Eye on History

By Glen Hancock

The morning club at Joe’s is immersed in a sea of nostalgia these days as the old octogenarians challenge the age of forgetfulness and try to remember what things were like when they were young.

For some of them, it goes back to the early part of the century when responsibilities, amusements and lifestyles were pretty much as they had been during the previous century. Nothing much changed. That would come with the radio, electric lights, the automobile and indoor plumbing, which were innovations not yet available to everyone in the first and second decades of the 20th Century.

Oldsters try to avoid calling their young years “the good old days” as there are many things about living today that they wouldn’t trade for the deprivation of their youth.

But they are good memories.

Kids didn’t have any money – except, perhaps, for a penny for Sunday school collection. When fathers worked in the woods for 12 and 15 cents an hour, there wasn’t much available for luxuries.

Morley Jodry remembers when he would cut up a Sweet Marie or O Henry chocolate bar into five pieces, to be eaten one at a time for five days.

My Uncle Wesley lived in White Rock and he walked to work at the Melanson wood mill, four or five miles away. On Sunday, he courted a girl who lived in Falmouth, even farther away. He didn’t even have a bicycle.

Entertainment was homemade. Skating parties and snow rides in a sled holding 20 persons, pulled by a span of horses were grand events. Ice hockey was a rudimentary sport, played on a pond, using a puck cut from a birch sapling. Shin pads were pulp story magazines.

The few automobiles that existed were put up on blocks in the winter, and those who had to use sleighs, like family doctors, sought the comfort of buffalo robes.

The hoop skirt had gone by the turn of the century, but there was still a place for style. Fur coats were popular with men and women, but only if they could be afforded. Cloth overcoats sold for $10 through the mail order catalogue. Russian buffalo coats cost $25 and a coat made of Norway seal went for $32.50.

Clothes were generally utilitarian and not for style, although even in my little town in the ‘20s, ladies tried to meet physical fashions by affecting silk stockings and jazz garters. The garters were a bit risqué -- worn either below or above the knee -- whichever seemed the most sensuous.

Women’s dresses shortened as the period progressed. Shoes, as they have done through history, changed seasonally, from high heels to broad clumps, as they do today.

Designers have always found it more difficult to influence styles for men, who like their old hats and slippers. However, there was a trade in longjohns, braces and suspenders, socks and trousers, and gaiters and spats. Men and women wore hats. Always. The working man wore a cap, which was instinctively removed when addressing a lady.

Men had a passion for things like cufflinks, pocket watches and fobs, and celluloid collars. The only men (never women) who wore tattoos were sailors. Sometimes they wore a ring in their ear, but never exploited cross cultures by wearing rings in lips and noses (and other unnatural places).

Men’s suits, from the beginning of the century well into the post-war era, were consistently the same. About the only change was the elimination or addition of pant cuffs.

In the 1930s, a standard off-the-rack suit (with two pairs of pants and a vest) cost about $18. Zippers were yet to appear.

The modern culinary laboratory is an array of electrical appliances to make remote cooking feasible. Nevertheless, the old codgers at Joe’s remember the old-fashioned kitchen scene of wonderful scents and smells that came from bread baking in ovens, and from the process of converting fruits, meats and vegetables into tins and jars of winter fare. The family ate at the same time from one menu, and cats and dogs waited patiently for what was left over. Small boys doffed their caps at the table.

A full course meal in a restaurant cost 35 cents. There was only one restaurant in my hometown, but it didn’t matter. Everybody ate at home, or from a lunchpail. We ate dinner (the most substantial meal) at noon and supper was the evening meal. There is still some confusion in country districts over the terms supper and dinner, as ‘lunch’ was never used.

The Old Boys remember when you could to go Boy Scout camp for two weeks for $4, and no insurance was required. Chickens scratched for food in the backyard. They were given crushed clamshells, which helped their gizzards grind their food. I wonder what they do today, with chickens that never see the light of day.

When we were in school, the boys would all stomp their feet in unison, causing the entire floor of the classroom to quiver like a train was passing. What fun!

No one had ever heard the word ‘environment’ or ‘black hole’ or ‘human rights,’ and there was no garbage collection. As there was rarely anything leftover.

We managed to handle tragedies and take reverses in our condition in our stride. A young man’s basic needs were a tin of brilliantine and a comb, as much required then as a water bottle, backpack and cell-phone are required by youth today.