October 15- More Toys and Childhood Fun-Part 1

Mike and I always shared our toys and games. Well, I played with more of his stuff than he did with mine. He really wasn’t into dolls and Barbies. He did like my stuffed animal characters.

   

   Some of these were officially both of ours, like the games - Boggle, Yahtzee, Uno, Checkers, Chinese checkers, Dominoes (Mom’s), Pokeno, Toss Across, Husker Du, Uncle Wiggly, Travel Scrabble, Auto Bingo ( country and city versions), Rubik’s Cube, The Missing Link, The Pyramid, and Backgammon.

   

   We had a game called Popcorn that my friend Barbara gave me. Mike and Cousin Rick took the motor out of this and put it on Mike’s model ship. We’ve only ever seen Rick twice; he’s just one day older than my brother.

   

   We have 3 sizes of both our Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and each have a Winnie the Pooh small stuffed animal. Chip the Pound Puppy was a gift for the 2 of us but I became her owner quickly. I have a smaller one of these that is her daughter.

  

   Magic Slate, a yo-yo, the hula hoop, kites (“Let’s Go Fly a Kite”), kaleidoscope, jacks, marbles, See n’ Say- Farm edition, A Barrel of Monkeys, puzzles, Tupperware connecting blocks with little animals, Chinese yo-yos, Yes& Know books, and bubbles are other things that we enjoyed.

    

The Pyramid

Rubik's Cube

  

Chinese Checkers

Popcorn

Pound puppies-Chip (right)

Raggedy Anns

Raggedy Andys

Winnie the Pooh and Pluto

Yo-Yo

Kite

Tupperware blocks

Magic Slate

marbles

Some of these photos are from the internet- #1-4, 9, 11-17, 19, 24-33.

My Stuffed Animals-1970s and 1980s

                               
   
Top Shelf- My First Teddy Bear, Wile E. Coyote, Little Brown Bear (LBB), Pinky, Chick, Henry, Fred, Brownie, BB (hidden); Bottom- Mrs. Duck, Penguin, Beary Bear, Cottontail (CT), a raccoon and mouse, Cinnamon( partially hidden); Front- Lilly Tiger, Mrs. Raccoon, Ted

Poochie, Raquel Racoon, Cinnamon Koala, Mrs. Bunny and her daughter Cottontail, Chick, Mrs. Duck and her daughter Lisa, Shu-Shu Princess (Poodle), Ted and Beary Bear, Mrs. Octopus, Mrs. Bernard and her daughter Brownie (doggies), Mrs. Tiger and her daughter Lilly, Minnie Mouse (just part of her head)

Mom's Cross Country Adventure-1960s-Part 1

My mother took a road trip with her parents and 2 doggies out to California in the 1960s. I am not sure of which year- before 1965- because she hasn't really talked to my brother and me about it much. I do know that her favorite stop during this was Pikes Peak Colorado. I don't even know if she has a photo album from this vacation. I will have to look in her totes and also ask her to tell me more about this adventure soon.

Garden of the Gods view

 

 

Another Nice Daydream-2012

Mike mentioned that Kelly sometimes would come over to our house and have breakfast like Pillsbury biscuits before we went to school. This really wasn’t bringing such a memory back to my mind. I wish that it had.

   I do remember her and her mom coming over for pizza of Friday night’s sometimes. We would always order it from Venice in Linden.

   I’m almost positive that this pizza place is still on Wood Ave. I didn’t notice this the last time that I took the bus to the train station which was only 8 days ago. It seems like even longer ago than this though.

   I was having a little daydream about the Wood Avenue of our childhood. I was on a bus ride to downtown Linden in the alien holodeck. I got off by the municipal building and walked around town.

    I went into some of the stores that are no longer there like BZ Fashions (where I worked for 4 or 5 months), the Hallmark store (where 2 of Mike’s classmates moms worked), Shor’s Drugstore (where we’d sometimes buy Russell Stover candies at Christmas and Easter time), and CVS in its old location. It might be a $1.00 store now. I also looked in Woolworths (now CVS); both of our grandmothers loved this store.

   I had lunch in Gus’s, the small diner next to the theater. I saw a couple of movies for free when my brother worked there in the mid-1980s. They knocked these 2 places down 2 or 3 years ago, maybe even longer. Our former eye doctor’s office was on the same block; it might still even be there.

   Further down the avenue is Pulaski’s Deli which has been around for a very long time. I love the smells in there. It was smaller back then. We will actually be going to this place in a couple of weeks to purchase kielbasa, babka, and farmer’s cheese for our Easter meal.

   I’m pretty sure that there was an A&P in the spot that CVS once was. Mike would know for sure. There was a children’s clothing store called Raiffe’s (misspell?) and a ladies clothing shop (or was it just nightgowns, undergarments, and housecoats) called Mae Moons. Grandma was an occasional customer there. She might have also been an employee. I should ask my cousin Tony about this.

    Mom told me that she had worked in Grants. I thought that it was just Grandma at-the-Farm that did so. They were employed at different locations. I think that Mom said the former was in the Elizabeth store and the latter in the Roselle Shopping Center one, not in Clark as I had always thought had been the case. Maybe my recollection of it being there before Bradlees was is incorrect.

   I got to spend a few hours in this holodeck program which was so nice. Well, I don’t really have dreams at night anymore that I remember so I’m letting my imagination take control during the day occasionally to make up for that.

1980s

2 Grants- somewhere in NJ

Venice Pizza 1995

The Woolworth and Venice photos are from my scrapbook, and the others are from the internet.

 

Girl Scouts 1978-1983

I don't really remember much about my first year as a Girl Scout in a Brownie troop except for the sleepover that we had around Christmas time at the gym of our grade school. I have good memories of Scout trips like Washington DC, Virginia (my first and only horseback riding experience), and The Bronx Zoo (some of us went on a camel ride). Our camping trips were at Camp Hoover and once to Camp Kettle Run.

1979

Collector badge

part of my jacket

Camp Hoover 1979

camp craft

 

 

The bottom 2 photos are from the internet. They are books similar to the ones that I had.