I grew up here, from 1936 til marriage in 1958. The house is 787sq. ft. Dad and mom rented the house for $7wk... 3BR, 1BA, living room. dining room, kitchen and pantry. No hot water until 1943... carried kettle from stove to 2nd floor BA on Saturday night. No phone until 1950.
One and a half miles to school... no school busses then. We walked back and forth, and came home for lunch, as there were no school lunches or cafeterias then. So 6 miles a day of exercise...Lunch break.. 20 minutes walk, 20 minutes for lunch at home, and 20 minutes walk back.
My bedroom was 2nd floor left, and my brother's on the right. Both dad and mom worked in textile mills... she a weaver, he a loomfixer who worked the night shift. 10PM to 7 AM. The textile industry was up and down, even in the war years, so layoffs were common when orders were slow. In the busy times, dad worked 60 to 70 hours a week... layoffs were usually a few weeks, and I can remember some hard times (though it didn't seem that way to me), when we had potato peel soup.
I never felt poor, though I usually had holes in the soles... with cardboard inserts that melted when it rained... Biggest disaster was the winter when my buckle galoshes leaked.
Worst memory... I was the last kid in the school to wear knickers... It was war years and the elastic that was supposed to tighten below the knee, was artificial rubber, and it just hanged... hung?... so I pretended to myself that the knickers were pants and wore the beltline low. Finally mom bought me some regular pants at the Army-Navy store... A milestone!
That, and the fact that I inherited a violin from my 18 year old uncle who was killed when his B24 crashed over Poland in 1943. ( he was the tail gunner, and couldn't get out, though the rest of the crew parachuted to safety).... sooo I had to take violin classes. My friends played trumpet, and drums. Ya just had to be there... (was allowed to quit after two years, and had reached the 6th position).
Times were different. Learned to love horse meat fried in butter... lard when rationing coupons ran out.
Best thing... we had a car... none of my closest friends' families had a car. It was a 38 Oldsmobile and rusted out... After the war, dad and I painted the car with the then "new" latex paint... a miracle invention. It was called "powder puff" painting... We used big cloth "puffs to apply the paint.
Enough... If we had had the money then, we could have bought the house for about $7000. It sold in 2006 for $240,000, and the current Zillow price is $137,000.
Ummm...so what was the subject? Doesn't take much to set off memories.