Innholdsfortegnelse for June/July 2021 i Reminisce

My husband, Mark, and I met at the University of Toronto as student journalists. We both knew that we would pursue it as a profession. For me, it was because my brothers were reporters, and I so idolized them that I was honored to follow in their footsteps. For Mark, though, it was a calling. He grew up around Boston, and his first job was in eighth grade, delivering The Boston Globe—the morning edition, which meant rising at 5 to meet the delivery truck, folding the papers and packing them in his bag. Just before walking his route, Mark performed the part of his daily ritual that he loved best: He read the newspaper. “I don’t know many paperboys who did that,” his mother, Joyce, told me. For years, neither…

Soul food’s roots are entwined with southern cooking—they share ingredients and handed-down techniques. Black people leaving the South took along the cuisine and as the civil rights movement grew, soul food came into common use, per Merriam-Webster (page 12), connecting them to their unique heritage. Soul also applied to music, brothers and sisters. Zephyr Wright, expert soul food cook and the Lyndon B. Johnson family’s private chef, told the president of her experiences with segregation. LBJ used these firsthand accounts to gain support for the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Answers FIND HATTIE’S HATPIN Hattie has lost a hatpin in this issue! If you find it, tell us at reminisce.com/hatpin. We’ll randomly select winners to receive a year’s subscription to Reminisce. In the April/May issue, we hid the hatpin on the…

Across the front of the sweatshirt I held up to show my husband, Don, was the phrase “Grandpa: The Man, The Myth, The Legend.” “Will Dad wear this?” I asked. “Probably not,” he said. I knew Don was right. My dad, Bruce Musterman, was way too humble to wear anything like that, despite his celebrated status in our family. He was the fix-it man, able to repair anything: the leaky hot water tank, the washing machine that refused to spin and the car air conditioner that blew hot air. WAS THE CHURCH HAVING PLUMBING PROBLEMS? CALL BRUCE! When I was 5, I got a Chatty Cathy doll, a 1960s miracle of toy technology. Everywhere I went, Cathy went, too, until she was no longer chatty. I was devastated. But I…

After the war ended in 1945, the Allies began a military occupation of Japan, which lasted until 1952. I was part of the forces stationed there, serving in the U.S. Army in Kobe. I worked at a medical supply warehouse that employed several Japanese workers. One of our tasks was flying medical supplies to areas that had been devastated by the war, such as Iwo Jima, Guam, Okinawa, Korea and the Philippines. Brig. Gen. Robert W. Crichlow, who was in charge of Kobe Base, ordered me to personally deliver supplies to Seoul, Korea, on a fighter plane. I still have the original orders issued by General Crichlow for the assignment. While in Japan, I saw Mount Fuji and also took a day trip to Nagasaki, the site of the second…

McAlester, OK Carriers aim to get the newspaper delivered on time—and smack on the porch. WE LIVED IN A delightful town, Shell Beach, in San Luis Obispo County on the central California coast. Mom and Dad bought their first home and paid $60 a month on the mortgage. I don’t know why I should remember that, except in the early ’60s it was a large payment for them. They didn’t need my financial help, but seeing them committed to their obligation instilled in me a good work ethic. I signed up for Little League, but then I heard about a chance to deliver the newspaper. For me, it wasn’t a hard decision. I was a klutz at sports with little hope of improving. I chose to become a paperboy. The…

Mobile, AL EACH DAY’S PAPER had a different thickness, so you had to master several folding techniques. A thin paper needed a three-fold or rolled style; a thicker daily, a halffold. Sundays—thickest of all—needed two rubber bands. With your papers in a bag on the handlebars (and in a second bag on the back fender on Sundays), you threw with one hand and steered with the other. You had to use both hands to reach the two sides of the street. Every paperboy developed great skill at hitting the porch with either hand.…

Buffalo, MN WHEN OUR FAMILY of nine moved from Pennsylvania to Indiana in the late 1940s, Dad wanted me, the eldest child at 12, to learn self-sufficiency, so I got a paper route. As far I know, I was the only female carrier delivering the morning Indianapolis Star and the evening News on the city’s east side then. I had an average of 50 customers for three years. I preferred the afternoon deliveries, although it was calming to be out walking at 6 a.m. with so few people and almost no traffic. I was always careful to put the paper where the customer wanted it, and would never think of tossing it! “Once, as a carrier for the Burlington County Times, I won a 24-cup coffee maker; 50 years later,…

Crestline, OH MY DAD’S COUSINS Ruth and Ty Mayer owned one of two newsstands in Crestline. I started delivering papers for them in 1963, when I was 10. I was one of several carriers. We delivered newspapers from the neighboring towns of Mansfield, Galion and Bucyrus, and a few of our customers took the two Columbus newspapers. We started each delivery day folding the papers in the garage on a long counter or side table, standing on wooden soda pop crates to be at the right height. We folded papers in squares, triples or longs, depending on the thickness. I do not recall any carrier reading a paper before folding it. Part of the enjoyment of the job was socializing with the other carriers. On days when the newspapers were…

When Elmer and I realized I was pregnant, I visited a doctor in Inglewood, California. We were living in Santa Monica at the time. Everything was fine at that first visit, but the doctor did ask me if there were twins in my family. I told him no, and he told me not to worry about it. We didn’t worry about it, and I didn’t ever see that doctor again. Elmer’s cousin Harold Alexander was in medical school in Los Angeles. He insisted that I get under the care of his favorite practicing instructor, Dr. Reynolds. It was a long way for us to drive, so the doctor saw me once a month—he said I was doing so well that I didn’t need to come more often. I would pick…

TODDLERS ON A TEAR How to show well-dressed toddlers romping about without mussed up outfits? Draw them! This lively, colorful illustration shows the stretchable qualities of Carter’s knitwear. The artist’s initials, N.P., are at top right, in the square above the little globe. SMOOTH SAILING Though photography dominated most print advertising by 1959, illustration still was used to attract attention to partial-page ads, especially in less desirable placements at the back of a magazine. This imaginative sketch plays on the shoe brand’s promise of a smooth glide for your feet—like a sailboat ride. ADVENTURES IN CANNED FOOD Monarch was the brand name for Reid Murdoch and Co., a major distributor of domestic and imported canned goods to mom-and-pop grocers. Canned goods aren’t exactly the most exciting products. So through the…

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Our cover story, “Thrills By Design,” (page 40) traces the start of amusement parks, including Six Flags Over Texas, which opened in August 1961. Dan McCallum of Henrietta, Texas, offered this special memory. IN THE SUMMERS, MY brother Chris and I would visit our grandparents near Dallas. Our grandfather, Papaw, was retired, but in 1960, he started working again, overseeing the construction of a new amusement park. At 10 and 8, Chris and I could hardly contain our excitement. The next year—a long one with many nights spent dreaming of the wonderful things at the park—we attended the grand opening of Six Flags with Papaw. He walked with us the entire time, telling us things about the park no one else knew. Even now, at 67, I have fond memories…

A regular guy with an infectious sense of fun in a staid gentleman’s game, Arnold Palmer earned fame with a go-for-broke style and showbiz smile. His legion of fans—Arnie’s Army—grew with his stunning come-frombehind win at the U.S. Open in 1960. Going into the final round, tied for 15th and trailing the leader by seven strokes, Palmer birdied six of the first seven holes to erase his deficit. At day’s end, he tossed his visor into the crowd in an act of joy that helped transform golf into a spectator sport. “You can make mistakes when you’re being conservative, so why not go for the hole?” His dad was a club golf pro Born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, to Deacon and Doris Palmer, Arnold learned to play golf at Latrobe Country…

My brother Al, a Boy Scout, got Boys’ Life every month. The July 1967 issue had instructions for building a boat. Dad loved woodworking, and gave the project his OK. Materials acquired, we waited every day for the old man to get home from his job as a dentist so we could work on our boat. We eagerly followed his directions, installing thousands of small brass screws by hand, getting calluses and blisters in the process—it seemed as if we were assembling the Titanic. To Mom’s dismay, we ruined a lot of clothes with marine varnish and paint. We named the craft Li’l Pookie, after our youngest sister’s nickname. We tested its buoyancy in a neighbor’s pool, and then we were ready for a weekend camping trip. We strapped the…

As the family historian, I discovered that my great-greatgrandfather, George Washington Fagan, was born in 1819 in Buckingham County, Virginia. Several facts in my sources point to George’s father being the plantation owner. First, George was taught to read and write. In addition, as a youngster, his primary duty was to keep the “master’s big black boots clean and shiny.” Then, as a young man, he acted as a foreman for the operation of the plantation. Last, he appeared in the 1870 census under the classification “mulatto.” George’s owner was in debt to a plantation owner in Albemarle County. Apparently, as part of an agreement, George and several other slaves were sent to that plantation to work off their owner’s debt. Fortunately for them, the Civil War ended and the…

Myrtle Beach, SC BACK IN 1955, I lived in Eustis, Florida, where my buddy Freddy Pait’s dad, Cecil, ran the local paper routes for the Eustis Lake Region News. Cecil hired me to deliver papers before school. Every day I got up at 3:30 a.m. to pick up my stack of papers at a gas station downtown. My first stop was the hospital, then a few stores and finally about 10 private homes. By 6 a.m. I was back home, where I went straight to bed again to sleep for another hour before school. One morning I jumped up at 6:45 thinking I’d overslept without delivering the papers. I rushed to the gas station in a panic, not realizing until I got there that I’d already done my work that…

Nellysford, VA MY BROTHER MIKEL and I delivered the Waterloo Courier in Dunkerton, Iowa. On collection day, each customer got a 1-by-1½-inch receipt from a large sheet. But the receipts were so small that they wouldn’t tear off neatly. So Mom perforated the sheets by stitching through the lines with her sewing machine. At deposit time, Rusty at the bank would have six fits if the George Washingtons weren’t facing the same way. To this day, I always have my Georges lined up.…

Tustin, CA THIS WAS A SPECIAL TIME in my life. I started as a carrier for The San Bernardino Sun-Telegram when I was 13. I was proud to be named Carrier of the Year in 1957. I sometimes gave my girlfriend a ride on the handlebars as I delivered papers. I also chipped a tooth holding the newspaper bag in my mouth by its metal ring. We earned extra money by going “sub hunting”—selling subscriptions door to door— then used the earnings as points to buy items out of a catalog. I got bongo drums and a transistor radio that way. And I won a badminton set as carrier of the year. Gee whiz, it felt good. I had the power to purchase whatever I chose. My carrier friends and…

From before 1950 until her death in 1967, my grandmother Myrtle Gruber lived on a farm east of Elkhart, Indiana. Bordering her property was a heavily traveled section of highway called Toledo Road. It had a sharp curve that was the site of many accidents. One night in the early 1960s, a car missed the unmarked curve and overturned in the field. Word filtered out that one of Gregory Peck’s sons was involved in the crash, and that he and a friend had been taken to Goshen Hospital—farther away than the larger Elkhart General. We assumed the legendary actor’s press agent managed a news blackout, and guessed that after being released from the hospital, the men were whisked to the airport in South Bend, or even Chicago. We visited Gramma…

Allowances were unheard of in our household of nine in the mountains of East Tennessee. I was 10 in 1952, and interested in a silver airplane like the one my best friend, Bobby, was buying at the five-and-dime. He’d earned a quarter selling eggs. “I take two or three every day from our henhouse, and when I get 12, I sell them to Mr. Walker at his store,” he told me. Bobby’s mom had a passel of hens. My mom, Annabel, kept track of every single egg, so Bobby suggested taking one every couple of days and hiding it. I told my brother Buddy Earl about my plan, and put a shoebox under the henhouse to hold the eggs. A few days after that, I heard Mom talking to Dad.…

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On game days during baseball season, my father, Benjamin Levin, and I sat in the living room listening to our home team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, on the radio. Sometimes we took the long bus ride to Ebbets Field, arriving early to watch batting practice from the outfield. In 1947, when I was 13, we’d been hearing for weeks about a talented young Black player the Dodgers had signed. The team finally announced that Jackie Robinson would play his first major league game on Tuesday, April 15, against the Boston Braves. My father and I were at Ebbets Field that day, along with more than 26,000 other fans. The crowd seemed tentative as Robinson took the field, but I sensed something special was happening. Though he went on to be the…

Yabba dabba doo! Americans gather in front of their TVs on Sept. 30, 1960, to watch the first prime-time animated sitcom. The Flintstones will go on to hold the record for airing the most episodes of any such show, until overtaken by The Simpsons. 1 These two producers, already known for creating Huckleberry Hound, reunite for this show. 2 Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty resemble human characters from this mid-1950s sitcom. 3 Producers considered two other last names before they chose Flintstone: What were they? 4 Finish the line: “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones. They’re the ____________.” 5 What is the name of the prehistoric town where the cartoon is set? 6 Fred works as a bronto-crane operator at what construction company? 7 Who voices the characters of Betty and Barney…

Researching African American ancestors presents difficulties: ■ In their days of bondage, their lives may have been recorded by first names only, or perhaps just by tick marks. ■ Each was considered three-fifths of a person in the U.S. Federal Census and listed in probate records as “property.” ■ At any point families could have been separated. Enslaved people experienced this unthinkable way of life just over 150 years ago. The 1870 census was pivotal for African Americans: The Civil War had ended five years earlier and this census was the first to enumerate them and their households. Young George Washington Fagan was literate and given special responsibilities. His new beginning after he was freed took place in the very county where he was sent to work off his owner’s…

Clintonville, WI AS IS THE CASE with many paper routes, ours started when my brother Randy signed up for a bike route in the late 1960s in our village of Coloma, Wisconsin, to earn some extra cash. However, in our mostly rural area, Randy’s job quickly escalated to a car route that involved the whole family, especially when winter rolled around. Mom was most often tagged as chauffeur, with one of us kids riding shotgun, shooting a folded paper into the box next to the recipient’s mailbox. But as each older kid signed up for driver’s ed, we were drafted for delivery duty. In many ways, it was valuable for practicing driving skills. Starting out, I was still getting the hang of shifting gears on our old Pontiac Catalina station…

New Albany, IN IN THE EARLY 1950s, I had 129 customers on a residential route in Walkerton, Indiana, for the South Bend Tribune, which I delivered in the afternoon during the week and very early in the morning on Sundays. One wintry Sunday we waited, but the papers didn’t arrive at the usual drop-off, a bandstand near the post office. When my father called, he was told the trucks couldn’t get out in the storm. So Dad drove the 20 miles into South Bend to pick up our bundles. We had to load the papers on a sled to hand-deliver them in the storm, but all my customers got their papers by 11 a.m. that day. Customers on other routes had to wait until the next day for their deliveries.…

Toledo, OH I TOOK OVER a Toledo Times morning route in the ’40s that originally had 69 customers but had shrunk to 20. I went to every canceled customer and asked why they’d quit the paper. All said that it came too late to read before work. So I offered a deal: I would deliver the paper by 6 a.m. every day or they didn’t have to pay. The next week I was delivering 69 papers. For as long as I had that route, I was late only once—and all insisted on paying anyway. I liked getting up early. In summer I’d time the start so I was heading into the sunrise. I still enjoy Toledo sunrises.…