When the past met the present: A jingle bell memory

I always place the awakening of my cognitive memory to about 1952 or 1953. So that is where this memory will be placed, in December 1952.  I'm glad I awoke to life when I did. There were really two worlds of existence then.

One was the world I lived in: of new brick schoolhouses, tiled green floors, new gleaming white kitchen appliances, and new chrome everything with everything automobiles.

And below it was another world, where my grandparents lived. A world of brown board floors, ancient moaning buildings and unpaved driveways.

In their world it was still the past? Or the past had run into the future? The ink of the calendar had smeared, and somehow yesterday was still today.  The past and the present had bumped together.  As my friend Rick use to say, "Buck Rogers had met Roy Rogers."

In the early 1950s, everything was either squeaky new or squeaky old, but everything was still squeaky – squeaky new shoes, squeaky old doors – yes, squeaky for different reasons, but everything still squeaked.

The reason for this?  The late 1920s had collided with the early 1950s. Part of the reason for this time collision was history itself.  The 1920s were boom years.  Then the '30s came with its Depression. At first, cars but trickled out of Detroit in the 1930s. Then the Depression deepened and the trickle became a dribble. Then came World War II and with it the war effort, and civilian auto production stopped and then even the trickle and dribble ceased. By the end of World War II, nearly all civilian production had turned to zero.  By the late 1940s, when civilian production began again, factories and industry had a long road ahead to catch up.

So in many homes during these lean years, appliances grew old and cantankerous; it was hard to sleep in a house with an ancient 1920s refrigerator that sounded like an old farm tractor with a bearing squeal. 

In the early 1950s, there were still houses that had old, child-frightening growling washing machines, that if a child stood on a chair and looked down into the tub, it looked as if it were a bottomless pit ... and as the agitator fought, twisted and turned, it looked and sounded more as if the washing machine was torturing the clothes than washing them. 

And gas stoves?  There are cars on the road today that are smaller than the old gas stoves in the 1920s, and their burners could be turned up to produce a three and a half inch flame that roared and could melt the plaster off the walls.

And cars in the early 1950s? They were either brand new, chrome everything, loaded with everything, or they were 20 years old or there about. In the 1950s my grandfather still had friends who drove cars that were manufactured in the 1920s. Back then, my grandfather drove a 1935 Plymouth Coupe. It had a crank-out windshield, a rubber fan on the dash board and a rumble seat.

Why it was that we all rode home from my grandfather’s house in the old Coupe I have no way of knowing. Who rode in the front with my grandfather? I do not remember.  All I can recall now is the back of their hatted heads as my two teenage uncles and I sat bundled up in the rumble seat. It was after dark and snowing and I remember the clank and jingle of the snow chains, and the whine of the low-geared tranny and the motorboat putt of the motor.  And as we clinked and jingled, our snow-chains wheeled way through about six inches of unplowed snow, it all seemed such an adventure.

We rode through a town that was Christmas tree lit. The store windows were daylight bright and decorated with gifts and toy displays, and Christmas tree wreaths hung on business doors and buildings. Lights were hung on bushes and trees, and decorations and lights hung on wires and ropes strung across the street from buildings and poles, so decorations and lights hovered directly above the middle of the street.

We would watch over the Coupe's roof for a string of these lights to appear, come floating toward us, flash above us like shooting stars, and then turn to watch them disappear over the back of our shoulders.  Then we would snap back around and watch for another string to appear above us and flash by again.

This was like flying.

And as we passed the big Christmas tree in the center of town with all its bright colored lights, one of my uncles said in excitement, "We still have two more towns to go!"

Now I never rode in a one-horse-open-sleigh ... so I never jingle-belled all the way…but I had this ride and I still have this memory.

Best wishes and Happy Holidays to all.

K. Peddlar Bridges