Possumblog

What? I'm first today? Extra credit for an early turn-in?

Anyway, I'm playing today. Food and race cars are big factors!

I'm up here --UNFREEZING
that is if new blogger works. If not follow the link on my name.

My turn!

1. With 4 kids my folks rarely took us to a restaurant. We sometimes got take-out. The local chop-suey place had the best fried-rice, and we always placed the order for "Nick" (I still use that name today for take-out). We also had one of the first McDonalds, where you parked your car and ordered from behind a long counter made of small white tile (no seats). We would also pick up pizza (Shakey's?), but it would come in a paper envelope with a piece of cardboard under the pizza. That thing was hot when you first got it, and I had to figure out how to hold it without burning myself and/or dropping it on the car-ride home.

2. We'd ride our bikes downtown (about a mile and a half) and scrape up some money for the penny candy store or just hang out in the bowling alley/game room under the hotel. I wish my youngsters could have something like that today.

3. Every summer my Mom would let each of us bring one friend to Adventureland (small-time amusement park), except my little brother who had to ride the kiddie rides with my Mom (ha ha). I don't think they're open anymore.

I like Nick as a nickname--I may have to start using that, what with 'Oglesby' being right up there with 'Velazquez' in unpronouncability for native Asian-language speakers.

God gives you are real last name not an alias and you complain about it. Also tell the rocket science guy to chime in here—I’m really enjoying the responses and I think all of us feel good remembering these places.

I'm not complaining--I just want to be more easily accessible to speakers of English as a second language.

Well, I grew up in and around the Montgomery area, not all that far from Lakes Martin and Jordan. So, my answers would be:

1) Favorite restaurant: when we did eat out, which was not all that often, we tended to go to Dairy Queen or (sadly now defunct, I guess) the Bonanza steakhouse. I can't say my restaurant choices are all THAT different now, though I have gravitated more to Oriental food as time goes on.

2) Place to spend time, but not money: Definitely swimming on Lake Martin. I'm not sure that is possible now--the lakeshore is very much more developed with residential properties than it was in the 1960's and 1970's.

3) Place to go that DID cost to get into: In my case, it would have been the movies, though we did not go to that many. Probably we went to drive-ins when I was a child more often because it was much less expensive. I know we saw a LOT of Disney flicks at drive-ins (such as "That Darn Cat" and "The Love Bug".)

I only use "Nick" for Chinese take-out food. For other circumstances where they ask for a last name I'll use "Richman", because I am a rich man. If they ask me how to spell it (duh!) I tell them "RICH ... MAN, just like it sounds".

1. To this day I love George Webb's chicken soup. I even wanted it when we went there for breakfast. And you could spin around on the stools (until your parents stopped you).

2. A friend had a nice, covered porch that faced west. Her parents had a glider with padded seats, a couple of tables and a few plants out there. It was fun to sit and read, or play Barbies, or just hang out on. Even then I was a homebody. Growing up in the city had some disadvantages...

3. The local swimming pool was twenty-five cents admission and another quarter to rent a locker for your clothes. A bunch of us would cram all our stuff in one locker, giving us a little extra for an after-swim treat of that horrid (but wonderful at the time) taffy in the pavilion sweet shop.

1. Coles Cafeteria in Bourke Street, Melbourne. You had to walk along about a mile of counter sliding a tray along and picking up what you wanted along the way and then sit up at long tables on fixed steel stools with red glossy vinyl seats. My favourite, banana split, 1/6d.

2. (a) In the trenches dug for new local houses, playing war. The best playground ever, the best game ever. (b) Essendon Aerodrome. You could just walk in. We played around on the old aircraft section where you could just walk into old planes for scrap and pretend to fly them. (c) Railway lines. I walked away from my grandfather's house when I was four and along the Ascot Vale Showgrounds branch line, being careful to look out for trains. They were fraught, borderline hysterical. I remember it like yesterday.

3. Like Diane above. Essendon Baths. I jumped into the deep end before I could swim, giving my parents another heart attack.

Kitchen Hand, you sound like you were quite the handful as a youngster...