Tag Archives: memories

memories gather and dance.

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Toy Department during Christmas season in the J.L. Hudson store, Detroit – 1957

 loved this view of the toy department at the store during the Christmas season.

toys were displayed on shelves, tables, and display cases,

with decorations featuring elves, a sleigh, and reindeer in background.

this is where i went every year

all dressed up fancy

to buy little gifts (with help from the elves) for my family

to see santa

to have a special lunch

 always, always amazed

by the glamour and magic of it all.

“like snowflakes, my christmas memories gather and dance –

each, beautiful, unique, and gone too soon.

-deborah whipp

 

credits: detroit memories, linda yates rudnicki, j.l. hudson’s

hot stuff.

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i loved wearing the costumes of my childhood era

and happily ‘suffered for my art.’

recent neighborhood nextdoor comments on the halloween costumes are wonderful:

They were so ugly but if you made your own costume, it wasn’t cool. We had to buy these things…jumpsuit tore easily, and elastic snapped off mask. And the sweat…and trying to breathe through the tiny mouth hole!

Those masks were so HOT! Didn’t hold us back tho! Was so safe then and went out by ourselves.

You couldn’t see out of them, sometimes the parts that touched your face were sharp, the elastic that held it on got tangled in hair. It is a wonder we survived Halloween in these masks!

then the elastic broke so your mom tied it and was even tighter and hotter! 

 and tangled it whatever hair was still left!

I’m surprised there weren’t thunderstorms inside the mask with all the condensation from breathing too. My favorite was my Hot Stuff costume. I still have a picture of me in it!


I totally had one of these costume with the mask…but this…this looks like a Pink Floyd video.

It was miserable wearing those masks, but we didn’t care, we wanted that candy !!

Looking back at those costumes, they were actually a little creepy!!  

How about the little tiny slit near the mouth so that you could attempt to get air? Your parents couldn’t understand why you had to take it off before you went up the steps of the next house. Your face would be drenched with sweat but you would wipe it off and keep going.

Made of suffocating plastic but we loved them anyway.

happy halloween!

“when you’re wearing an animal costume and something bad happens,

your facial expression doesn’t change. the animal is deadpan the whole time.

if you’re skiing in a gorilla suit and you fall, you just see a gorilla who has no emotion.

it’s just a stoic gorilla wildly falling down a hill, out of control.”

-dimitiri martin 

photo credit: vintage pinterest

would you believe…?

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saw this (now vintage) ad 

from my younger days

and wondered

how many of you still owe columbia house the $1.00?

i keep waiting for someone to come to the door

looking to take back my records or cassettes.

or the dollar that i never sent in. 

“both my parents worked, so i was home alone a lot, and i would listen to their records.

they belonged to the columbia house record club, so they had records!”

-lyle lovett

remembered.

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4 of the 6-pack taking their turn in group charades.

6 of the 6-pack will have different memories of thanksgiving.

 

“it’s like your children talking about holidays,

you find they have quite a different memory of it from you.

perhaps everything is not how it is, 

but how it is remembered.”

-denis norden

memorable.

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i’ve always loved movies of all kinds

and seeing this poster 

brought back warm memories of watching

every western, wwII movie, and screwball comedy on tv

with my dad on lazy saturday afternoons.

 

what remains.

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after many hours spent in the kinder playhouse

art, memories, stories, and a beautiful view of the world

are what still remain. 

 

“this was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets,

like an antique clock built when peace filled the world.”

-haruki murakami

variety is the sugar of life.

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these were one of the greatest food creations of my childhood

with the introduction of the mini-box variety packs

came great excitement

along with

new reasons to battle with siblings

how to divide the number of boxes evenly

who gets to pick first

did i open it correctly on the perforated lines 

kellogs, general mills, or post packs

who gets stuck with

the ‘old boring people’s cereal boxes’

 such unparalleled joy

sprung from eating it right out of the side of the box

pouring your milk on this sugary delight

turning it into a personal bowl

i thought i could never be happier.

 

“do you know what breakfast cereal is made of?

it’s made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!”

-roald dahl

hostage.

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ted’s

where i spent many hours of my childhood

famous to many as a woodward drive-in restaurant and hot rod cruising spot back in the day

famous to me as the scene of many family dinners and celebration spot

and that one suumer day

when my older sisters and i walked up to ted’s

all on our own

the hostess seated us in a booth

feeling very grown up

 pooling all of our change

looking at the menus

ordering 2 plates of french fries and lots of ketchup to share

when we finished, so proud of ourselves

the waitress dropped off our bill

my older sisters knew math

 realizing that we didn’t have enough money to pay the bill

my sisters somehow negotiated with the waitress

 to leave me in the booth while they ran home to get more money

 i sat in the booth quietly waiting for their return

feeling what it meant to be a hostage

without ever having heard the word in my young life

i’d still like to know

how they got the waitress to agree to this

how they talked my mom into letting us go up there alone in the first place

perhaps we snuck up there

and what they told my mom when they returned home without me to get more money?

i’ll ask my sister the next time we meet.

not at ted’s.

“every happiness is a hostage to fortune.”

-arthur helps

do you remember?

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who remembers this?

sitting backwards

making faces

rolling around on turns

cigarette smoke-filled air

fighting over who could sit there

the door that swung open

back window down

best seat ever.

 

“like all great travelers, i have seen more than i remember, and remember more than i have seen.”

-benjamin disraeli

 

 

 

 

 

image credit: doyouremember.com