YESTERDAY

There is a song that goes:

“Yesterday, when I was young,
So many crazy songs
Were waiting to be sung
So may ways with pleasure
Now that I recall
Concerned themselves with me
And nothing else at all”

Yesterday I had lunch with one of my favorite nostalgia people in the whole world, Michael Mangino. Mike as you know lived next door to me, and was along with another guy, Anthony DiBari, childhood playmates. (See May 25, 2010 blog ‘As I Was Saying’)
We are getting together every month to have lunch and touch base, and it makes for a wonderful time. Mike hasn’t changed much since I last saw him, which is good since it was a month ago!

After numerous attempts at taking our order for lunch, the waitress succeeded and she went her merry way, as did we. Mike is just like my buddy from Somers Street around the corner from where Mike and I lived and is my favorite blogger. More about Jim from Somers Street in July.http://spaldeendreams.blogspot.com/


Mike gave me some pages from an email he received that touched on some of the things that were common everyday for us, yet have disappeared from the lexicon, and totally from view! What? Well I’m glad you asked!

FENDER SKIRTS-You remember them, they sat over your hubcaps lowering your car bodyline.

CURB FEELERS-No, not some drunk in the gutter looking for the sidewalk, but an extension rod that ran from the corner front of your car, over the wheel to tell you when you are near the curb.



STEERING KNOBS-(AKA) suicide knob, neckers knobs. OK, get out of the gutter and back into the car. (Geez, guys, sometimes you embarrass me!) This was a knob that was attached to the steering wheel. It was designed to make the driver, that is: teenage driver, look cool. This was used one-handed only, because the other hand was around the girlfriend, a cigarette hanging from your mouth, ducktail in place (hair comb), as you drove through the neighborhood. (Hood)













Let’s park the car for a moment, and go inside. Wall-to-wall was the term we used to wow our friends and neighbors, and even our non-friends, our relatives. We would purchase carpet ”wall-to-wall” that is to cover those ugly hardwood floors. Today, we throw out the “wall-to-wall” to show off those beautiful hardwood floors!

If Gina, or Katherine Mary got into a little trouble, she was: “In a family way”, which meant she was “expecting” or the stork was visiting. It seems pregnant was not a polite term to use in “Mixed company”. Of course “Knocked up” and “Preggy” were unheard of.

Does anyone under the age of 30 know what a “brassiere” is? Today everything is shorthand and we say: “Bra”.

Here is another word from my buddies email: “Percolator”, which is sissified now by saying “Coffee maker”. Here we leave the short hand for the sissy stuff.

And so the world revolves, around me, but not like yesterday did. There was more color, more respect, and definitely, more imagination.

Thanks Mike!