Food "back in the day"

This morning I read an article about TV dinners. Those of us who were around in the 50's and 60's remember when those glorious little silver trays first came out. As the article said, it was totally cool to have metal TV trays and those segregated portions of "food".

And, of course, that reminded me of other foods we ate back then. Fresh vegetables weren't as plentiful back then, but frozen veggies was all the rage. Luckily we didn't eat too many vegetables out of a can - I mean gray peas !? Really?!? But we did eat the frozen stuff. Many a meal was rounded out by a solid square of spinach that was plopped in a pot of boiling water. You couldn't defrost them (don't even remember how that was done pre-microwave!) but they didn't take too long to melt down in the hot water and turn into lovely soggy vegetables floating in their own juice.

Another favorite of mine was pot pies. Specifically turkey pot pie. Our junior high had split shifts so I would get home around 1:30 pm. Mom worked so I was alone for a few hours. I'd pop a turkey pot pie in the oven and it would be done just about the time the Afternoon Movie was on tv. Always a good old black and white movie. I'd close the curtains, whip out the tv tray, and savor my pot pie and my movie. Some of the best afternoons of my life.

Fish sticks - I loved fish sticks! Don't even want to think about what might be in them, but back then it was pure heaven. Especially if there was some frozen corn and mashed potatoes to go along. Do they even still make those?

Jiffy-Pop Pop Corn. Watching that foil top puff up, smelling the burned kernels (there were always burned kernels). Both entertaining and delicious!

Alas, none of these items are in my diet anymore. But they sure to evoke some wonderful memories.

Uncle Joey from Chicago

I'm Italian. One rule in an Italian family is that there needs to be a plethora of men named Joe. And our family was no exception. Before my first husband and son came along (both also Joe's), I had two uncles - Uncle Joey, and Uncle Joey from Chicago. No, truly, that was what we all called him. UJFC was a brother of my maternal grandmother. One of 16 children that my great-grandmother had. And, since Uncle Joey lived in Tucson, it made it easy to rename the older man as Uncle Joey from Chicago!

UJFC would visit Tucson often since his mother and a couple of sisters lived there. I remember he had these great blue eyes and was always so much fun to be around. Here he is in the token Tucson photo (see previous post and this one). Notice the saucy tilt of the cowboy hat. He was a dapper one, my UJFC.

And he was short. Italian men from that generation were all short. When I reached my full adult height of 5' 2", I was not only the tallest woman in my family at that time, but I also saw eye-to-eye with most of the men! I remember one scene at an airport. I was married to my kids' father at the time and UJFC was arriving for a visit. This was back in the day when we could actually go to the gate to wait for our loved ones to get off the plane. And the whole family was there. Must've been 20 people there including my great-grandmother (UJFC's mom) wearing the traditional Italian grandmother apron and knee-high nylons.

I went to the bathroom and when I returned, I saw the whole family standing together and my ex was in the middle. Now, Joe isn't exactly tall - probably 5'7" on a good day. But that day there he was head held high above the whole crowd. In fact, his was the only head you could actually see! The rest of the group came to his chin. He said he never saw the top of so many adult heads at one time.

Uncle Joey from Chicago played the piano. Really well. Ragtime piano - my favorite. Another treasured memory of him was the day the whole family took a drive to the top of Mt. Lemmon to escape the summer heat. There was a ski lodge at the top which was open year round. So we all went inside and very soon it started raining. Thunder, lightening - the whole thing. It was wonderful. We ordered hot chocolate all around and some snacks. Over in the corner was an old piano. UJFC asked if he could play and they said yes. So he started hammering out great ragtime music. We kids all got up and started dancing. It was such a great day - raining outside, warm and cozy inside with lots of love and laughing and music.

A final memory was at my aunt's house. Now, most Italians have pretty clean houses, but my aunt takes cleaning to a new level. A spot on anything can make her apopletic. And don't even talk about fingerprints on the sliding glass door or a spill on the kitchen floor. She didn't have any live plants in her house because they needed dirt to survive! And no newspapers, that dang print ink comes off on hands and stuff. I'm talking REALLY clean house! So, imagine her horror the day UJFC was there for dinner. We had pasta (although to us it was "macaroni" no matter what shape or form) and Italian bread.

As a side note - when I was growing up there were two kinds of bread - Italian and American. It wasn't until I was an adult and asked someone if they wanted American bread and they said "what the hell is American bread?" that I found out Wonder Bread was simply call "bread"! But, to us, the fact that is was already sliced and came in a special wrapper made it American bread.

Back to UJFC. We were all eating and talking. Dinner was over and the women cleared the table (don't get me started on that one). The rest of us continued talking and UJFC was also gathering bread crumbs as he talked. He was moving all the crumbs close to him into a nice, neat little pile, leaving the table very clean in those spots. Suddenly, with a bit of flourish (see reference to saucy cowboy hat) UJFC put his hand next to the pile of crumbs and proceeded to brush them all off the table and onto the floor! My aunt's floor!! Then he brushed his hands to rid them of any extra crumbs and went on with his story. There was a moment of dead silence in the house - had he really dared to do this? Did he even realize what he had done - the mortal sin he had committed?? But my aunt was still in the kitchen and non the wiser. And of course, no one was going to tell her.

So we just kept eating and talking. It's what we do.

Hey, they had to make their own fun back then

A couple of weeks ago I saw an article in Time about the death of Jo Stafford at the age of 90. She was a singer and a familiar name in my house when I was a kid. My parents loved music and she was one of their favorite singers. But there was a little hidden part of my memory that was struck by this article when I got to the part about the album she and her husband put together as a satire. On this album they sang all the songs off-key and the piano was overly dramatic and quite awful.

That brought me back to the 50's when I was 8 or 9 and my parents were having people over to the house for a "cocktail" party. Mom would put on the Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller records. Then, in the middle of the mix, she would put in the album of Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. It was great fun to see people merrily drinking, talking and laughing - then suddenly hear the songs and get a quizzical look on their faces. They didn't want to insult my mother on her choice of music, so no one would actually say anything. But they make these strange sideways glances and more than a few eyebrows were raised. In the meantime, my mom and dad were having great fun watching their reactions.

The 50's were a strange time. I think this was the same decade when a friend of the family made a huge batch of mini creme puffs and put a ball of cotton (in lieu of custard) in a few of them just for laughs. Of course, my dad got one of those. But I don't remember much laughter on his part.

And now, back to Tucson

My family moved to Tucson when I was 10 years old and, except for a couple of years in Denver right after my kids were born, I lived there for 30 years. That's where I grew up, got married, had my kids. It's where my grandparents lived and died, where my mother died, and where many of my aunts and uncles lived. It was home.

Now I've been gone for 21 years and when I go back, so much has changed. I still remember where places from my history are, but so much is new. So many places I grew up with have been torn down. Know what really makes you feel old? Remembering a "modern" building going up, only to now see the empty lot because it was "old and falling apart." I mean, what does that say about me!!!!

This last trip we drove past my grandmother's and great grand-mother's houses. Lots of nostalgia, lots of sadness. The photo below is my grandparent's house. It was a few blocks from the University of Arizona and such a charming neighborhood at the time. Now it's been stuccoed, all the front yard is gone, and there is a wall around the property. The little building to the left is a little one-bedroom apartment where I lived with my girlfriend when we were in college.


Here is the house I remember! The front yard was a family gathering spot. We sat there every Fourth of July and watched the U of A fireworks display. We had Easter Egg hunts on the lawn. It's where my grandparents had their marijuana garden. It's where we had all our big family dinners. The yard had orange trees, loquat trees, even a pomegranate tree. Now it has gravel. My grandparents were so proud of their house and yard. I have so many photos of family members visiting from Chicago and standing by an orange tree - usually with a cowboy hat on.

Here are my grandmother and grandfather enjoying their front yard.

How I miss them and those days. Surrounded by family, greasy Italian food, lots of laughter, and the feeling of Tucson in the late 1950's and early 1960's. My great-grandmother lived less than a mile away from my grandparents. She also lived one block from the school where I went to 5th grade so I would go over to her house often. Grandma was the quintessential old Italian woman. 4' 10" on a good day, constantly wearing an apron, gray hair in a bun, nylons rolled down to just below her knees, that one gold tooth that seems to be mandatory in old Italian women, and an accent so thick you had to really concentrate to understand her. Here is Grandma and this is her house today. The front section used to be a porch. There was a little wire fence around the front yard and a small gate that we would go through.

This is where we would go every Christmas Eve to see her Nativity display and be with family. As you can see, this is a very small house. But there would usually be 50 or so people inside! Many smoking, all laughing and talking, and, of course (we are Italian, after all) everyone eating. The back yard was almost as big as the house. There was also a little guest studio in the back. Grandma has an amazing garden, fed daily by coffee grounds and egg shells. And we would have lots of family picnics in her yard. I'm so glad to have these wonderful memories. I'm sad that almost everyone in these photos is gone. I wish my kids could have known my grandparents and great-grandmother - and Tucson in the "old days." They would have loved every minute of it. Hopefully we're creating good memories for them that someday will be their "good old days."

Dust Devils and Tacos

If you have ever lived in the dessert or visited for any length of time, you have seen dust devils. They are these cool little dust tornadoes that glide across the dessert, occassionally crossing the road. This usually happens when you're not paying attention and the windows are down and you wind up with your car, mouth and eyes full of dirt.

For me dust devils always conjure up a special memory. I moved to Tucson when I was 10 so my first class was 5th grade. We were out of the playground eating lunch. I had the ubiquitous paper sack with the traditional boloney sandwich, banana, and cookies. I put the sack on the ground to take a sip of milk when someone said "Look, there's a dust devil - it's a big one." And it was coming our way. I had never seen one before so I stared in awe. I noticed the other kids either moving or grabbing their stuff. But I didn't know why. Suddenly it came right toward me, blew up my dress (girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school in the 50's) and scooped up my lunch sack. I looked up and there was a slice of baloney, a piece of lettuce and two mustard-laden pieces of bread flying around like something out of the Wizard of Oz. The banana fell to earth rapidly as did the cookies. But the sandwich took flight.

Then I heard the snickers. The new kid lost her lunch and was covered in dirt. Oh, great. Off to a really good start. I think this was the same week that I was outed by one of the little Mexican kids in my class when I admitted that I didn't know what a taco was. They truly thought I was an alien.

But I love dust devils. They are graceful but strong, and always remind me of the adventure of moving to Tucson. And I now know to move out of the way and grab my belongings.

And then there suddenly appeared before me.....

Last night Ed and I went to see Guys and Dolls in San Jose and decided to make it a real "date" night and try a new restaurant in the area. It was a hit! Great food, nice atmosphere, and wonderful service. Plus there was a husband-wife team who played piano and sang - mostly old standards. Very enjoyable.

Of course, it reminded me of an episode when I was growing up. There was a restaurant near our house in Tucson called The Bistro. Very nice white tablecloth place. My parents loved to eat out and we went out as a family often. This particular evening was one of my teen birthdays so they got a babysitter for my sister and Mom and Dad took me to a fancy place. I don't think I even spilled anything on the white tablecloth!

For our musical enjoyment, the restaurant had a roving accordian player. Not sure what they were thinking when they did this - it wasn't even an Italian restaurant. Now accordians did have a place in my family. My cousins both had to take accordian lessons when they were young. Yes, we were true Italians! My cousin, Ken, was a one-hit wonder with his rousing rendition of Mona Lisa. We were living in Dayton, Ohio at the time and Ken and his family were in Chicago. He and I were somewhere between 7 and 10 at the time. My aunt would call us from Chicago - long distance - so we could hear Ken play Mona Lisa and his younger brother play Cielito Lindo (which is a Mexican song so, again, I have no clue). As they got better at their "songs" we would get phone calls with updated recitals. It's still a bit of a family joke.

But, back to The Bistro. So, here was this guy, slightly disheveled, overweight, Buddy Holly glasses, sweating, playing his heart out with this 200 lb accordian hanging from his neck walking through the restaurant. The first song he played was Blue Moon. Now, this was a good thing because it's one of the three songs that my dad and I would play in tandem on our piano. So we enjoyed it. Then the accordian player stopped at the table next to us and asked if they had a request. They did. But he said, "Oh, sorry, I don't know that one." And again broke into another rendition of Blue Moon, you saw me standing alone.....

Came to our table, asked for a request, we gave him a song title which, surprisingly, he said he didn't know! Blue Moon, you knew just what I was there for.........

This happened at several more tables until everyone was becoming either amused or annoyed - probably depending on how much wine had been drunk.

And still the chords came through: Blue Moon, now I'm no longer alone.....

Note to restaurant owners: a) don't hire accordian players, b) ban Blue Moon, c) check the repetoire

If you're under 30 this will mean absolutely nothing to you

On Saturday Ed and I took his father to see the movie "3:10 to Yuma". He hadn't been to a movie in several years and really enjoyed the outing. While waiting for the show to start, he told me about long, long ago when he and Ed's mom used to go to drive-ins. One Saturday they decided to go, but they had been out partying the night before and were really tired. Apparently both of them fell asleep and didn't wake up until 4:30am when someone started knocking on their window.

Do you remember drive-ins? It was always such a treat when I was a kid. There was one particular drive-in in Tucson - the Midway- which was in the center of town. Because it's so hot in Tucson, during the summer there was a section in front of the screen where they had dozens of lounge chairs so people could get out of their hot cars and sit on the chairs watching the movie. We didn't have mosquitos because of the dryness so bugs weren't a problem. It was like a big nighttime picnic.

They finally got rid of the chairs, so we brought our own. My family, my aunt and uncle, and my grandparents would all go together. Each group in our own car. We would park close to each other, but leave at least one space empty between our cars and set up our lawn chairs, BBQ's, ice chests, and anything else we might need. Everyone else did the same thing so it was like a huge campsite with a movie playing. I still remember sitting there with my cousin, Ken, watching the Keystone Cops and laughing so hard our stomachs hurt.

In the winter the theater would give us little portable heaters as we drove in so we could stay warm without the engine running.

I can remember sitting in the car in the back seat trying to watch the movie. Cars would come in late and my dad would be cussing them out because they didn't lower their headlights. Cars with loud mufflers would drive by and you couldn't hear the movie. Or you'd find the perfect spot only to discover that the speaker didn't work or was missing! As soon as you got settled, one of the kids had to go to the bathroom which meant heading out, dodging cars, still trying to watch the movie, starting to get a little cranky.

When my kids were little, the only way we could go to a movie without paying a babysitter was to go to a drive-in. We had a little Chevy Vega station wagon and we would make a bed for the kids in the back, put their pj's on, and head to the movie. Even brought popcorn and drinks from home so we didn't need to go to the snackbar.

The snack bar was always in the back somewhere and a long dark walk. You would pass by all the other cars, all the while looking over your shoulder so you didn't miss too much of the movie. I think the rule was that all snack bars had to be really dirty with sticky floors and surly cashiers. And, of course, there was always at least one kid who spilled the popcorn and drink on the way back to the car. He was usually the one crying through the rest of the movie.

During the trek to the snack bar or the bathroom your parents would always try to divert your attention from the cars with all the steamy windows and the legs up in the air. I do remember once asking my Dad what was going on in "that" car and he told me something about the person was probably sick and trying to sleep. I was young enough to buy it!! I also clearly remember one time when I went into the bathroom while he waited outside the door. When I came out, the conversation went something like this (mind you, I was around 8 at the time):

Me: Hey, dad, they have something neat [we said "neat" in those days] in a machine in there - sanitary napkins!

Dad: Okay, time to go.

Me: But, dad, I want one. Can I have a quarter?

Dad: NO!

Me (whining): How come? If I get dirty eating the popcorn I want a napkin that's clean to use to wipe my mouth and it says it's sanitary!! Why can't I have one?

Dad: Your mother will explain it to you.

She actually did explain it - about 4 years later!!

I don't think there are many drive-ins left anymore. Certainly not where I live. The site of the last one now has a huge shopping area. No more four-plex drive-ins where you had a speaker to hear one movie, but kept looking around at the other three soundless features. Or driving down the road trying to catch a peek at a movie at you were stopped at a light. Ah, the good old days.

Hair today, gone tomorrow....

Another minor advantage of this old age thing is that body hair doesn't grow as fast. Shaving my legs has become a semi-annual event.

But I can still remember when that ritual first started. I was about 12 and just starting junior high. Since this was the last 1950's, most of our mothers were pretty strict about the whole growing up thing. My mother, being Italian, was worse than the rest. No makeup, must wear anklets with shoes (no peds - if anyone even knows what those are anymore), no bra until cleavage could be proven, and no shaving of any kind.

One girl in our class named Carol (she was such an awe-inspring role model to the rest of us I still remember her name) was allowed to shave at the age of 12. We listened with rapt attention as she regaled us with stories of the razor. She also made it a point to wear sleeveless dresses and blouses regardless of the weather so she could raise her arms over her head and we could admire her hair-less armpits.

That was it. I was going to shave my legs in spite of my mom. I mean, what the heck, I was almost 13!! So one day while my parents were out, I found my dad's razor. Now, because this was a prohibited activity, I didn't know the fine ins-and-outs of the exercise - like wetting the skin, using soap or lather - little things like that. I just took that razor to my leg. Started at the middle of my ankle and proceeded, with the first swipe, to rip out a chunk of skin. Dang, did that hurt. I was frantic - whatever you do don't get blood on the bathroom rug! I had seen my dad use this little white crayon-looking thing when he nicked his face shaving (styptic pencil) so I hobbled into my parents' bathroom to find it. Ah, there it was. This couldn't be so tough. I blotted my ankle and went to work with the pencil. Holy shit does that sting! Now I'm crying - my mom is going to kill me.

Couldn't take any more of that pencil so I decided to use Vaseline. Surely if I put a large enough glob of that stuff over the cut it would clog the arteries and stop the bleeding. So I hobbled back to my bathroom (because heaven forbid the pencil and vaseline would be in the same place), got the vaseline and slathered a huge dollop of it on the cut. Then, just to be sure, I wrapped half a roll of toilet paper around my ankle to hold the Vaseline and blood in. Now what? My folks were due home soon and I couldn't let them see my ankle. So I decided to just get into my flannel pj's and heavy slipper socks which would cover up my mutilation.

Then I went into the family and calmly watched tv. My parents arrived home shortly after and looked at me strangely. My mom asked why I was wearing my flannel pj's at 3:00 in the afternoon - I think it was the fact that it was Tucson...... in August...... and probably 112 outside that made her suspicious. I told her I had been feeling a little cold. She rolled her eyes (hey, maybe that's where Jenni gets it!) and just walked into the other room. Probably figuring it was some weird stage I was going through.

By the next morning the bleeding had stopped and my mom was never the wiser - until I told her the story as an adult. Again, she rolled her eyes. The scar on my ankle was very visible for many years, but it's fading now. The memory of that afternoon, however, shines brightly.

When Can I Qualify as a "Buff"??

I love movies. Last night Ed and I settled down to watch The Sentinel, and as soon as the 20th Century Fox logo and music came on, the "yeah, I get to watch a movie" feeling came over me! When I catch one of those AMC 100 shows (100 best movie kisses, 100 best movie lines, 100 best movies, etc.) it brings back so many memories of where I was when I saw those movies, who I was with, what my life was like at that time. Nostalgia at its finest.

The first movie I remember seeing was Cinderella. I was four or five years old when my Dad took me to see it. One of those unforgettable father-daughter events. And I was hooked.

When I was in junior high, the schools were so crowded that we had split shifts. I got the morning shift which meant I had to be at school at 7:00am and was done by 12:30pm. My little sister was in school and Mom was working (this was before Tony was born) so I would get home and have the whole house to myself. Heaven!! Channel 9 was the ABC affiliate in Tucson and every afternoon at 2pm they had the "2 o'clock Movie" (pretty clever name, eh). So I would go home, close the drapes in the family room, make myself a chicken or turkey pot pie, and sit down with one of those new-fangled tv trays, to watch an old black and white movie. My mother loved the old black-and-whites and passed that on to me. There I was surrounded by John Garfield, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly. Incredible movies like Night of the Hunter, For Me and My Gal, Anchors Aweigh, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, Rebecca, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights (one of my all time favorites). To this day, give me a rainy day and a black-and-white movie and I'm transported!! (I'm willing to pass on the pot pies....) Or the old black-and-white Twilight Zones (my husband actually bought me the complete set for Valentine's Day).

Okay, there are some favorites among the technicolor variety, too - Gone With the Wind, Singin' in the Rain, Meet Me in St. Louis.

My best friend in Tucson, Maureen, was also a huge movie buff. At least three times a year we would have a movie marathan day. Pick a theme (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940's, R&H musicals, Richard Gere) and find four movies. We'd start with croissants and coffee with the first movie, popcorn with the second, pasta salad and wine for the third, ice cream for the fourth. On Richard Gere day we did manage to squeeze in a fifth movie which went very well with a nice Chardonnay.

My daughter, Jenni, inherited my love of movies. She and her friend, Kathy, did their own production of Chorus Line complete with paper tophats, tuxedo jackets, and a rousing rendition of "One". I still get a smile on my face when I hear that song. And Jenni's kids are hypnotized when watching one of their movies. Should you dare to try to talk to them or give them a kiss, they simply look around you with a catatonic gaze and don't miss a beat.

Another family tradition continues.

Giddyup!!

I grew up in Tucson. My family was all from Chicago, but we migrated West . And, once the first batch got here, the rest loved to come visit! For some reason, when someone from Chicago visited Tucson (at least back in the 50's), they had to become a cowboy! Yup, it was a tradition.

My Uncle Tommy had quite the swagger and my Uncle Joe had the ever-present cigarette.

This is my Dad and Uncle Joe. Not sure why dad thought that doofus hat looked like a cowboy hat!! But he thought he was cool!
And doesn't my grandmother look thrilled to have her son (my dad) holding a gun on her?!?!? Funny thing is, I don't remember anyone in my family ever even having a gun (except the occassional BB gun), and certainly NONE of them ever rode a horse!! But, hey, this was the Wild West!! Palm Trees, dessert plants, mountains, hot dry days, wooden sidewalks, hitching posts, real Indians, and, yes, back then some of the citizens of Tucson still wore spurs.

Of course, if you wanted to be on the "other" side of Cowboys & Indians, you could always find an authentic Native American and pretend to be a relative - like my two cousins in this photo! Or just take a picture with one - like me, great-grandma, and Aunt Fanny. All right, so the whole family was a bit dorky. But we didn't know it at the time!!