<p>You are going to laugh, but there’s the other thread going on about the Valley Club in suburban Philadelphia - and that’s actually the source of an extremely positive childhood memory for me. Remember the song “Kodachrome” by Paul Simon? That song takes me back to being a young girl jumping off the diving board at the Valley Club with my best friend on beautiful, endless summer days. I don’t know why just that song, but it does.</p>
<p>At one point during my childhood we lived with my grandparents, and my grandfather worked a factory job and left for his shift at something like 4 am. He would write a little note for me every single day and leave it on the kitchen table. His characteristic was that he would play with my first and middle names and create a new nickname for me every day (for example, this isn’t my name, but if my name were Mary Jane, one day the note would be addressed to M.J., another day to M. Janie, and so forth). </p>
<p>Another fond memory I’ll always have (after we moved out of their house) is that my grandfather would dress up in a Halloween costume and come to our house as a trick or treater after my sister and I had returned from our TOT-ing. We would squeal when we saw this 6’1" tall TOT’er and “reveal” him as our grandfather.</p>
<p>My parents lived in another city when my kids were younger so they weren’t able to regularly recreate what my grandfather did, but they once drove 300 miles – in costume – to show up on Halloween!</p>
<p>I also remember when my grandfather turned 50, taking 50 pennies, carefully cleaning them with vinegar and pasting them on a piece of construction paper, and giving that to him as my gift. He promptly hung it on the wall and treasured it as if it had been a Monet. I carried that tradition on as well by having my kids do something similar for my mother’s 55th birthday, and I know she appreciated it.</p>
<p>Great thread! Love hearing all your stories.</p>
<p>My mom made pie crust cookies too! They were very popular in our family and each person only got a couple at each baking day. Once she made me a whole plate of them as a birthday present because I loved them so much. She made great gingerbread men cookies too.</p>
<p>My family was very food-oriented. My theory is that my father didn’t quite get enough to eat during the Depression and was always making up for that. He was quite a cook too and made wonderful homemade soups, chili, and the best barbequed chicken in town. He also bought all the groceries on Saturdays, including fresh vegetables and fruit from the big farmer’s market, and then made hamburgers for dinner on Sat. nights. He used to make us a nice treat at night sometimes, toasted English muffins with peanut butter and chopped walnuts on top.</p>
<p>We used to visit his parents on their farm several times a summer and that was just an eat-o-rama. We always stopped in a small town on the way with some wonderful food shops: a German sausage and cheese shop and fresh bread in big round loaves with flour on top. We were also allowed to pick out one item of candy each at this store: chocolate “wooden” shoes from Holland or a package of old-fashioned candy sticks in exotic flavors. Then we drove on to the farm and had the best meals with sausage, bacon, bread, and fresh corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes from Grandpa’s garden. Gram always had homemade date cookies for us too. And then you could stretch your very own candy treat out over the whole weekend. What nice memories…I’ve often thought that you couldn’t order up a better place to visit your grandparents (sweet old farmhouse, huge barn, pony, cows, woods, stream, cousins).</p>
<p>This sounds awful now, but my twin sister, my best friend, and I used to eat this daily. We would take potato chips with air bubbles in them, and fill the bubbles with cherry pop (yes it’s pop, I’m from Buffalo originally) and eat them. Especially good with Empress tuna, also eaten on chips. I think Empress is gone now. Costco’s tuna will do.</p>
<p>When I was a little kid, we played hard outside all day long in the hot summers, and I was barefoot all summer long.</p>
<p>Sometimes I stayed overnight at my grandmother’s house. Every night when I stayed at grandma’s, she would bring a cool washcloth in at bedtime and wipe off my hot little face, hands and feet. It felt so soothing and wonderful, it helped me drift right off to sleep.</p>
<p>Years later, when I mentioned this terrific memory to mom, she laughed. When I asked why, she said grandma was wiping the dirt off my hands and feet so I wouldn’t get her sheets filthy, not to help me sleep.</p>
<p>Pie crust cookies? “Bumblebees”? We called them Dough-gies…I’ve never spelled it before! It is pronounced Doh-geez. YUM! My mom makes the BEST pie crust…we even liked to steal pieces of raw dough for snacking…a trick even my D learned when she was small.</p>
<p>My dad’s specialty was Iced Tea…big pitchers of it, with LOTS of ice, sugar, and some mint…</p>
<p>My dad would take me to the seafood takeout stands in MA and I would watch the workers make fried clams with bellies and other fried seafood by mixing them in the batter and frying them. Back then seafood was reasonably priced. </p>
<p>Sometimes he would come home late with three or four takeout quarts of Chinese food from Chinatown and wake me up. I loved trying the different foods and mixing them up together.</p>
<p>When I was sick in bed as a little kid my mother would bring me “milk toast”. Very simply it was 3 pieces of buttered white toast cut into cubes then placed in a bowl with heated milk poured over it. To this day the thought of it makes me feel instantly warm and comfy! Truly delicious!</p>
<p>When I was about 8 or 9 I slept over my best friends house on the night of the televised “1st walk on the moon”. We were sent to bed at 8pm or so and then awakened at around midnight to watch the big event while being served orange floats. orange soda with a scoop of vanilla ice cream floating at the top. I thought it was the most exciting night ever. And of course ice cream floats still make me think of “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”!</p>
<p>For me, it was going on long Sunday drives around Oahu where I spent my childhood. We would stop at the bakery for moon cakes and hot malasadas (hawaiian doughnuts). Our family left the island when my dad retired (I was 10.) I’ve returned 3 times since then and have found myself seeking out these special treats and haven’t been disappointed!</p>
<p>Waffles, absolutely. With ice cream and warm maple syrup, the real kind. I’m so glad you said it, I’d forgotten. It was a huge family favorite but my H and kids aren’t into it. Also, from scratch chocolate pudding…when well made, and my mother’s was, it is heaven.</p>
<p>Okay, I grew up next door to my grandparents. They had an area with a long row of day lilies, and through the summer I would go over and pick off the dead blooms from the day before. Now, not coincidently, I have my own long row of day lilies, and I often go out and pick off the dead blooms, close my eyes and imagine I’m at my grandparents’.</p>
<p>my grandfather had some farmland and blackberries grew in the pasture. we would take small buckets and go pick the blackberries each year. very hard work but it was fun at the same time. a real adventure.</p>
<p>My Dad worked a lot at night when I was growing up (law enforcement). I was often in bed when he got home.<br>
Sometimes he would randomly buy those long narrow boxes of thin mints and bring them home to me. I would find them in the frig. the next day when I got up.
Those cold thin mints were a heavenly treat during the summer in an unairconditoned house in the south. </p>
<p>My Dad died when I was in sixth grade.
I still love mint chocolate in any form. Mint Choc. Chip ice cream will always be my fave.</p>