Innehållsförteckning för March 2021 från Reminisce Extra

Growing up in Southern Ontario in the ’60s and ’70s, I couldn’t escape the long reach of hockey. Canada’s love affair with the sport is a cliche by now, but even by that exaggerated standard, our household took hockey obsession beyond the pale (or should that be beyond the goal post?). Both of my brothers played and my dad was a volunteer coach and referee. About 10 years separated me from my brothers, which means I was born about the time their hockey activities were picking up. Both were good players from an early age, and in demand for the best local teams. By the time I was 5 or 6, the town rink felt like an extension of our living room. I have an indelible memory of feeling my…

TINSELTOWN’S DARK SIDE Sunset Boulevard, a biting critique of Tinseltown at midcentury, is styled as a film noir, a genre director Billy Wilder knew well. It opens on a corpse floating in a pool on the grounds of a Hollywood mansion—the dead man, it turns out, will be the story’s narrator. Former silent-screen queen Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) dwells in exile on her decaying estate, ignored by the industry she once ruled. Struggling scriptwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), the narrator, meets Desmond and they begin work on a comeback vehicle for the forgotten star, who is filled with grandiose delusions of her triumphant return. “Sunset Boulevard remains the best drama ever made about the movies because it sees through the illusions.” —Roger Ebert Wilder uses Gillis’ cynicism to tell a…

The block of 74th Street between Park Avenue and Broadway in North Bergen, New Jersey, was home to dozens of kids in the late 1950s. I was one of those 74th Street Boys. Some kids had nicknames—Duke, Chunky Broadway, Big Barrel and Little Barrel (no relation) and Hefty, who devoured 70 White Castle hamburgers at one sitting, according to local legend. In the spring, the car-lined street was filled with kids and their yo-yos—Duncans only—and a cavalcade of roller skates, bicycles and peach crate scooters. The crates doubled as display stands for periodically selling one’s used comic books. In summer, the freshly tarred street was a playground for ballgames: stick, whiffle and foot. Smaller kids played box ball against the apartment buildings. In the fall, tops buzzed in the street,…

MILES AND WORLDS APART, SERVICE MEMBERS AND THEIR LOVED ONES MADE LETTERS A PRIORITY. MAXINE CHAMBERLIN, MY MOTHER-IN-LAW, married her husband, Wayne, in Washington, Iowa, when they were both 19. A little more than a year after their marriage, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. In the months that followed, millions volunteered or were drafted into the military. Wayne enlisted in the Marines, and, after special training, his unit was sent to the South Pacific for the invasion of the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands. After Wayne shipped out, Maxine got a job at a factory in San Diego, California, manufacturing parts for the war effort. Like nearly all the employees who were taking over the men’s jobs while they were gone, she became a regular Rosie the Riveter. Maxine…

PEN PALS WERE POPULAR when I was a student nurse in the 1960s. My friend Carol was writing to one of her brother’s buddies in the Navy, Eric, who was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and I asked her whether he had a friend who also would like a pen pal. A few weeks later I got a letter from Eric. He requested a photo, but since he was still writing to Carol, I let him know that he was two-timing my friend. He replied that he was trying to learn more so he could find a good pen pal for me. I fell for that, and sent a photo. Soon Eric stopped writing letters to my friend. When he sent me an awful-smelling letter filled with rubber caps from…

My grandmother Bess made sure my clothes—and our house—were clean, she made my lunch when I came home from Northwood Elementary and she let me watch a 15-minute segment of her soap opera before I returned to school. She was a mother figure for most of my childhood, and I concluded that she’d always lived right there, in Columbus, Ohio. That is, until I came across a picture of Bess looking as if she’d come right out of the pages of Vogue. My questions about that photo led me to learn of a whole new chapter in my grandparents’ lives. Bess met my grandfather Glenn at a party in Cleveland when he was home visiting his parents. Glenn, a civil engineer, worked for the Central Pacific Railroad in California. After…

A student at Southern California College (now Vanguard University) from 1959 to 1962, I’d changed my major three times. I felt “schooled out” and was excited when I found a program that allowed me to travel in exchange for my bookkeeping skills. I signed up for Youth with a Mission, and in October 1962, I said goodbye to my family at the airport in Casper, Wyoming, and flew to West Africa. As we descended into Ouagadougou, the capital of Haute Volta (now Burkina Faso), I could see that the downtown was filled with large modern buildings while the surrounding homes were straw huts. That first day, Mrs. Jones, the wife of the missionary I was to work for, took me to the outdoor market; as with everything I’d seen, I…

Mike obviously treasured my letter just as much as I treasured his. AS ELEMENTARY STUDENTS in 1970, we didn’t know what it meant that there was a war in Vietnam. There were protests and demonstrations on college campuses opposing the war, but our class of third graders in Racine, Wisconsin, wrote letters to the brave, unknown soldiers fighting across the globe. My letter went to Mike Conrad, who was serving in the 101st Airborne. I was so excited when I got a response from Mike. It came in an airmail envelope personally addressed to me. Recently, I found the letter, dated Jan. 26, 1970. He thanked me for writing: “It really means a lot to all of us when we get a letter.” Mike told me that he was 23,…

My father, Jim Hesson, was drafted into the Army in 1943 during World War II. That was a time of uncertainty, fear and change for our family. Mom, Anna, was pregnant with me when Dad was deployed overseas. She gave up their cozy apartment in Baltimore, Maryland, and moved in with my grandparents to await my birth. Mom worked at American Can Co. as the sole breadwinner for all of us. Though very young, I remember the highlight of my day was waiting for her to walk down our alley each night from her streetcar stop. I was 3 when Daddy returned safely, with bright hopes of creating a good life for his family. On Mother’s Day that year, he gave Mom a lovely silver locket with her initial in…

Automobiles, and the love of them, are part of my DNA. My parents drove amazing cars—Chevelle, Skylark, Corvette, Riviera—equipped with the most powerful engines available—396, 401, 454, 455. My mom, Dodie Stuhr, aces the Name That Car quizzes. Her vintage car usually is pegged for the wrong year. The car was sold new at Lindekugel Chevrolet and has spent its entire life roaming the streets of Owatonna, Minnesota. Mom’s sister, Deanne, was the car’s second owner, trading in her Corvair for it in 1970, for the used-car price of $1,795. After Deanne died, my grandparents Elmer and Gladys Stuhr kept the car for a year, and then it came to Mom, with one condition: She had to keep it forever! We used the “blue car,” as my nephew named it,…

The birthrate is the highest it’s ever been, as many Americans build on postwar stability and prosperity. Dealing with anti-Communist bombast at home, President Harry S. Truman opposes Soviet expansion abroad, and commits troops to defend South Korea. Creativity flourishes: Your Show of Shows delivers Saturday night comedy to TV. Bette Davis stars in All About Eve . Couples dance to Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa.” Charlie Brown appears in his first syndicated Peanuts comic strip. Kids play Candy Land for hours. And Merriam-Webster says these words are in common use. ACTION FIGURE: Plastic takes over the toy industry, replacing lead and making figurines such as little army men, bottom right, more popular than ever. BERMUDAS: Some businessmen decide baggy shorts, paired with suit jackets, dress shirts, ties and knee…

My small group of friends shared hobbies that I enjoyed, but when they headed to town for a night out, I usually preferred to stay home. Even after four years of college, I was shy and quiet. Looking to earn money for a master’s degree program, I found a job in the stockroom at Buck Engineering in Spring Lake, New Jersey, in 1972. After working there for almost a year and a half, I was promoted to inventory manager. I met frequently with my supervisor in the accounting office where Pam, a new accountant, had just been hired. Her halo of blond hair attracted my attention, and the first time I saw her, I thought to myself that she could be “the one.” It was disappointing, then, to learn from…

AS WORLD WAR II STARTED my mom, Henrietta Ratay, and her sister and brothers headed from Omaha, Nebraska, to California, looking for work in the war industries. Mom was hired by the telephone company, and transferred to Santa Catalina Island, several miles off the Southern California coast. Catalina became a top-secret outpost for training and early warning of attack: The U.S. Maritime Service, the Coast Guard, the Army Signal Corps and others had units on the island. The island was closed to tourists, and travel back and forth was by the Great White Steamer, so it was vital for the people on Catalina to find recreational activities on the island. My dad, Gerald Page, lived in Santa Ana and worked for the State of California. When he received a poor…

An inveterate tinkerer, Frank Zamboni set himself the task of finding a better way to clear the ice at his family-run rink in sunny Southern California. Frank and his brother Lawrence opened Iceland skating rink in 1940 in Paramount, south of Los Angeles, and it was a hit. But skaters’ enthusiasm waned when they had to wait for the ice resurfacing—an arduous process that involved pulling a scraper behind a tractor, scooping up the scrapings, squeegeeing the dirty water, then spraying the cleared surface with more water. Zamboni tinkered for seven years until he produced Model A in 1949, out of Army surplus, including jeep parts. With its exposed workings, Model A resembled a Rube Goldberg contraption, but it reduced ice resurfacing from over an hour to several minutes. Today’s…

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