Fun in the Fifties

In our early married years, when our two daughters were in their young teens, Sunday was family day, and the afternoon was reserved for family fun. Immediately after we returned from church we would head out for lunch: sometimes out in the car to Leicester, where we could buy 6 hotdogs for a dollar at "Hot Dog Annie's" (she was the foul-mouthed proprietor of a little shack on a country road, and we would snicker and cover our mouths when she would utter one of her frequent obscenities) but the hot dogs were delicious as well as cheap. Another choice was Kimball's Dairy for banana splits--so large we needed nothing else for lunch. A third choice (in the Fall): we would stop at Clarkson's corn stand, buy freshly picked corn, rush home and plunge it in boiling water for our lunch.

Lunch over, Dad piled us all in the car--Carol in the back left seat, and Elaine in the back right seat, so no arguing!--and he would drive around the back country roads, with the radio blasting out programs like "The Lone Ranger", "Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons," and best of all, "The Shadow Knows."

Today, Sunday, August 17th, 2008, we (Doug, Erica, Evan and I), went to Kimball's Dairy for ice cream. What used to be a small ice cream stand, has expanded to many buildings and acres, but the banana splits are even larger. The memory is still good, but I couldn't handle one of those banana splits!