The absolute peak of luxury as a child

As a child, staying home, playing hooky, pretending I was sick so I could leisurely watch King Kong, One Touch of Venus, or Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and then have my mother all to myself till my sister got home from school. My sister called me "hooky player." Thinking now how I got away with it so often. I know my mother saw what I was watching on the TV. Couldn't she put two & two together?
 

Pepper said:
As a child, staying home, playing hooky, pretending I was sick so I could leisurely watch King Kong, One Touch of Venus, or Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and then have my mother all to myself till my sister got home from school. My sister called me "hooky player." Thinking now how I got away with it so often. I know my mother saw what I was watching on the TV. Couldn't she put two & two together?
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I am laughing here...cuz I don't think you've changed... :sneaky::ROFLMAO:
 
911 said:
I don’t know what it is about having a bike back in the day, but to a boy, having a bike was everything.
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Not just boys. While i was a kid in the 50s my hand me down bike meant freedom, of course i also sometimes went to store for Mom. And wowed the kids who thought i was just a nerd because of how much (and what) i read by doing stunts on it. When they thought they were cool for riding a with no hands i would stand on the seat with arms spread for a few yards. Never fell. But then i'd been doing various acrobatics for years.
 
Pepper said:
As a child, staying home, playing hooky, pretending I was sick so I could leisurely watch King Kong, One Touch of Venus, or Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and then have my mother all to myself till my sister got home from school. My sister called me "hooky player." Thinking now how I got away with it so often. I know my mother saw what I was watching on the TV. Couldn't she put two & two together?
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I'd play the "too sick to go to church" ploy occasionally. But it would backfire, as mom would say "If you're too sick to go to church, you're too sick to go out and play after lunch. Go back to bed." Darn.
 
Gark said:
As a 7-year old that never ever encountered air conditioning, in the hot sweaty summer the parks & recreation system offered a 1-hour ride on a passenger train for 25 cents. It was air conditioned - in 1959 - I could not comprehend how absolutely comfortable dry cool air was!!
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Or go to the movies and sit through two features, newsreel, cartoons, etc. And maybe watch the first feature again.

One admission was good for the whole day, if you wanted to just stay there.

Nice cool airconditioning.
 
Pepper said:
As a child, staying home, playing hooky, pretending I was sick so I could leisurely watch King Kong, One Touch of Venus, or Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and then have my mother all to myself till my sister got home from school. My sister called me "hooky player." Thinking now how I got away with it so often. I know my mother saw what I was watching on the TV. Couldn't she put two & two together?
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I tended to read more than watch TV when i played hooky. In HS in NJ i got away with it because sophomore year a teacher busted me for wearing jeans under my dress on a snowy day. I'd double timed to girl's room and took them off since we weren't allowed to wear pants in school, but he was waiting outside and i got detention. My Mom was mad. She told them "Fine, i don't want any complaints about her being out sick." And told me, "Just don't exceed the maximum to be able to go to next grade."

I kept track and never did. When she was working Day shift the deal was i'd call her if i woke up 'sick' and she'd call school.
 
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911 said:
My parents were good providers for me and my sister. Our home was nicely furnished and I had a clock radio in my bedroom, which I thought was a big deal back then.
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Same was true for me. We had a big house and more than enough of everything.

Built-in pools were rare when I grew up on the east coast, so while I thought they were luxuries, I can't say I coveted them. Same was true about country club memberships.
 
My parents bought a brand new fridge in 1940. It would make ice cubes in a tray, but ice cream would melt. We didn't have frozen food back then.
There were 6 houses on our block, 3 had phones and 3 had cars. We were the only house that had both.
I was 19 when we got our first B&W TV in 1953.
Our phone did not have a dial, you picked it up and told the operator the number you wanted. We didn't have area codes either.
 
Manatee said:
My parents bought a brand new fridge in 1940. It would make ice cubes in a tray, but ice cream would melt. We didn't have frozen food back then.
There were 6 houses on our block, 3 had phones and 3 had cars. We were the only house that had both.
I was 19 when we got our first B&W TV in 1953.
Our phone did not have a dial, you picked it up and told the operator the number you wanted. We didn't have area codes either.
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you must be exactly the same age as my mum would have been.. she was 21 in 1955
 
Manatee said:
My parents bought a brand new fridge in 1940. It would make ice cubes in a tray, but ice cream would melt. We didn't have frozen food back then.
There were 6 houses on our block, 3 had phones and 3 had cars. We were the only house that had both.
I was 19 when we got our first B&W TV in 1953.
Our phone did not have a dial, you picked it up and told the operator the number you wanted. We didn't have area codes either.
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We got our TV that same year. I was 16. Our phone number was 140.
 
StarSong said:
Same was true for me. We had a big house and more than enough of everything.

Built-in pools were rare when I grew up on the east coast, so while I thought they were luxuries, I can't say I coveted them. Same was true about country club memberships.
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I hope no one misunderstood that our family had luxuries because I wouldn’t go so far as to make that statement. The only luxury I can think of was when dad had central air conditioning installed when I was 12. My sister and I had the necessary essentials for the time period it was and maybe a little more. I think my sister received more Christmas presents than I did and I made that comment to my mom and she told me that girls require more than boys and although I accepted her answer, I didn’t quite understand it.

We did have 2 cars, but my mom stopped driving after she was involved in an accident that traumatized her. For weeks after her accident, she walked around the house like she was in a fog. Dad told my sister and I not to put any stress on her. It may have taken a month or so until she started acting like she did before the accident. We never spoke about the accident after that. We went back to having only 1 car. Mom and dad did have a phone and TV in their bedroom. My sister got a phone and had her own line when she turned 15, but I never did and didn’t want one.
 
911 said:
I hope no one misunderstood that our family had luxuries because I wouldn’t go so far as to make that statement. The only luxury I can think of was when dad had central air conditioning installed when I was 12. My sister and I had the necessary essentials for the time period it was and maybe a little more. I think my sister received more Christmas presents than I did and I made that comment to my mom and she told me that girls require more than boys and although I accepted her answer, I didn’t quite understand it.

We did have 2 cars, but my mom stopped driving after she was involved in an accident that traumatized her. For weeks after her accident, she walked around the house like she was in a fog. Dad told my sister and I not to put any stress on her. It may have taken a month or so until she started acting like she did before the accident. We never spoke about the accident after that. We went back to having only 1 car. Mom and dad did have a phone and TV in their bedroom. My sister got a phone and had her own line when she turned 15, but I never did and didn’t want one.
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I think the lesson in this thread if not the point of the question is that 'luxuries' are relative, subjective. Several of us didn't think about it as kids, but each of us who didn't had different reasons.

EDIT/Addition:
A couple of times i wrote lengthy responses on this thread that i never posted. If i even compare my own first decade of life to those of my 3 (half) sisters my childhood was idyllic despite and partly because we were rural poor. It gave me the skills and foundation to survive the second decade and my own bad choices in later ones.
 
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hollydolly said:
WoW that would have been unthinkable in my house.. in fact in everybody's house that I knew who had phones.. even the richer ones....

Phones when I was growing up, were very much a family object placed in the hallway... or the foyer... and kids were strictly monitored using them

I remember after I got married, and the first time I was able to have a phone not only in the livingroom instead of the hallway but in the bedroom as well.. I thought I'd finally come of age...

I've had a fascination with phones ever since.. and have a substantal Vintage collection
:D
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I had a phone in my room as a teenager, but it was just an extension of the house phone. My parents did that because they were sick of answering the phone and then opening the door and yelling upstairs for me to come because most of the phone calls were for me. That way I could answer the phone myself and I think it cost them a dollar more a month.
 
911 said:
I hope no one misunderstood that our family had luxuries because I wouldn’t go so far as to make that statement. The only luxury I can think of was when dad had central air conditioning installed when I was 12. My sister and I had the necessary essentials for the time period it was and maybe a little more. I think my sister received more Christmas presents than I did and I made that comment to my mom and she told me that girls require more than boys and although I accepted her answer, I didn’t quite understand it.

We did have 2 cars, but my mom stopped driving after she was involved in an accident that traumatized her. For weeks after her accident, she walked around the house like she was in a fog. Dad told my sister and I not to put any stress on her. It may have taken a month or so until she started acting like she did before the accident. We never spoke about the accident after that. We went back to having only 1 car. Mom and dad did have a phone and TV in their bedroom. My sister got a phone and had her own line when she turned 15, but I never did and didn’t want one.
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Our lives were fairly similar, @911. I was raised between middle and upper middle class. More than enough for the basics and then some, but not "wealthy."

I also had my own phone line, but at 16 and my HS boyfriend paid the bill. That was his way to get around my parents' 5 minute phone call rule. I was working by the time we broke up and then paid it myself. We moved from that home to CA when I was 17, so that ended it. (Those second lines were common enough that the phone directory white pages listed them under the main phone number with the heading "Teen phone.")

My mother became so enamored with the convenience of having a second line that when we moved to the CA house she had a second line put in.

Mom never got the hang of call waiting when that was possible and kept the second line until she went to assisted living.
 
feywon said:
I think the lesson in this thread if not the point of the question is that 'luxuries' are relative, subjective. Several of us didn't think about it as kids, but each of us who didn't had different reasons.

EDIT/Addition:
A couple of times i wrote lengthy responses on this thread that i never posted. If i even compare my own first decade of life to those of my 3 (half) sisters my childhood was idyllic despite and partly because we were rural poor. It gave me the skills and foundation to survive the second decade and my own bad choices in later ones.
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The more I thought about it, I guess your probably right. I didn’t look at my sister having her own phone and telephone line as a luxury, but possibly others did. The same would be true for us having 2 cars until mom gave up driving after her accident. I think she was traumatized by it. It all depends what eyes we are looking through to see things.
 
hawkdon said:
Our luxury as kids was when my middle bro home from the
navy on leave, went down to Indy and bought us a New Tv,
black/white of course, only 2nd private owned tv in our little
town. Sure had a lot of visitors after that got put in!!!
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The first tv i ever saw in anyone's home was a neighbor's when i was about 7. They lived right across the road from us,an elderly couple who were 'snowbirds' only in Florida while winter raged in their home state. We watched their property when they weren't there, keeping the yard clean and my folks helped them with things like car repair, dead tree removal when they were there.

The Mrs. acted much like a substitute grandma, baking cookies for us. And having me over to watch the 'Wonderful World of Disney' (My sisters were teens then and usually not interested. It was one of the first color TVs on the market and i have a vivid memory of watching the fireworks opening of that show. As well as my first nature documentaries.
 

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