I am another who thinks the cross posting feature Houzz pushes so much is a huge detriment to the forums and I routinely flag as "miscategorized" posts that show up in forums that have nothing to do with them. It is confusing at best and I personally find it to be a huge irritant. btw, there is no compelling need to cross post - it is an option only. You only have to pick a single forum to post in - the other two choices are not requirements at all! If you do choose to do so, at least pick forums to which the topic is related!! It is also not winter yet and based on the activity on other gardening forums, there is still plenty of interest going on outside. But if you want to engage in a non-gardening discussion, please do so in one of the proper discussion forums!!

Elmer Fudd, you are correct. There were negative items that I did not mention because I thought that no one would be interested, and it did not seem to fit the theme of this thread. I do not wish to re-live my childhood, ever. There were many events that are behind me now and are going to stay there like childhood diseases. I had mumps, whooping cough, and measles at differing times. None were fun. The cough from whooping cough lasted through most of my summer. Another year, I cam down with measles that I caught the last week of school. That disease severely affected my eyes and I had to protect my eyes by wearing dark glasses when outside for most of the 3 summer months. The other reason that visits to my childhood are nice, but I have no desire to re-live that period is that it has been a lifetime struggle for me to get where I am at today, so in my old age, I tend to look forward, not backward. I live in fear of having to return to that way of life and being a pauper, although I do have the knowledge of what it takes to survive under those conditions - I don't want to return! During the late '40s, polio was feared and one summer we had several cases in our county. Parents were not sure how it was transmitted, but understood that it could be deadly or leave the patient with deformities. It caused financial burdens that wrecked several families. A boy in our community came down with polio and he and his family spent a miserable summer. He was house bound and not allowed contact with other outside his immediate family. The family quarantined themselves for fear of spreading the disease. Fortunately for him, his case was mild and he recovered with minimal effects. I had a friend in high school who was not so lucky. His right arm was undersized and permanently locked, bent at the elbow. He had to shift his handwriting to his left hand. Another schoolmate, a girl, had a face and arm that had been disfigured from a flash fire from a fuel spill from a gas(oline) iron. Another girl had been speared in the abdomen by a floor mounted gear shift lever during a car accident. Cancer was a poorly understood aliment especially among the poorly educated. As I recall, cancer stuck more women than men, but its kill ratio was high. I recall groups of neighborhood women discussing someone's cancer case in whispered tones and treating the subject as though it was a venereal disease; Some may have suspected it was. Some supposed you came down with cancer because you had done something naughty. Social ignorance is a burden on society. I did see one case of goiter. Adding foods containing iodine or using iodized table salt could eliminate goiter, but that was not widely known during my early childhood. The soils in my community was low to devoid of iodine, thus, farm folks who's food mainly came from their soil (gardens and orchards) were susceptible to goiter. When iodized salt was introduced, a notion spread through the superstitious ones that it should be avoided. It was a plot to adulterate the food supply. So there you have it. I was a little boy growing up and observing adults around me with puzzlement. Some notions and behaviors made no sense to me. I was the little cartoon boy with question marks floating above my head.

That's a great photo, Lars! Woodrose, I think the difference (re soda and candy) was back then they were truly treats, not an everyday, expected part of the diet for most children. They were for some I suppose - I remember my father, a dentist, lamenting the tooth rot that he saw in some children that he blamed partly on their consumption of soda and sugar( and partly on lack of toothbrushing and decent diet in general. That was what made Halloween, Christmas and Easter so special for kids - we didn't get candy routinely in between those holidays.

High top tennis or gym shoes. Steering wheel spinners. Gear shift knobs. Vacuum tube radios. Moon hub caps. Rumble seats. Inner tubes. Inner tube patching kits. Tire Irons. Top Dressing (for non metal car tops) Kerosene. Kerosene wick lanterns Lamp wicks. Lamp mantles ( made of asbestos fiber) Naphtha (aka White Gasoline) Used in mantled lamps, clothes irons, camp stoves, and blow torches. It was free of dye. Dye in fuels tend to clog burner orifices. Red dye is put in gasoline as a identifier. Blow torch Pressurized mantle lamps and lanterns. Cap pistols. Gene Autry outfits. Radio shows: Sky King, Superman, Green Hornet, The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly, Foot powered grind stone. Bailing wire. Grain reaper and binder. Binder twine. Threshing machine. Saw mill powered by a steam engine. I-Bar bridges. Steam train engines Caboose (These have been eliminated on present day trains.) Advertising painted on barn roofs near highways. Burma Shave signs along roadways. Packard, Studebaker, Nash, AMC, Plymouth, and Oldsmobile autos. Open pollinated corn. Horse drawn carriages and wagons. Feed sacks made of printed cotton cloth. (After the contents were used, the sack could be disassembled, washed, and used to make cloth articles. One sack contained one yard of cloth or more. This was popular during WW2 and faded away after the war.) Foot treadle sewing machines. Huskter Truck (During WW2, country stores ran Huskter trucks. It was a moving grocery store and typically visited rural homes twice a week on Tuesday and Thursday. If the truck did not have an item, the housewife could order the item for delivery on the next trip.