Visions
Yesteryear
Getting up early,
running down to the basement,
shoveling coal on the fire,
and scooping out ashes from below.
Dragging the galvanized tub
over to back door
when it was full.
When it was Summer,
you were hot
When it was Winter.
you were cold.
From Maine to California
everyone had round duct-work
sold by the linear foot,
alleys were paved with cinders
and schools had cinder paths.
There were big glass milk bottles,
enough to stretch to the Moon!
The perimeters of a world,
all gone now!
When I reflect, looking back on those days, the uniformity of things strikes me. Things mentioned in my poem, and the fact that 95% of automobiles were black. My sister and I thought it was so neat to ride in a rumble seat in the back of an uncle's coupe.
Movie theaters had a program: a long main feature, a B movie, Movietone News and five color cartoons. I loved cartoons! Newspapers usually had a solid type front page, only occasionally a small photograph. It was a real treat for me to go to drugstore at midnight to get two big city newspapers with big, colorful comic sections! Soft drinks were a nickel, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Nehi, Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer, etc. Usually you got six ounces except Pepsi Cola with its unforgetable jingle. Comic strips, comic books and radio programs had a huge audience, so much so that everyone had heard of Ma Perkins, Bob Hope, The Shadow, Gangbusters, The Lone Ranger, Jiggs and Maggie, etc. Many things became sayings: "coming on like Gangbusters" and "The Shadow knows".
If you were driving down the highway, reading the Burma Shave signs, and you came to a hamburger
stand, you had better decide if you wanted something, this was it, and a hamburger was what you
could get. You were always deciding between something or nothing. Ah yes, the perimeters of a
world long gone
running down to the basement,
shoveling coal on the fire,
and scooping out ashes from below.
Dragging the galvanized tub
over to back door
when it was full.
When it was Summer,
you were hot
When it was Winter.
you were cold.
From Maine to California
everyone had round duct-work
sold by the linear foot,
alleys were paved with cinders
and schools had cinder paths.
There were big glass milk bottles,
enough to stretch to the Moon!
The perimeters of a world,
all gone now!
When I reflect, looking back on those days, the uniformity of things strikes me. Things mentioned in my poem, and the fact that 95% of automobiles were black. My sister and I thought it was so neat to ride in a rumble seat in the back of an uncle's coupe.
Movie theaters had a program: a long main feature, a B movie, Movietone News and five color cartoons. I loved cartoons! Newspapers usually had a solid type front page, only occasionally a small photograph. It was a real treat for me to go to drugstore at midnight to get two big city newspapers with big, colorful comic sections! Soft drinks were a nickel, Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Nehi, Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer, etc. Usually you got six ounces except Pepsi Cola with its unforgetable jingle. Comic strips, comic books and radio programs had a huge audience, so much so that everyone had heard of Ma Perkins, Bob Hope, The Shadow, Gangbusters, The Lone Ranger, Jiggs and Maggie, etc. Many things became sayings: "coming on like Gangbusters" and "The Shadow knows".
If you were driving down the highway, reading the Burma Shave signs, and you came to a hamburger
stand, you had better decide if you wanted something, this was it, and a hamburger was what you
could get. You were always deciding between something or nothing. Ah yes, the perimeters of a
world long gone
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Yesteryear
Yesteryear
