Our "Drug Store" delivered to our house. Often it was the " Druggist" himself. My adult children were horrified by those words! It is Pharmacy and Pharmacist ...I was reminded. They find it hard to believe we used such rough language. :-)

Seniorgal I love hearing your memories.

I still often call it drug store, but I've been getting better at calling it a pharmacy. Lol

Yes the milkman, breadman, produce man...I remember. And the grocer. Mom used to drop a order off and it would be delivered into the kitchen. Often these delivery people were offered coffee or ice tea in the summer. I expecially remember the mail man sitting on the porch in the summer drinking a big glass of moms ice tea, than he'd trot off down the street where someone else would no doubt offer refreshment and catch up on the town gossip lol. In some ways it was a slower lifestyle, not as fast paced. And electronics, what's that lol.

We walked to the fruit stand in the summer and bought fresh fruit, ice cream or a soda. Our home was surrounded by orchards then. Later on a little hamburger stand opened on that same street. Teens and young adults liked to meet there. We rode our bikes and bought fries or onion rings and ice cream. Boys showed off their first cars. Sometimes we got a ride from a friend who talked her older sister into driving us. Happy summertime memories of the radio in the car or at that little hamburger stand.

I loved a cherry Coke at a soda fountain. A Coke in the green bottle was watery by comparison.

I can remember our milkman delivering. When my dad became ill and mother went to work, the milkman would bring the milk, cottage cheese, butter, into the kitchen and put it into the refrigerator. The house was never locked.

My drug store (pharmacy ;0)) delivers now. Either to homes, or places of business if someone needs something and can't get off work. I haven't had to avail myself of that service but certainly would if I were too ill to pick it up myself. It's free.

My dry cleaners will deliver too...I actually don't know if its free, and I have very little dry cleaning these days. I do know they will come and take down draperies, clean, press, then bring them back, rehang them and that service is included in the cleaning and pressing fee.

Door delivery of milk in a bottle.

Dad owned local grocery store, where customers ordered groceries, had them delivered by Ralph, our delivery boy, and charged paying by the month.

Also a mail chut, and the postal service put it in and came right inside the house. With deliveries on Sunday.

Not that far back but in the 60s, living in Southern California in base housing, there was a Japanese food truck that we used to buy food and candy from. I remember it was dark green. It would stop right outside of our house.

Remember the ice delivery card? It was a large square card and its four corners were marked, 25, 50, 75, and 100, On ice delivery day, this card was hung by its corner in a front window visible from the street. Whichever numbered corner that was topside denoted the amount of ice you needed. The iceman would then know the size of ice chunk to bring to the house. This eliminated one trip to the house. otherwise, two trips from the truck to house was required: One to find how much ice to deliver, and a second trip to deliver the ice.

Recall city ice-plants? Before rural electrification, refrigeration was nil in the countryside unless you were one of the rare ones to have a gas flame powered refrigerator. (Yes, there was such.). When country folks butchered livestock in the fall, they took the bulk of the dressed meat to a cold locker at the ice plant. The meat would be packaged in bundles that was about one week supply for the family. When Mom went to town for hte weekly shopping, she'd stop at the ice plant on the way out and pick up a bundle of frozen meat.

Having a party and plan to make home made ice cream; You needed to get a supply of ice from the ice plant, and a supply of melting salt. Salting the ice pack sped freezing of the ice cream. Without the salt, the ice cream freezer would hardly work at all. One had to use caution because the resulting salt brine will kill plant life. Some made the mistake of dumping the brine on the lawn thereby creating a dead spot for the remainder of the summer.

I have a mail chute Glenda. Many houses in my area (built in the 1910s-20s) do. It is nice to have the mail dump directly in the house -- especially in a cold climate -- although it aggravates the pets on a daily basis!

I grew up in the Chicago area and remember milk delivery (Kemps). We had a little aluminum box on the back porch for it. I'm too young to remember coal delivery (!) but my current house and the house I grew up in still have the coal chute window and little basement room where the coal was dumped. Man, that must have been messy...

In my home-town, the liquor store delivered. ( Or is that now party store? ) Our next door neighbor had 4 cases of beer delivered every Friday night, in brown long neck bottles. Also a mysterious box of bottled liquor.

I recall the doctor making house calls. Our family doctor had an uncanny habit of stopping by, just for a visit, once or twice each week as we were sitting down to eat. Mom would set another place and he would make a comment that we were always eating. What a lovely memory - Dr Kirk and mom's fabulous cooking. (sigh)

Someone came down our street in a vehicle similar to a pickup and would gather old clothes, towels, anything fabric. He would come back later, when this was all woven in to a carpet/runner, and we paid for the service. I also remember doctors house-calls. All this was pre 1972 in Germany.

We also had a traveling knife grinder come down the streets, and we kids got to run out and bring him the knives (those were the days!). My mother recalled a rag man who collected old clothes, etc. but I don't have that memory. And of course there was the Good Humor ice cream man.

I remember a time when pharmacies didn't have lines a mile long lol I wasn't around to experience the things you all are mentioning unfortunately. But I do remember being able to play outside and even walk to school or my grandparents' house that were both about a half mile away. These days everyone is so afraid to let their kids out of their site which is sad. Kids should be able to go outside and get some sun and exercise. Oh and I remember ice cream trucks lol Now people joke that it's the drug man :|

Hmmm, I still call it the drug store!

I was born in 1966 so I don't remember any of these home deliveries except milk, and that stopped when I was around 5 or 6. I remember our milkman had long sideburns and my younger brother wanted hair just like the milkman's, LOL.

I remember the milkman up into the mid or late 1960's. Back in the 1950's there was the junk man that would pick up any useable items, maybe something that would need repairs, that he would fix then resell. I think he also sharpen knives and sissors. Up into the 1970's there was the ice cream truck every summer. You had to be really fast out the door before he drove away. Are they still around anymore?

DH is from Chicago, north side by Wrigley Field, and he remembers the junk man had a horse drawn cart well into the 1960's. In 1969 they passed a law forbiding horse drawn carts in the city of Chicago. I am sure you can guess why.

Remember the paper boy delivering the news paper & then "collecting" on Sat.? We had one mail man that had his Collie walk the route with him, Mother always took water out for his dog. Our house was never locked either, not even when we went on vacation because our next door neighbor took care of our cat when we were gone. I grew up in the 60's in a very small town. Simpler times then.

I had drug store delivery right through the 1970's. It was great when you were too sick to go to the drug store and wait.

Memories of happy childhoods or happy times earlier in life can be pleasant. Not everyone had a happy childhood, family situation, or early adult years and those people have different feelings about yesteryear.

I'm younger than some of those commenting here (born in the 50s). My urban upbringing was also different than many here experienced. While I was lucky to have a pretty trouble-free and happy childhood, I have to say there's little or nothing about the past that I would want to go back to. Sure, I'd love to be younger and have more years of life remaining but I think things are so much better now (and are so for more people) that I wouldn't want much and perhaps not anything at all to be as they were many decades ago.

Did any of you experience a small town Fourth of July? A parade down the main street? Candy for the children thrown off the fire truck? Picnic in the park later on and fireworks at night? I loved it. Yes....I grew up in "Mayberry".

I always went to the drug store but now I go to CVS for prescriptions.

I'm another who still calls it the drug store much of the time. Born in the 50's, I remember the milk man coming until I was about 10. Our family doctor made house calls and I remember him coming when my sister and I were down with a reaction from our measles shots.

My dad was from Nova Scotia and I remember when we visited my grandmother for one summer that the fish man would come by every couple of days. My grandmother would have the order ready and he'd leave whatever she needed - fish, shrimp and even lobster!

I remember in the 60's in Toronto,Joe the baker coming;the "sheenee" man with the rags,bags & bottles who also did the knife sharpening.

The dry cleaning was always picked up and delivered back home.

We also had the good humor man with the ice cream.

Here in the country,we still have the drug store AND free delivery from my "drug man"...our doctor still makes house calls way out here-he's been my doc now for 42 years this July-he is soon to retire.

Hospitals here are still a good 25 drive one way or a 35 minute drive to the other town,opposite direction.

And yes,we still have the 4th of July fireworks and parades in these little towns.

And "most" ppl in this area still do not lock their doors at night,save for a few summer wknds when the tourists are in the area.

Remember when gasoline pumps were manually operated - no electricity or meters. The pump had a glass 10 gallon tank on top. The user closed the dump valve and began filling the top glass using a back and forth action on the pump lever. As the tank neared its 10 gal mark, the user slowed pumping and tried the hit the mark. If he overshot, cracking open the dump valve would let some fuel dribble back to the underground storage tank. the fuel was dispensed (by gravity) by watching the fuel level and the marks on the glass. After dispensing and if there was tuel remaining in the top glass, the dump valve would be opened to permit the excess fuel drain back into the holding tank.

In the very early days of the automobile, there were no "gas stations" and gasoline was dispensed at the drug store.

Remember when you could buy 'bulk' kerosene out of a 55 gal drum? A hand cranked pump was mounted in a threaded port in the end of the tank. The kerosene was pumped into a graduated pitcher and transferred to the customer's container.

Remember reading by a kerosene lamp? I do. (Oh shoot, I've just revealed a clue about my age.)

Remember blow-torches and heavy soldering irons? The fuel was "white gasoline". (It was naphtha or gasoline without any additives or dye.)

Remember when all the groceries were displayed on shelving behind a counter. The grocer stood at his station behind the counter and the hand-cranked cash register. The grocer pulled items off the shelf and set then down by the cash register as called out by the customer.

Before motels became popular, old hotel rooms were plumbed for gas lighting, and a transom was present over the top of the entry door. Some degree of ventilation could be achieved by opening an outside window and the transom. The room heights in hotels were greater than today.

Remember when the Greyhound Bus Co. served almost every town on US route numbered highways.

Setting the way-back machine to before 1900, Coca Cola contained cocaine and was dispensed in drug stores.

Remember bias ply tires?

Remember when most autos had manual transmissions?

Recall telephone switchboards and the operator knew everyone's voice?

Remember when the central entertainment item in the home was a good quality, large radio.

Annie, don't blame your doctor for the computer. Blame the government, which has totally screwed up health care.

Remember no seat belts in cars? With a passel of kids unrestrained? My Mom's first car, old Nellie, had a hole in the floor board in the back and we could see the road going by!

I remember life before TV. We played cards or games, read books and sat and talked to each other. It was nice. When TV did arrive it was one local channel. It wasn't on all the time as we didn't like every program and it barely worked if there as a snowstorm. I thought the snow in the TV pictures was actually snow from the storm. ( I was really little ) I liked My Little Margie, Dobie Gillis, December Bride and Burns and Allen. I don't remember the kids shows that my husband does as they weren't on our TV.

Not my memory. My aunt was telling me about a salesman who would drop by every so often and sell Watkins products in the 1940's. He apparently sold other products too. He also took pictures. The family only has one positively identified picture of my aunt who died as a baby. It was a proof from this man's photos.

I can remember my grandparents buying stuff from a company similar to The Fuller Brush man. But I think it was a different name.

I remember going to the drug store with a quarter and buying a little bag of penny candy. I also remember babysitting and charging 50 cents an hour. Boy were we rich back then, until I came home and mom had to take the money. LOL

Anyone remember Penny Arcades? I went to the one in Hampton Beach, N.H. where we vacationed for 2 weeks every summer until 1961. They had old amusement games going back to the 1930's and everything was a penny. Here is a picture of it that I found online.

The amazing thing was we went to the Boardwalk on our own with no adult supervision since I was 5 years old. Older brothers were suppose to watch over my sister and me, but they always ditched us. There was a Howard Johnson's next door that made the best fried clam rolls and hot fudge sundaes with real fudge sauce.

Yes I remember, we had them at Nantasket beach and Revere beach.

I lived in the city and we even had colorfully dressed "gypsies" who came around selling odds and ends. Insurance men came to the home to pick up payments. As kids, when the iceman unloaded a huge block and delivered it inside the house, we would scoop up the ice chips and eat them from the bed of the truck. Yikes I remember there were little slivers of wood on them haha.

I Need Help!!!

Ever since I posted this topic I haven't been able to access Kitchen Table except to go back to "History"'
and click on this topic. When I click Kitchen Table I get some Home
decorating board. Tried looking at Houzz help without any success. Can
anyone help me? Hope someone knowledgeable sees this. Thanks. I see there is no place for a title on here

Seniorgal

Senior Gal I had the same issue. Solved it by going to my settings and clearing my cache.

I lived lived in the suburbs after age five. We had milk delivery until the late sixties. I babysat regularly for a neighbor from the time I was 11 or 12. Was almost like a nanny. 50 cents an hour. Even went on vacation with them. The milkman would just walk into the house. By the time I was 15 he was chasing me around the house. I made sure to have one of the kids with me on the day's he came.

I remember the house calling doctor. Sometimes he would stay for a drink and a smoke.

We had the Fuller Brush men come door to door. Also had a bread man whose truck was stocked with the best pastries.

We had school clothes and play clothes.

Our streets were full of kids on trikes, bikes, roller skates and flexi riders. We made scooters out wooden crates and old roller skates.

We swam in the quarries and motorcycle hill climbed motorcycles in the gravel pits.

The only Mexican restaurant in town had the best "custom made" lime cokes. No premixed stuff.

I spent Sundays at the local speedway in the pits watching the motorcycle scrambles with my beat friend in in junior high,. Lots of world class riders got their start there. Kenny Roberts was just a skinny little freckle faced haired kid making his bones in the dirt.

Socks hops at the local roller rink, cruising the strip and just hanging out at the the burger joints eating fries and drinking strawberry shakes.

You didn't need reservations to go camping and often you could simply sleep in a field by the roadside or on the beach.

Growing up in California my summer daytime wardrobe for several years consisted of nothing but bikinis and some shifts to toss on when going somewhere.

Seniorgal did you get the problem figured out? This happened to me a few days ago I kept being taken into some strange room on Houzz. Once my son cleaned the cache on my phone everything was fine. Please tell us if you need help.

Elizabeth, I'm still in Mayberry.lol. I was born here and couldn't imagine ever leaving. Its a small farming town in Western Pa. We still have the parades in town and the Firemen still throw candy. Still have the forth of July fireworks. The picnic in the park with all the families bringing a covered dish is no more though.

My problem- My "computer daughter" is coming over today. I'll ask her how to empty the cache. In the meantime I just use my "history."

Living out in the country, we had none of the deliveries you talk about. We did not even have a car or truck to go anywhere. I think my Mother would go with my Grandma to get a few groceries or in a bit later years, catch the bus on the highway that went to town about 12 miles away..

Sue

Fun thread! Of course (as Elmer points out) not all yesteryear memories were wonderful or longed for by today's standards (DDT being sprayed on wasps in a summer cottage, cotton candy stuck in long hair, non air-conditioned summers, spankings, snowy TV reception, the horrid polio shots, for example).

However some memories really stand out.

A fish monger who came to our neighborhood in his horse-drawn wagon. His oyster-colored horse was equipped with blinders and I loved the smell of the horse, it's reins and the sounds of the whole setup. Any in those days, oysters were large and affordable.

I loved going to the ice shop and then putting my child mouth on a large clear block of ice after wiping the sawdust from it.

My father used to come home from work at the end of the day with large paper bags full of fresh garden peas that were best tasting right from the pod. Local grew real plums and peaches as well. No felt fruit.

One great thing was that we didn't need a clamming or salt water fishing license. The beaches were clean and not crowded. No loud intrusive music. Lots of large salmon and trout (wild) from clean brooks.

As a kid, occasional leaks in the roof were a fun occurrence, necessitating a wild scramble for pots and pails.

We had a huge tabogin (spelling?) and could be towed through farmers corn fields. We could skate on or swim in just about any pond we came across. In the winters we could slide down large hills with abandon, on privately owned, undeveloped property. No one thought about law suits. What fun. I was always outside doing something fun like rowing, skating, sledding, walking through privately owned woods whose owners didn't mind.

Coca cola from a machine hosting those thick pale green bottles never tasted as cold or as good. Three cents for the returned bottles. Chips, Oreos, ice-cream sandwiches, donuts were all enjoyed without the troublesome awareness that came later about the negative health effects.

For many years our family had this incredible large metal, glass-lined vacuum bottle wide-mouthed Thermos. My father made batches of the most delicious lemonade. He'd add lots of ice cubes and some of the squeezed lemon halves to the mix. I regret no one was forward thinking enough to have bough a couple of cartons full of the wonderful large thermos jug. Although I probable couldn't get away with guzzling down homemade lemonade, I still would love to have one of those very same jugs. Heavenly, was my father's lemonade. Remembering those picnics now, I'm taken with all the caring, work and vigor my folks put into all they did. I see photos of events, dinners, and see how peopled dressed (better, more carefully) in those days and before carefree materials came about. I used to like being around when my mother was ironing -- the resh clothes from the line and the smell of the iron on clean cotton. As a youngster, few understood the amount of labor involved. Whew!

Oh, and remember those wooden handled, wheeled metal garden cultivators?!

Thanks for the interesting thread, seniorgal, and to all those sharing all sorts of memories.

I grew up in the late 50s in very rural Arkansas and don't remember household deliveries or house calls from the doctor. We kids were the deliverers :-) I remember walking to the closest store/gas station about 2 miles away and buying a loaf of bread, gallon of milk and mom's cigarettes. All for less than 3 quarters (.75 cents).

Sleeperblues reminded me of how unsafe it was to be in the car. No seat belts and the inner door release handles were unsafe. I remember once standing in the back seat floor hanging my upper body over the front seat back when mom yelled to sit down. When I sat down, my leg brushed that door release and the door opened while we were traveling down the road. Scary to see the road from that open door.

Thankfully as I raised my kids, all vehicles had seat belts and I made sure that they were used.

Good morning Senior Gal. If when your daughter comes over, she will clear your cache it should resolve all your problems here. We don't want you struggling to post!

I think most of us were having issues with a site problem a few days ago, and I found it using both Firefox and IE. I cleared history, cookies etc and logged in - all was well again.

I had the problem with my phone and since its a galaxy S 3 it took me awhile to figure out how to clear cache..I actually only cleared it on Chrome and I was fine. Hope your back to normal soom Seniorgal. I love your stories and memories.

Clearing cache multiple times only worked for a short time. I think Houzz is smoking something...

I do remember house calls. I had pneumonia when I was 6 (1949) and the doctor didn't like putting children in the hospital for multiple reasons. He came to our apt every single day to give me a shot of penicillin. No, I did NOT like seeing him come!

I had troubles too. My KT bookmark took me to an unfamiliar Houzz page and no matter what I did I couldn't get to the KT. After a few hours, things settled down, but my bookmark still isn't working. I'm having to come here through the home page. I need to re-bookmark it, but haven't gotten around to it yet. How lazy can one be!?!

Dawn did you clear cache? Do you use Chrome?

No, I'm too lazy to do that too. I'm using Firefox. During the time the site was acting buggy, I switched over to Internet Explorer and it worked fine, which I notice on a semi-regular basis. I think Firefox has issues of it's own sometimes.

The local drugstore had a counter that served sandwiches and sodas. I went there almost every day with a book, ordered a vanilla coke, and hung out. Regular cokes were five cents. Vanilla cokes were seven cents.

I happened to visit my paternal grandmother in a very small town in Tennessee in a week that included an election, for president as best as I recall. I will never forget her getting dressed up, hat and gloves, for the event. A neighbor or friend picked us up and we went to (what seemed like) a huge field, such as a fairgrounds. The whole town seemed to be there greeting one another, all having a good time, many flags and other patriotic displays in evidence. It seemed that everyone lingered although I don't recall we stayed very long. So different from what we have now during elections. Must have been in early '50s. I loved that little town, the square with all the old men and the courthouse, the movie-house, the old church. My grandmother would call her order in to the grocer and in a few hours, boxes would be delivered and put on the kitchen table. Once in a while, she would pick up the phone to listen and was much embarrassed if caught at it, she had a party-line. I never caught on to how she could tell if the call was meant for her by the number of rings. I loved sleeping, feeling the breeze from the windows which smelt differently from the air at home. As I got a little older, I would ride the train to that little town, little over a hundred miles away. All alone! I felt it was an adventure.

Thanks for the trip into the past.