# Anything from your childhood



## DannyDoughboy (Apr 24, 2020)

Okay, here's the question, and I'll go first, try to limit to one answer, let's have some fun!   If you could have something back from your younger years, what would it be?  ME/ my Daisy BB gun my grandmother bought me for my 10th birthday, 1955!


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

My baby brothers pedal car!

I believe it would be a serious collector's item now, and what a great way to remember a little family history.


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## hollydolly (Apr 24, 2020)

*My mother *


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

hollydolly said:


> *My mother *


I'm right there with you, Holly.


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## Pecos (Apr 24, 2020)

Skip the toys. 

I want: A bookend set that I made out of good Cherry wood. It was actually quite beautiful. My youngest brother was even better with wood and made a number of items that were first rate in my opinion.

I also made a very neat Bow out of Elm wood. I was never able to make any good arrows. I had to buy them.

The most interesting thing I ever made was a vacuum tube radio, but I don't want it as the internal work is embarrassing and its performance was dismal. But it started my career in Electronics.


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## DannyDoughboy (Apr 24, 2020)

hollydolly said:


> *My mother *



aww,  life is definitely more treasured than material things!


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

My Gilbert Chem Set.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

My brother but since you stated that this is to be fun I’d have to say playing with the neighbourhood kids. We lived in a neighbourhood full of kids who all wanted to play and that’s what we did. We played outside almost daily even in the midst of winter.


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## DannyDoughboy (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> My Gilbert Chem Set.



Oh yeah, Remember those, didn't have one though.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

My brothers hot wheels were pretty fun too as well as their record player.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> My Gilbert Chem Set.


What exactly is this? I’ve never heard of it before.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> What exactly is this? I’ve never heard of it before.


A chemistry set for the scientist in ones child. 

One of my friends brothers had one similar to this one and he was always mixing this and that together.


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## Gaer (Apr 24, 2020)

Of course it would be my Dad or my Mother but, are we allowed to say a person?  If it has to be a thing,I'd say the paper dolls my Mother drew.  My parents couldn't afford them,so she drew the paper dolls and drew little tabs on the clothes.   I would color them and play with them when I was 4 or 5, I guess.
My Mother was extremely talented.  She could design and make anything! Had she the money, she could have put CoCo out of business!
Sorry, I don't mean to brag but I was pretty proud of her!


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

Aunt Marg said:


> A chemistry set for the scientist in ones child.
> 
> One of my friends brothers had one similar to this one and he was always mixing this and that together.


Oh very cool. Thank you.  I would have loved to have blown something up.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Oh very cool. I would have loved to have blown something up.


ROFLLMAO! That's essentially what my friends brother was aiming for when mixing together all the chemicals that he used to! I'd be scared to have a kid in the house with one of those sets at his or her disposal.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

Aunt Marg said:


> I'd be scared to have a kid in the house with one of those sets at his or her disposal.



My point exactly.


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> What exactly is this? I’ve never heard of it before.


It was great!  All sort of chemicals in it.  Had a little blowtorch you powered by breath:






I had the one on the left.  You hooked a rubber tube to it and gently blew through it.

Part of it was a hydroponics set:



You made the food with the chemicals dissolved in the water.

I didn't blow anything up, but I _did_ learn what sulfur smelled like when heated 

Can you imagine giving this to a kid these days?  You'd be violating at least a dozen EPA regs.

Maybe my parents were trying to get rid of me.  Six kids were quite a few mouths to feed...


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> It was great!  All sort of chemicals in it.  Had a little blowtorch you powered by breath:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How cool is that. Teach your kid how to blow up the house and grow hydro!


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> How cool is that. Teach your kid how to blow up the house and grow hydro!


I'm laughing right now remembering my baby brother with his doctor set, and then with the goofy plastic glasses his doctors set came with, seeing him messing around with a chemistry set! Dr. Zhivago the II.


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## jujube (Apr 24, 2020)

My 19" waistline.  Sigh.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> It was great!  All sort of chemicals in it.  Had a little blowtorch you powered by breath:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


How old were you when you got this and did it influence you later in your course selection ?
Did you take Chemistry later in high school ?
Did you make anything cool from it?


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## Ruth n Jersey (Apr 24, 2020)

My parents are a given. If you are asking about a thing, I'd like to have the little china closet my great uncle built for me.


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## peppermint (Apr 24, 2020)

Mom and Dad....Mom was a seamstress her whole life....She was born in NYC and had to go to work because her Mom and Dad,
needed the money...They had 10 kids....Mom made my clothes up until the 6th grade....I wish she was still here to make me 
clothes....I never took after her....I never even sew a button....


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

peppermint said:


> Mom and Dad....Mom was a seamstress her whole life....She was born in NYC and had to go to work because her Mom and Dad,
> needed the money...They had 10 kids....Mom made my clothes up until the 6th grade....I wish she was still here to make me
> clothes....I never took after her....I never even sew a button....


reminds me of my mom who made all of our Halloween costumes for us kids year after year.


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## Pecos (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> It was great!  All sort of chemicals in it.  Had a little blowtorch you powered by breath:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You heat up enough sulfur and you can clear out most of the classrooms on the second floor of my high school.


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> How old were you when you got this and did it influence you later in your course selection ?
> Did you take Chemistry later in high school ?
> Did you make anything cool from it?


I was in elementary school when I got it.  There was a lab supply place in town that I would go to for supplies & chemicals.  I never pursued it through high school or anything. I made the stuff on the experiment cards that came with it...invisible ink that appeared when heated, plant food...that's about all I recall, although I still recall some of the chemical symbols I learned from it.

But I'm a dabbler.  I'll go from electronics to botany to fossil hunting to making picture frames to baking bread.


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> I was in elementary school when I got it.  There was a lab supply place in town that I would go to for supplies & chemicals.  I never pursued it through high school or anything. I made the stuff on the experiment cards that came with it...invisible ink that appeared when heated, plant food...that's about all I recall, although I still recall some of the chemical symbols I learned from it.
> 
> But I'm a dabbler.  I'll go from electronics to botany to fossil hunting to making picture frames to baking bread.


That would be such a fun thing to mess around with. I don’t recall anything like that when I was a child but perhaps  it was before my time.
You sound like you have at least a dozen hobbies. 
Making pictures frames, fossil hunting and making bread? That’s interesting. You make your own picture frames? You must be a woodworker? 
What types of tools do you have and what type of wood do you enjoy working with the most?
What type of bread do you make and do you make it from scratch and use the oven or  a bread maker?


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## Gary O' (Apr 24, 2020)

DannyDoughboy said:


> Okay, here's the question, and I'll go first, try to limit to one answer, let's have some fun! If you could have something back from your younger years, what would it be?



Whoa.....'one'

That's a toughy
Too much good stuff
My Daisey BB gun is a given
But my boys went thru enough of them

My pedal car
Would be thee one
But, I found and refurbed a couple for my boys, so it's not the one
even though I highly prized mine


and found a tiny exact replica, that sits on my rolltop 






I gotta say thee one, the only one, would be my service station
Played with it for hours
then.....one day....it was gone (still don't know why/where)


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## DannyDoughboy (Apr 24, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Whoa.....'one'
> 
> That's a toughy
> Too much good stuff
> ...



Those were a hit in those days, very cool!


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Whoa.....'one'
> 
> That's a toughy
> Too much good stuff
> ...


The miniature pedal car is king!


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

Peddle car. How fun. 
We had that very same parking lot or I should say my brothers did.  I liked playing cars too. That was so much fun.


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## Gary O' (Apr 24, 2020)

Aunt Marg said:


> The miniature pedal car is king!


I sure thought so
Saw it on a shelf in a junk shop
Wasn't leaving without it


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Peddle car. How fun.
> We had that very same parking lot or I should say my brothers did.  I liked playing cars too. That was so much fun.


My memory is vague, but I do remember this service/parking/garage or one very similar to it!


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> I sure thought so
> Saw it on a shelf in a junk shop
> Wasn't leaving without it


I wouldn't have left without it either. That's a collector piece if I've ever seen one. Good catch, Gary!


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

Aunt Marg said:


> My memory is vague, but I do remember this service/parking/garage or one very similar to it!


We had the exact same one. It was very fun.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> We had the exact same one. It was very fun.


Childhood memories are the best, aren't they, Keesha? 

Nothing warms the heart more...


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## Keesha (Apr 24, 2020)

Aunt Marg said:


> Childhood memories are the best, aren't they, Keesha?
> 
> Nothing warms the heart more...


Most of them are. Mine was very bittersweet.


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## win231 (Apr 24, 2020)

I had a nice cap gun that held a whole roll of caps & automatically advanced the next cap with each trigger pull.
Of course, that wasn't good enough for me; I modified it so it would fire more than one cap at a time. 
That's turned out to be a bad idea.  when I was up to 4 caps, the barrel started to melt.  I kept firing it, until I burned my hand.  At the time, I didn't know caps had black powder in them & burned at high temperatures - especially after my customization.
I don't modify my real ones, now.  Way too dangerous.

I also destroyed several of those rocket-shaped cap bombs.  They had fins (like on a dart) & a weighted nose.  You throw them up & they land on the nose & set off a cap that you stick on before.
I kept adding caps until it came down & exploded in pieces.  Luckily they don't sell toys like that now.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Most of them are. Mine was very bittersweet.


Hugs to you, Keesha.


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## Aunt Marg (Apr 24, 2020)

win231 said:


> I had a nice cap gun that held a whole roll of caps & automatically advanced the next cap with each trigger pull.
> Of course, that wasn't good enough for me; I modified it so it would fire more than one cap at a time.
> That's turned out to be a bad idea.  when I was up to 4 caps, the barrel started to melt.  I kept firing it, until I burned my hand.  At the time, I didn't know caps had black powder in them & burned at high temperatures - especially after my customization.
> I don't modify my real ones, now.  Way too dangerous.
> ...


I remember those rocket bombs!

Another I remember was a cap gun that looked like a 357 revolver, and into the plastic shells you'd place the cap in the end, then stick a plastic bullet into the shell, once you had the 6 bullets loaded, into the toy gun they'd go just like the real thing. The fun we had with that gun shooting each other in the rump!


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> That would be such a fun thing to mess around with. I don’t recall anything like that when I was a child but perhaps  it was before my time.
> You sound like you have at least a dozen hobbies.
> Making pictures frames, fossil hunting and making bread? That’s interesting. You make your own picture frames? You must be a woodworker?
> What types of tools do you have and what type of wood do you enjoy working with the most?
> What type of bread do you make and do you make it from scratch and use the oven or  a bread maker?


Ooohhh....let's see.

I'm not really a woodworker.  I love Renaissance art, but of course shall never own any.  So I would go to the National Gallery of Art in DC and buy the poster "reproductions."  I then went to a "We Teach You" type frame shop to learn how to make frames and got to be friends with the owner.  She showed me how to have them dry-mounted on foam core and then brush decoupage sealer on them to cut the poster glare and to impart brush strokes.  I used to play around with this under a heat lamp so the decoupage would get tacky and give me more dramatic strokes. I cover the back with brown paper and affix the artist/title description to it.

I really got hooked on this and found a commercial frame stock place where I could buy period-style material.  I cut it at home and bought a 90° frame vise.  I bet I did well over a dozen different pictures of varying size.  It's been a very long time since I've done this.  Here's a couple of examples.  Tough to get good pics without ambient sunlight...lots of glare.

The Botticelli is 24" x 30".  I don't want to tell you how much _that_ frame material cost me. You can see the decoupage "strokes" in the trees.



This is a van Eyck, about 6" x 12", front and back:




Then there was my Egyptology phase inspired by the King Tut tour.  I used to hit a West African curio place in Old Town Alexandria.  I bought a few papyrus pieces and made mini shadow boxes for a couple of them:



Man, _that_ was a trip down memory lane.

Regarding breads...I make everything but loaf bread (French,Italian, ciabatta, dinner rolls, pizza.)  I've never found a suitable sandwich loaf recipe.  Edit to add: From scratch but with a stand mixer.  No way I'd knead all that.

Since I'm uploading pics, here's part of the French bread I made for a large church event:



Cooking is the one interest I have always retained.  Everything else has been dive in the deep end for a while and then move on to something else.  I do have a set of 4 Thomas Cole reproductions I need to finish and hang, titled "The Voyage of Life."  Here are links if you're interested.  It's a fascinating series:

Childhood
Youth
Manhood
Old Age


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Most of them are. Mine was very bittersweet.


Same here.


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

win231 said:


> I also destroyed several of those rocket-shaped cap bombs.  They had fins (like on a dart) & a weighted nose.  You throw them up & they land on the nose & set off a cap that you stick on before.
> I kept adding caps until it came down & exploded in pieces.  Luckily they don't sell toys like that now.


Oh, man...I remember those.

Did you have a gun that used Greenie Stick 'Em Caps?


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## win231 (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> Oh, man...I remember those.
> 
> Did you have a gun that used Greenie Stick 'Em Caps?


I've heard of those, but mine used a regular red roll of caps on a spool.  It had two barrels & a break-top action like a Webley Revolver.  Well, actually mine HAD two barrels.  They both melted & didn't look like barrels any more......  I replaced it, but firing only one cap just wasn't the same.  I left it in the garage & I found it while we moved a few years later.  It was completely rusted.  Well, for 49 cents, they ain't gonna bother with a durable finish.


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## Gary O' (Apr 24, 2020)

Keesha said:


> We had the exact same one. It was very fun.


That must have been the most popular (affordable) one.
A kid in town (of my folk's friends) had what I believe to be a three story one
crank up elevator and all
Then again, he had every toy imaginable
Huge drawers full

Hated to leave with my folks


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

I had the Bat Masterson set.  There was a derringer flush-mounted inside a huge belt buckle.  You extended your stomach and the thing would pivot out for you to grab...a completely natural move when in a fight LOL.

Also had a Jonny O.M.A.  (One Man Army)  Seven guns in one, baby.  Because you just can't satisfy the innate violent tendencies of a 9 year old boy with only six guns!!


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## win231 (Apr 24, 2020)

When I was around 8, someone gave me a model airplane to assemble.  I couldn't figure out why putting it together made me so happy, until 10 years later, I figured it out.  It was the fumes from the glue.


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## win231 (Apr 24, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> Ooohhh....let's see.
> 
> I'm not really a woodworker.  I love Renaissance art, but of course shall never own any.  So I would go to the National Gallery of Art in DC and buy the poster "reproductions."  I then went to a "We Teach You" type frame shop to learn how to make frames and got to be friends with the owner.  She showed me how to have them dry-mounted on foam core and then brush decoupage sealer on them to cut the poster glare and to impart brush strokes.  I used to play around with this under a heat lamp so the decoupage would get tacky and give me more dramatic strokes. I cover the back with brown paper and affix the artist/title description to it.
> 
> ...


Doesn't the dryer make the bread too crusty?


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## In The Sticks (Apr 24, 2020)

win231 said:


> Doesn't the dryer make the bread too crusty?


You gotta put a wet sock in with it.

I see the effects of that glue have yet to wear off...

edit to add   just to avoid misunderstanding.


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## Sassycakes (Apr 27, 2020)

*Other then missing loved ones I miss when I was 7yrs old and my older brother got out of the army and he moved back in with us with his wife and baby son. They lived with us for 6yrs and I got to be with my nephew everyday. I taught him how to read and write and played with him and we had a lot of fun. When he was 2yrs old my brother had another son and I did the same things with him. I really missed them when they moved. My friends were soo jealous that I was an Aunt at such a young age. How I would love to have those days back. One of the things of the past that I don't miss was being in school taught by Nun's. Some of them were real pistols !LOL*


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## Lewkat (Apr 28, 2020)

My bike.  I went everywhere on that bike.  I actually wore it out.


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## Keesha (Apr 28, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> That must have been the most popular (affordable) one.
> A kid in town (of my folk's friends) had what I believe to be a three story one
> crank up elevator and all
> Then again, he had every toy imaginable
> ...


No we didn’t have the extended version. We had that exact same one. It offered many hours of entertainment. Far better than any doll.


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## Keesha (Apr 28, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> Ooohhh....let's see.
> 
> I'm not really a woodworker.  I love Renaissance art, but of course shall never own any.  So I would go to the National Gallery of Art in DC and buy the poster "reproductions."  I then went to a "We Teach You" type frame shop to learn how to make frames and got to be friends with the owner.  She showed me how to have them dry-mounted on foam core and then brush decoupage sealer on them to cut the poster glare and to impart brush strokes.  I used to play around with this under a heat lamp so the decoupage would get tacky and give me more dramatic strokes. I cover the back with brown paper and affix the artist/title description to it.
> 
> ...


This is really impressive. I only just noticed it. 
When I framed the pictures I wanted I also went to a DIY place that supplied the frame stock, tools and  instruction. None of the frames I made were cheap. There were very expensive  but well worth it. 

You have good artistic taste. 

You can bake bread far better than I can. That looks so good. Thanks for sharing all this.


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## Pinky (Apr 28, 2020)

peppermint said:


> Mom and Dad....Mom was a seamstress her whole life....She was born in NYC and had to go to work because her Mom and Dad,
> needed the money...They had 10 kids....Mom made my clothes up until the 6th grade....I wish she was still here to make me
> clothes....I never took after her....I never even sew a button....


My Mom was also a seamstress. She made amazing evening gowns, and made dresses for my dolls with the fancy remnants. We were always well dressed, and asked for the latest fashions. Remember circle skirts that were worn with crinolines? Roses were a popular skirt print too.


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## In The Sticks (Apr 28, 2020)

Pinky said:


> My Mom was also a seamstress. She made amazing evening gowns, and made dresses for my dolls with the fancy remnants. We were always well dressed, and asked for the latest fashions. Remember circle skirts that were worn with crinolines? Roses were a popular skirt print too.


My mother was not necessarily a seamstress, but she sewed a lot before my parents split up.

I remember that one storage dresser she had in the dining room.  You would open one of the doors and all these cheap paper McCall's and Simplicity patterns would spill out.

Every time I buy window treatments I kick myself for not having learned the basics.


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## Pinky (Apr 28, 2020)

In The Sticks said:


> My mother was not necessarily a seamstress, but she sewed a lot before my parents split up.
> 
> I remember that one storage dresser she had in the dining room.  You would open one of the doors and all these cheap paper McCall's and Simplicity patterns would spill out.
> 
> Every time I buy window treatments I kick myself for not having learned the basics.


I don't know if they sell curtain/drapery fabric here, with the special binding tape that you can pleat and put drapery hooks into. All you do, is measure, and hem. I bought some when I lived in Australia, and made drapes. It was so easy, and I was so proud of myself.


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## treeguy64 (Apr 28, 2020)

My old neighborhood pals, so we could roam around Chicago's South Shore (safe then) on our bikes, and have the fun times I still remember so well!

I'd give up anything, though, to have my Mom, Dad, and Sister back in the living world.......


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## squatting dog (Apr 28, 2020)

I had a bunch of Auburn rubber roadster hotrods that I played with endlessly. When ebay first started, I was able to acquire a bunch of them for a reasonable price. They were some of the most detailed toys you'll ever see. You could see the drivers face clearly, and the flathead V8 motor. 
Still have them.


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## Gary O' (Apr 28, 2020)

squatting dog said:


> I had a bunch of Auburn rubber roadster hotrods that I played with endlessly


Oh, yeaaaahhhh

Mine had the yellow tires/wheels



squatting dog said:


> They were some of the most detailed toys you'll ever see. You could see the drivers face clearly




Yeah, and that was my prob with the '56 T-Bird
The lady driver with the little kid in the passenger seat



It messed with my imagination when trying to envision me driving


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## Gary O' (Apr 28, 2020)

Keesha said:


> No we didn’t have the extended version.


We didn't either....but the Sears and Wards Christmas catalogues sure did


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## Keesha (Apr 28, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> We didn't either....but the Sears and Wards Christmas catalogues sure did


Weren’t those catalogues fun to go through and dream of all the toys you wish you had? Not that we’d get them lol but it was fun to dream
I miss those days.


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## Pinky (Apr 28, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Weren’t those catalogues fun to go through and dream of all the toys you wish you had? Not that we’d get them lol but it was fun to dream
> I miss those days.


At the end of each summer, we were allowed to go through the Sears catalogue to choose a new pair of shoes and outfit for the start of school in September. Also for Christmas. We would cut out pictures from the outdated catalogues.


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## DannyDoughboy (Apr 28, 2020)

win231 said:


> I had a nice cap gun that held a whole roll of caps & automatically advanced the next cap with each trigger pull.
> Of course, that wasn't good enough for me; I modified it so it would fire more than one cap at a time.
> That's turned out to be a bad idea.  when I was up to 4 caps, the barrel started to melt.  I kept firing it, until I burned my hand.  At the time, I didn't know caps had black powder in them & burned at high temperatures - especially after my customization.
> I don't modify my real ones, now.  Way too dangerous.
> ...


Cap guns and those lead rockets were a blast, yes yes!


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## peppermint (Apr 28, 2020)

Pinky said:


> My Mom was also a seamstress. She made amazing evening gowns, and made dresses for my dolls with the fancy remnants. We were always well dressed, and asked for the latest fashions. Remember circle skirts that were worn with crinolines? Roses were a popular skirt print too.


How nice. I wish I took after my Mom... We were lucky girls....


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## Keesha (Apr 28, 2020)

Pinky said:


> At the end of each summer, we were allowed to go through the Sears catalogue to choose a new pair of shoes and outfit for the start of school in September. Also for Christmas. We would cut out pictures from the outdated catalogues.


Cut out pictures and hang them on the fridge as a subtle hint.


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## Gary O' (Apr 28, 2020)

Keesha said:


> Weren’t those catalogues fun to go through and dream of all the toys you wish you had? Not that we’d get them lol but it was fun to dream


It was the book of dreams
My big sis and I would lie on the living room floor and slowly leaf thru the toy section
We didn't get any of the good stuff
Knew better than to ask, or even hint
Didn't matter
Dreams are like that


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## Keesha (Apr 28, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> It was the book of dreams
> My big sis and I would lie on the living room floor and slowly leaf thru the toy section
> We didn't get any of the good stuff
> Knew better than to ask, or even hint
> ...


We didn’t dare ask either but we encouraged our neighbourhood friends to ask so at least there was a possibility that we could play with them.


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## In The Sticks (Apr 28, 2020)

Pinky said:


> I don't know if they sell curtain/drapery fabric here, with the special binding tape that you can pleat and put drapery hooks into. All you do, is measure, and hem. I bought some when I lived in Australia, and made drapes. It was so easy, and I was so proud of myself.


I love to do home projects.  There's nothing like daily living with things that were done by your own hand. 

You're not the first person to say "All you have to do is hem" to me.  Can you see my blank stare???

I can't make curtains, but I finally got around to building a cornice for my patio door a while ago.  This let me cover the vertical blind hardware and install a rod to hang shears over the blinds.



It came out more formal that I wanted, but it was a matter of available fabric in my rural area.
And this design matches a mantle I built that's in the same room.


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## squatting dog (Apr 29, 2020)

Gary O' said:


> Oh, yeaaaahhhh
> 
> Mine had the yellow tires/wheels
> Yeah, and that was my prob with the '56 T-Bird
> ...



Heard that.   For a while, I had quite a collection of different vehicles. (mainly because I had to buy a whole lot to get the hotrods). Fire trucks, earth movers, the cool tractor with the farmer looking back, motorcycle police, and a slew of army vehicles. I really thought the caddy convertible was cool.
Buying these toys, I learned that the black tires were the oldest, then yellow, and finally white. (another meaningless factoid) 
Of all the other toys, the only one I think I should have kept was the cool police car. I had a rare yellow one, (blue was the common) that still had both rear antenna, and light bubble on the roof. (most of them were chewed off, like drivers heads and on the hotrod, the headlights).
I have since hunted and found a complete yellow one, but, too expensive.


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## JaniceM (Apr 29, 2020)

Everything good I could think of had something negative attached to it, until I finally came up with this:  SCHOLASTIC BOOK CLUB!
A few times the school held little "book fairs" with books on display, but mostly it was the newsletters that came out on a regular basis-  kids (and/or their parents) could choose whichever books they wanted, and Scholastic would deliver them to the school.


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## Gary O' (Apr 29, 2020)

squatting dog said:


> the only one I think I should have kept was the cool police car. I had a rare yellow one, (blue was the common) that still had both rear antenna, and light bubble on the roof.


Can't recall, but I think mine was blue
Yeah, the antennas were the first to go
I'd like to take a moment to thank my little brother...and his dog

Wish I had all those now, but left home quite early, and my brother had his way with them

Still, there are magical places yet today
Places where a goodly portion of Auburn Rubber is enshrined


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## Gary O' (Apr 29, 2020)

squatting dog said:


> I had to buy a whole lot to get the hotrods


Yeah, those were *THEE *ones
I had three
Two red
One green (or blue...can't recall)

One red one I cut the fenders off the front
Turned it into a bulldozer to build my little dirt towns


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## asp3 (Apr 29, 2020)

Strangely enough the thing that I have the most emotional connection to is a little Christmas bell I lost on a Los Angeles freeway when I held it out the convertible my dad was driving.  It wasn't anything special, but when I think about things I miss that one comes to my heart first.

However a much more practical and greedy desire would be my complete (or nearly complete) set of Monkees bubble gum trading cards.  I'm afraid my mother was really good at getting us to throw away things we didn't use even though a number of them would have been worth a decent amount of money now.


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## treeguy64 (Apr 29, 2020)

DannyDoughboy said:


> Cap guns and those lead rockets were a blast, yes yes!


I have both, out in my garage. The problem is that caps are beyond terrible, now. They put a few grains of powder in the caps, and they're not even manufactured with anything that resembles quality. You cannot feed a cap gun, properly, and the rockets do not fire the caps with anything close to the reports we enjoyed, as kids.


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## DannyDoughboy (Apr 29, 2020)

treeguy64 said:


> I have both, out in my garage. The problem is that caps are beyond terrible, now. They put a few grains of powder in the caps, and they're not even manufactured with anything that resembles quality. You cannot feed a cap gun, properly, and the rockets do not fire the caps with anything close to the reports we enjoyed, as kids.



As kids, we used to carefully skin the top of "caps", dump out the powder, and after about 20 or so, we would make a huge firecracker out of the residue!  Downside of that was, some times you would scratch to hard, and have a lovely burst of flame in your fingers.  lol. Great times though!


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## In The Sticks (Apr 29, 2020)

DannyDoughboy said:


> As kids, we used to carefully skin the top of "caps", dump out the powder, and after about 20 or so, we would make a huge firecracker out of the residue!  Downside of that was, some times you would scratch to hard, and have a lovely burst of flame in your fingers.  lol. Great times though!


We used to make cannons out of cans.  The tops would be cut off and you would punch holes in the bottoms, then tape in a line to make one long can.  Squirt lighter fluid in the end, shake it to atomize all the way through, then put a match to it.  BOOM!!!!

It's amazing any of us lived to see 20.


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