The Streetcars, Part 2

The crowding of the streetcar at rush hour time was something you did not want to look forward to.
If you lived far away from downtown you could usually get an early morning seat, but the closer you  were to your  desination, the more crowded the trolley became.  Sometimes it was standing room only. When the car came to a jerky stop, you would be knocked a little off balance, and try to hold on even tighter to the strap above your head or the pole infront of you.

Usually, if you went shopping downtown, you and your packages boarded the street car for home. The chances for finding a seat and resting the packages on your lap were almost impossible if it was 'rush hour time'.  If you stood, you had packages in one arm and the other arm was holding onto the strap or  the steel poles.  Sometimes a kindly person sitting in front of  you would ask if they could hold your packages for you?

If you were fortunate to see an acquaintance you knew; you engaged them in conversation and before you knew it, the time passed so quickly; the next stop coming up was yours.

The floor of the cars reminded me of  treadmill floors.  Some of the seats had cushioning. Later on, the seats were not always so comfortable.  There were spaces for advertising around the upper perimeter of the car which city merchants used to promote their products.

The streetcars were so convenient for the average person to use. During the holidays you could ride down town to look at the beautiful displays in the department store windows.  If you had to visit someone in the hospital;you hopped a streetcar and departed at a stop near the hosptial.  There were the County Fairs and people took advantage of the streetcars to get them there. You didn't have to worry about parking your car and walking some distance to get to fairs and holiday shopping.

I think Streetcars were a great way to travel.  You had time to reflect while you were riding.  Many people got caught up on their reading while riding to and from work. Neighbors and friends chatted with each other. Some of us had a chance to get caught up on our sleep!  

There are many streetcar enthusiasts around today who collect  various memorabilia of those wonderful cars of yesteryear.

The Streetcars, Part I

 

 

If you were a child of the 50's and lived in Pittsburgh, you can reminisce with me about the cities wonderful streetcars, and your experience of riding those red and white cars of yesteryear.

 

Streetcars also known as trolleys, were our main source of transportation.  The family car was used for family activities. 

 

In the fifties there were not as many cars on the road as there are today.  For most people, the streetcars were used to travel to and from work.  There were plenty of streetcar stops where you waited to board your ride for your destination.  The stops and tracks would be on be on both sides of the street.  Sometimes it would take almost an hour to get to work, thirty minutes more than by car, because of all the stops the trolley had to make along the way. 

 

The long ride home from work could easily hypnotize you to dozing off into  a light sleep, but I would usually awaken suddenly, almost miraculously, two stops before I had to get off the car.

 

The fee to ride the trolleys was minimal, and affordable.  It sure beat paying for a taxi!  Since the trolleys had tracks all over the city, and sometimes there were tracks that rode to the edges of the suburbs, where the buses would take over transportation.  If you were going across town into another borough, you could purchase a transfer ticket for a small extra fee to transfer to another trolley to continue on to another borough. 

 

In those days trolleys did not have air conditioning.  In the mornings, it was usually a lot cooler than the afternoon. In winter, you could feel the heating surrounding the car’s baseboard, as you stepped up on the platform to enter the car.  It felt so good to come in our of the cold to a warm and toasty car.

 

Saturday and Sunday at the Movies, Part 2

Sunday morning's schedule always included going to church. We would leave the house at 9:30 a.m. , walk the six blocks to church, stopping at the drugstore along the way for a vanilla or chocolate coke.  Arriving at church,we headed to the basement, and changed into our choir robes. We rehearsed our chosen anthem for that Sunday, standing around the piano and then headed upstairs to the back of the church to line up for the walk down the aisle to the sanctuary choir loft as the Sunday service began.

After church, we walked the six blocks back home. This walk, back and forth, from church and home was done in all kinds of weather, season after season.  We didn't really notice the cold or heat because we were always singing and harmonizing church songs, so time flew quickly.

We joined the long line for the Sunday movie, brought our tickets and chose our seats to sit in.  Sometime, for fun, we would sit in the balcony(called Peanut Heaven) behind the front row seats for a change of scenery. The boys down below us  in the floor seats would yell, "Watch out for a nose bleed", because we were seated up higher than the regular audience seats we usually sat in.

Two features usually played on Sundays.  We saw many technicolor musicals.  To us they were magical with their colored costumes and lavish dance numbers.  We would put on plays  in our yards later on during the week, and use the same songs that were in the movie.  If you didn't know all the words, maybe the local drugstore had sheet music of a particular song to help you learn the words and  music?

When the features were coming to an end, the aisles on both sides of the theater were lined up with couples waiting their turn to see the movies.  We knew it was time to go.  Sure enough, the theater clock,on the stage, showed the time was 5:00 p.m.  We left the theater and saw it was dark outside.  We walked back to our homes, singing some of the songs from the movies and commenting on the various costumes.  It was the end of a great weekend.

Saturday and Sunday at the Movies, Part1

Televisions and computers are our main entertainment today.  Practically every family has a tv or computer.  This was not the case for the senior citizen generation of today. Come, see what it was like in the 1950's....

We attended the movie theater practically every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, unless we were sick or grounded for bad behavior at home .Speaking of bad behavior.  Sassing parents or elders was not allowed.  Designated grounding consisted of priviledges being taken away from you like:  no movies, not playing outside for a couple days.  Lord help us if the school sent a note home for "bad behavior", not only did you have truancy (staying after school for punshment) you got extra demerits at home for the school bad behavior. Parents always reminded us to "mind the teacher and do what she tells you".  In some homes if you were late for supper more than once you got offered only a bowl of cereal to eat.  Our folks meant business, they didn't have time to cater to you unless you were sick.

Even back in the fifties women were very busy.  They did not have the household conveniences we have today.  So, even though very few mothers worked outside the home, they spent many hours completing their daily household chores.

Come Saturday morning....If your chores were not done, you could not plan on going to the movies. If no chores were accomplished, you stayed home, hearing the dreaded sentence, "Maybe next week you will remember to have your chores done."

With all tasks completed you were on your way to two hours or more of an escape into a world of the weekly Chapter (or series) which continued every Saturday.  Some theaters even had a Kiddie Talent Show which was on radio the same time it ran live at the theater.  The audience participated in voting for the person with the most talent.  So, in this order was:  The Kiddie Show, 17 Cartoons (with all your favorite looney tune characters), and finally the double feature. 

We brought our lunches with us and maybe some change to buy candy. There always seemed to be a lot of candy wrappers on the floor where eveyone sat.

Around 5:00 P.M. the show ended, we left the theater and headed for home. 

Summers Of The Past, Part 2

Running to the Midway, we headed to our traditional first stop, The Penny Arcade.  The arcade was a building with an old wooden floor, with overhead brightly colored, flashing light bulbs. We had to use"kid power" to operate the various machines ourselves.  Today all the machines are electronic. When we had our fill of games we decided to go to the fun house.

The fun house was anything but fun.  You were always in the dark throughout the walk.  It could be creepy. Stairs that rocked and moved under your feet.  Mirrors where you could appear to be fat or skinny.  Most frightening were three doors that you had to choose from to find your way out of the house.  Of course, my sister and I chose the wrong door and a scarey figure jumped out at us. It was more fun to leave the fun house than to be in it.

It was time for the afternoon  high-wire act.  We stood around the lagoon and watched the act. The boats with the rowers in the lagoon came to a stop.  All our heads were looking up at the graceful trapee artists

The twin roller coasters, called "The Racer" were next on the agenda.  One car was blue and the other green.  You never knew which car would win.  After the excitement we calmed down a little and went our separate ways the rest of the afternoon.  I headed to the Swings.  You could swing in an inidividual seat, accompanied by the music of the nearby merry-go-round. There was nothing like whizzing by, feeling carefree.  It was a pleasant world of make believe.

Evening came too quickly.  Walking past Danceland, we saw the couples, dressed up, waiting in line with their tickets to dance to the dance band, already assembled and playing.

I headed for the silver planes for a ride right next to the evening act that was about to start. It was a repeat of the same act that performed in the afternoon, but somehow seemed more exciting when performed in the darkness of night with the lights surrounding the lagoon.

Another hour to go until the park closed for the day.  Soon it dwindled down to the last half hour before closing.  We helped pack up and made our traditional stop at the concession stand that sold french fries with malted vinegar (no catsup for us).

Fifteen minutes left to go  before our return home  when our street car stopped at the entrance to the park.   The street car pulled up in front of the benches. We stepped on the street car and  found a seat.  While the street car made the turn to leave the park, we waved at the bright lights of the Midway, and breathing a relaxed sigh, closed our eyes and went to sleep for the return trip home

Summers Of The Past, Part 1

I started to think about what summers of the past were like.  My first recall was the grade school picnic at the Amusement Park. Travel was so much different in those days, in the 1950's.   There was very little traffic.  Not everyone owned an automobile. We either walked or rode the street cars to our destinations. To walk a mile a day from school or church wasn't a big deal.


Our grade school picnic was always near the end of June, after school was out. We could hardly sleep the night before because we were restless with excitement and anticipation of the next day.

At around 10:00 a.m everyone would be at the street car stop infront of the school to get ready to load up for the hours ride to the amusement park.  Our mothers and grandmothers each packed a large picnic basket to carry on the streetcar. Most people could not afford to eat out.  We had some money we saved for amusement park snacks.

We loaded onto the special streetcar that was an hours ride away from the amusement park.  What was special about this streetcar was the tracks were switched only once a year for the school picnic.
Off we went, windows open and the breeze blowing in our faces.  Someone would start singing a song and everyone joined in.  (It seems there was a lot of singing in those days)

"What are you going to ride first"?  "I 'm going on the Racer Roller Coaster" - "Haunted House", someone yelled. "Let's ride the horses"!

The clickity-clack of the trolley lulled  us into a hypnotic trance for a few miles.  You could smell the smoke of the steel mills and see the train tracks.  Ahead of us were lots of green trees; the entrance to the park.

The trolley pulled to a stop.  The doors opened and out we went.  It was a short distance to the cafeteria.  We stopped with grandmother and her heavy picnic basket to rest on a park bench.  Then,
we helped carry the basket up the cafeteria steps.  After saying goodbye to our folks, we headed down the steps, out the door, towards the Midway.

Going The Other Way

Did anyone notice that the evenings are getting darker a slight bit earlier?  Yes, our longer days are starting to shorten. Let's see, the ruby-throated hummingbird will start to prepare for her long trek back to crossing the Gulf of Mexico in about six more weeks. In a couple of weeks she will start to double up on her feeding of sugar water.

Summer's heat always seems stifling but we seem to forget it when the colder weather is here. The crickets are singing 'full blast'. I haven't seen too many bees.  Last year there was one caught in the hummer's feed and I got stung cleaning it out!  This time of the year there is always a summer breeze blowing. I always think of the 'trade winds'.

TV is a little boring without the regular programs, but surfing the channels lets you view some good nature programs you may have missed the first time around.

I cannot wait until October.  Last year I was amazed by the 'Harvest Moon' shining in my bedroom window.  I hope I have a repeat performance. It reminds me of the movie, "Moonstruck". The brightness was overwhelming!

The dogs are enjoying the outdoors and the birds do not even seem to notice them around. I suppose they are used to seeing them.  It's just the old regulars coming to the feeders.  Doves, Cardinals,Sparrows, and a family of red-winged blackbirds.  The rest of the blackbirds must have moved on.

One of my neighbors have moved and taken their outdoor cat with them.  Now I have to contend with the bunny eating my flowers.  The cat did a good job of keeping the bunnies away. At least the rabbit cannot get into the window boxes

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