There is a saying “You can and you are half way there.” Also “You are too smart to be the only thing standing in your own way.” We are not standing in our own way and we are smart and we know that now days we can and we are more than being half way there; because there is so much out there for us to partake of in life, with material items and with life incentives.

Go out and involve yourself with new ideas, new inventions and new moments of delight,

You will be rewarded with restored vigor, happiness and joy. Your grandchildren or children will think you are quite with it and very modern. My daughter-in-law says I am a "swinging Grammie” because I can use the computer, I ballroom dance, I text and I am very knowledgeable on every thing happening and I wear fancy colors on my nails. That is a great compliment to an almost seventy-eight year old lady.