THINGS I MISS

Reminiscing this sunny morning on the bright beginning of a shiny NEW YEAR.  Things I miss: 

Grady Nutt---Miss Minnie Pearl---Walter Cronkite---Gladys Taber---church bells--- Christopher Reeve---Beah Richards---chenille spreads---Pam & Jerry North---the scent of the earth at First Turning---orange popsicles---Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific---Kraft Theater---going caroling---Richard Boone---All-Day Singin's and Dinner on the Grounds---screen doors with springs---Andy Williams---letters in the mailbox---Martha Rae---mud pies---snow cream---caftans ---the scent of burning leaves---Rob and Laura---vanity skirts---John Ritter---Plum Nuts ice cream--- throwing bread to the bears---hayrides---Vacation Bible School---watermelon cuttings---black telephones---TAXI---those prickly Christmas corsages with artificial greenery and pinecones---Gilmore Girls---Andy Sipowicz---pink Desert Flower lotion---individual iced cakes at parties---crew cuts---wooden ironing boards---real clothespins---Alfred Hitchcock Presents---Mr. Rogers---the scent of Coppertone---Imogene Coca---Fred Waring---Alice at Tea in My Cup---jerky, screechy black-and-white Julia Child on Saturday afternoon---Miss Frances and Ding Dong School---Twilight Zone---mercury thermometers---the REAL Monday-Night lineup which included Designing Women and Hearts Afire, and culminated in Northern Exposure.

Reaching into a cooler or a Coke-box---the kind with lift-up lid and the vague scent of salty metal, with the arctic water and floating ice surrounding the little glass bottles of Coke.

The old pump-organ which occupied one whole wall of my Mammaw’s “middle room,” with its furbelows and fancy carvings, the old rough keys yellowed as horses’ teeth, and the decades of layers of hanging hats, pincushions, ribbon, bias tape, seam binding, tape measures, Cardui calendars, tussy-mussies, hatpins and dogtags giving it the look of a melted closet. I know I dusted the thing---I REMEMBER dusting it---I just can’t think HOW. I’d sit on the floor, put both feet onto the pedals, and pump madly for a moment, then hop up onto the stool, and quickly one-finger through “Ju-ust As I . . .” before the air supply wheezed silent.

Our little corner “caffay” with the floor of inch-square black-and-white tiles, where the eight turquoise boomerang-formica booths and six counter-stools served thousands of those sublime mustard/pickle/onion crinkle-paper hamburgers over the years, and a little steel sherbet-cup of vanilla ice cream with a string of Hershey’s syrup was the most elegant dessert on Earth.

And speaking of ice cream---there’s nothing to compare with a hot Sunday afternoon out under the mimosas, cranking up a freezer or two of banana ice cream---Eagle Brand, whole milk and a big hand of smooshed bananas---to serve soft and rich into wide soup bowls. I can feel the dust-heat and hear the scrape of those spoons.

Net or organdy or dotted Swiss skirts on kidney-shaped vanities. I coveted one of those with my whole heart; the trendy teen across the street had one, with a chair to match---it looked as if our town seamstress had made a housecall to stitch Spring formals onto both pieces of furniture.

The ladies-in-black at the really elegant clothing stores in the larger towns. I imagined they had a training school for these take-no-prisoners, brusque women, like some sort of college with courses in “No-nonsense” and “Abrupt.” They all wore their glasses on chains around their necks, had crisply-permanented or upswept hair, and wore thick-heeled old-lady laceup shoes; every look at you seemed delivered through a lorgnette. Thank goodness I was only there to hold Mother’s purse.

Sample sizes. The tiny lipsticks, usually white plastic, about as big as a good squeeze of toothpaste, with a teensy real cover and a tiny cylinder of real lipstick---the ends usually flat on two sides, like a roof on an elf-house. The little pots and jars of real cold cream and moisturizer and astringent, and wee stoppered drams of cologne---the real stuff, not those magazine tear-outs or those nose-clogging “cards” foisted out by brittle women in Nordstrom and van Maur.

Dishes in products---many a little home kitchen was furnished with one-at-a-time wheat-pattern dishes from boxes of Duz, and I once had quite a nice collection of pale blue glassware---goblets to juices, extracted carefully and excitedly each week from boxes of Rinso, the powder as blue as the glass. Gas stations had dish-a-week giveaways, too, with a fill-up.

Cartoons and newsreels and the Saturday serial at movies. This new practice of  filling up the gaps before and between shows with thunderous car and Coke ads, and the seat-shaking noise of “trailers” for twenty minutes just isn’t the same, somehow.

Waitresses in uniforms, especially pink ones---nylon a bonus. Extra points for Dr. Scholl’s shoes and a pencil through the perm.

The scent of old-time grocery stores, with hints of spice and onion skins and the arid crisp dustiness of dried beans, the pungent hit of flyspray, the exotic float of musk from the big hanging stalk of bananas, and the sweet vanilla/licorice/chocolate mingle of the candy case. All enhanced, of course, by a flappy screen door with a green-painted metal “Nehi” or “Grapette” guard-strip just at hand height. Bell optional, but gratifying.

It seems I must have had a word-quota to use up, and I’ve just flung them all out amongst you on this last day of the year.

They come with warmest thanks for dropping in, passing by, speaking out, or in any other way participating in this odd and wonderful possibility called the Internet.