The absolute peak of luxury as a child

Another thing I always thought was the height luxury when I was a kid, was my friends or relatives fridges which were full of food..or cupboards with many packets and tins..

Our fridge only ever held milk and margarine... and there was never more than a can of peas or a packet of Kraft Mac & cheese in the cupboards..

jujube said:

Or go to the movies and sit through two features, newsreel, cartoons, etc. And maybe watch the first feature again.

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In high school on one of those rare PD days, a friend and I went to two movies in the afternoon. I was grounded for that. What an uptight household.

Jazzy1 said:

I wasn’t allowed to eat sugary cereal so, the Kellogg’s Variety Fun Pack, six or eight little boxes of sugary goodness, was a serious luxury in my mind. I still get excited when I see them on the supermarket shelf.

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Those were absolutely gourmet food. I must look and see if they still sell those, not that I’d buy it now.

Jules said:

In high school on one of those rare PD days, a friend and I went to two movies in the afternoon. I was grounded for that. What an uptight household.


Those were absolutely gourmet food. I must look and see if they still sell those, not that I’d buy it now.

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they do sell them still.... Like @Jazzy I use to wish we could have those too.... instead of the cornflakes that we always got.....

They are still very available in the stores today... not that I would buy them now...

Eating dinner (maybe ever TV dinners) in the living room on metal folding TV trays in front of the TV.

I though that would be the height of modern living, but it would never happen at my house. We didn't  need TV trays, because my mother wouldn't have permitted eating in the living room. Occasionally we were allowed popcorn for Ed Sullivan or Sing Along With Mitch, but dinner? No way! TV dinners? Perish the thought!

hollydolly said:

Another thing I always thought was the height luxury when I was a kid, was my friends or relatives fridges which were full of food..or cupboards with many packets and tins..

Our fridge only ever held milk and margarine... and there was never more than a can of peas or a packet of Kraft Mac & cheese in the cupboards..

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An advantage of being rural poor is that while one might sometimes be undernourished, or the food available not one's preferred, one is not likely to starve. Both my parents hunted, we all fished (i was baiting my own hook by 4-5 yrs old), we set up crab trap in shallows of Mangrove Islands across the river. We had orange trees in our yard. The downside being that those activities became chores not relaxing/fun. Too many times we knew if we caught nothing it would be oatmeal for supper.

My parents were best shots in the area, and often bagged extras for neighbors having less success, especially if they had more kids. Those with truck farms shared their harvests with us. When a weird outgoing tide (we lived close to delta area where river entered Tampa Bay and the Bay met Gulf) resulted in a flotilla of Blue Claw Crabs covering the fast flowing surface Dad sent us kids out to alert neighbors without riverfront land. Everyone came gathering what they could use in various containers.

When my kids were growing up, at the end of month fridge & cupboards had more empty space. But by time boys were out of the house and daughter a teen i was making a decent income and they stayed stocked. Yet to this day both DD and i have a feeling satisfaction when we're trying to fit things in on grocery day and we stock up on non-perishables and long shelf life foods, just in case.

jujube said:

Eating dinner (maybe ever TV dinners) in the living room on metal folding TV trays in front of the TV.

I though that would be the height of modern living, but it would never happen at my house. We didn't  need TV trays, because my mother wouldn't have permitted eating in the living room. Occasionally we were allowed popcorn for Ed Sullivan or Sing Along With Mitch, but dinner? No way! TV dinners? Perish the thought!

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ironically we did eat in the livingroom because that's where the dining table was ..... and even tho the food was generally poor quality and little of it.. my mother always insisted the table was set properly .. and we couldn't leave the table without asking 'please may I leave the table''...

We kids would get something like Kraft Mac & cheese... or stew which I hated or canned Campbells meatballs..... while at the other end of the table the Lord & master sat there eating pork chops...

The tv would be on... but woe betide any one of us who looked at it while were eating dinner.. except him... or else we got something thrown at our heads.. and equally he could read the paper at the table but if we did the same.. we were definitely leaving the table bruised.

I can barely remember a dinner where at east one person wasn't sobbing because of him...

Jules said:

In high school on one of those rare PD days, a friend and I went to two movies in the afternoon. I was grounded for that. What an uptight household.


Those were absolutely gourmet food. I must look and see if they still sell those, not that I’d buy it now.

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They sure do. I have one in my cupboard. In the older version, you could open the box, pour in some milk and eat right out of the box.

The absolute height of luxury would have been going on holiday ( vacation )... of course we never did... not even for a wekend.... but when I was 14..my friends' family took me with them for a week to a nerby seaside resort on the west coast of Glasgow...just 40 miles away

They usually spen their weeks' holiday in Spain this was the last 60's.... but this one year they were staycationing, pretty much.. and so they took me with them

I won't spoil this with the story of the toxicity which happened after I returned... but this was the height of luxury for me at age 14...

tlking of fruit on another thread remids me that all fruit except... bananas..which my mother gave us for lunch most days.... were a complete luxury to us...

No fruit other than bananas ever came into our house my mother just couldn't afford it ... we kids would eat backberries which grew at the side of the rail tracks... .. we would get an apple at Halloween and an orange at Christmas.. but that was it

For me the height of luxury would have been to buy a big 20oz bottle of Orange Crush to take on the picnic on the last day of school instead of the little 8oz bottle. I had to pay for my own because my mother said soft drinks were a "waste of money." The last day of school was always a Thursday. Unfortunately, allowance day was Saturday so by the time Thursday rolled around, it wasn't likely that I'd have any money left.

When I was in about the fifth or sixth grade, my older brother and I shared a paper route. We paid our paper bill on Saturday mornings, and what was left was what we got paid. If our customers didn't pay on time, there was no "pay" for us, either, and when we got the paper route, the allowance stopped.

I only remember a time or two when I actually got that big bottle of Orange Crush.

A bicycle wasn't exactly a luxury in our family. It was just understood that when we turned 8, we got a bike.

A radio or a phone in a bedroom? We'd have wondered why one was needed.

Funny thing is that most of the things that y'all felt were luxuries were things that didn't occur to us back then (the war years until the early 50s). We didn't feel deprived because things like private-line telephones (ours was a 12-party line!), freezers, a second car (or even a car at all) were things that older folks had, like our grandparents. That was probably because their own kids had grown up and left home.

I think it was ice cold Pepsi, Kool-Aid, Popsicle or Fudge Cycle couple times a week.
Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing. My 2nd story room and Attic Boy cave were perks.
Open that window to the wind and it was nice for Radio Rock music listening.

Imogene said:

I was pretty much stone country and didn’t know or care if I was missing out on any material things. The pinnacle for me was the spring I turned 12 and my first horse was delivered to our farm.

On a lateral with that, was the colt that sweet mare delivered a year later. I was allowed to keep him, raising and training him under my granddad’s watchful and experienced eye. Sonny stayed with me his entire lifetime. He was 29 and I was 42 when I laid him to rest. We did our share of riding in parades, sliding down power lines, river banks, and digging up the other side.. Sonny was a terrific children’s horse in his teens. I could pile my son and his cousins on Sonny’s back and send them on their way, around the pond in the woods, back to the house. A big deal trail ride for small children

Granddad’s farm, 1965. I was 18, Sonny was five and our journey was just beginning.
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That was what my wife would say, twss
Sonny was her squirrel. Princess was her horse. Mine was Star. Star would run up to me in the middle of the pasture. Apple pieces.
My Dad would have to chase Star all afternoon with the pickup truck. Haha She would like to stay with the Stock Cows herd. Winters &
summers. Star was a tough customer when it came to being in shape. She lived well into her 40's, dad could cuss out that old black bitty.
If she could get that bit spit out she would run for miles+ like a stock car.

My wife was den mother to some Cub Scouts. They watched a moon landing on TV. Someone complained because the TV was black & white.