Category: Nostalgia

The Way We Were

October 3rd, 1962

Svelte Rusk Elementary teacher Myrna Chun-Hoon wheels in the cattywampus TV cart, so students can learn the details of Walter Schirra’s orbital flight during the Mercury-Atlas 8 mission.

Houston 175 by The Houston Chronicle

I Want Strangers To Feed Me Again

Houston 175, James Coney Island on Walker Avenue, Houston

It’s a darn good thing I know how to cook, since I’ve had to cook 98% of our meals over these past nine weeks. My first thoughts in the morning are, “Take Bayer aspirin, give dog his pill, make coffee, thaw meat.” Meal prep is, as Willie Nelson sang, always on my mind. Manana in Texas means bars, yes, BARS, will open. Restaurants have already been plugging away at 25%, at least those that have not yet folded. A handful of iconic Austin restaurants operating for over 30 years each, have died a COVID death. Tomorrow, restaurants can allow 50% occupancy. And no, they will not shove blow-up sex dolls in booths to establish social distancing like a certain establishment in South Carolina did…

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Austin is known for keeping it weird, but that’s hella weird. Crazy weird. And yet, when I think of the flaky dim bulb brains of many hostesses I’ve known, it’s probably helpful, so they wouldn’t seat those tables. Nice touch with the bowls and forks.

Rowing Away From The Crazy

by Jacob Gayer

I love vintage National Geographics. They didn’t mince words in describing these “shanty-boat folk” in May of 1932, which, though in the Depression, was STILL probably a better May than ours, as they weren’t consumed by thoughts of invisible germs killing them. Shanty-boat folk don’t care about no germs. SBF don’t care about paying property taxes, since their “crude craft of clapboards and tin” drifted along the Ohio River and down the Mississippi as they saw fit, stealing food from cornfields and berry patches, or snatching an unfortunate stray chicken. These water gypsies had been “the bane of steamboat skippers,” who tried to maneuver around them in days of yore, and continued to incite derision as the decades passed.

For more information on shanty boat people and cool images like this even-more-mobile mobile home, check out: https://peoplesriverhistory.us/project/history/.

Chocolates Or I Shoot You: Accurate Depiction Of Motherhood

May 1932

Oft is the time I’ve enjoyed a Whitman’s Sampler; Walgreen’s always has them in supply. But what of this metal box of Loveliness? Isn’t that a fruit of the spirit? No, I forget myself. Loveliness is full of surprise centers. Forrest Gump’s mother was well-acquainted with these. I received neither last Sunday. But at least I’m not stuck on a frontier with my frock stuck in a cactus.