Every June, my parents would cart me two hours out of the city to my grandmother’s house. When I would arrive, they would say goodbye and would not return for weeks. This was not neglect. In the 1970s, it was referred to as summer.
No air conditioning, three channels of television, one phone tied to the wall, and a grandmother that thought kids were “solar powered” and therefore should be playing outdoors.
You know what I’m talking about if you were there. If you weren’t, the porch is over here. Here are thirty-three things you only understand if you spent your summers at Grandma’s in the seventies.
Drinking Straight from the Garden Hose
We didn’t need to bring water bottles; a hose was right there. You let it run for a second, then drank water that tasted faintly of rubber and completely of summer. Grandma only asked that we shut the hose off tight when we were done. We survived, and thrived even, and bottled water still seems incomplete to this day.
The Screen Door Had Its Own Soundtrack
Don’t slam the screen door. That thing slammed nearly two hundred times a day. The house emptied and filled just like the tide. That spring-loaded slap was a kind of freedom that was also confined within limits. I would pay for that door to go off just one more time.
Playing Outside Until the Streetlights Came On
There was a single rule, gone all day and home when the lights came on. Nobody knew exactly where we were, and nobody worried much either. We roamed the yards, creeks, and vacant lots like a small tribe. The street light a block away was our only source of time.
Catching Fireflies in a Mason Jar
Grandma brought the jar and punched the lid with her ice pick. It was a lava lamp that you made yourself with a jar of lightning bugs on the nightstand. She had us let them go every night, so they could do their work, and she was quite adamant about that. Somewhere between then and now, I stopped seeing fireflies, and I refuse to investigate whether it is them or me.
The Box Fan Was the Air Conditioning
One box fan blew all night long. We slept with the cross-draft and had to sleep with sheets kicked to the foot of the bed. Talking into the spinning blades turned you into a robot, that was just science. The nights are warm now, and I can still hear that dull hum in my head.
Three Channels and Rabbit Ears
The television had three channels. There were four if a kid stood holding the antenna at the correct angle. Being the antenna was a real job, assigned by seniority. Everybody in the house watched what was on. We had less to watch and I remember it better than anything I streamed last month.
Her Stories Were Sacred Airtime
Weekday afternoons, the television belonged to Grandma and her stories, the soaps she had followed for decades. You got caught up in them if you stayed, and if you did, you couldn’t help but get invested. Every day, Grandma would say, “These people are all liars!” about the soap opera characters. Be forewarned, no calls during the show, everyone knew the phone would ring busy anyways.
The Party Line and the Rotary Phone
There was a single heavy black phone in the hallway, on a line shared with the neighbors. You needed to pick the receiver up gently to check if Mrs. Alvarez was still on. Dialing a seven took a full second and a half. Long distance calls were basically legal disputes. A phone call was an event in its own right. Maybe that is why people finished their sentences.
Penny Candy Was a Financial System
My quarter at the corner store was more complex than the typical transaction, as I had a lot more items to decide between. I picked up wax bottles, candy cigarettes, jawbreakers and bubble gum with comics. The cashier acted just like a bank teller as he waited for us to make our selections. Grandma acted like a payroll department as she handed out quarters in relation to chores. I have managed retirement accounts with less care than I managed that quarter.
Kool-Aid and Tang Were the House Wines
The pitcher of Kool-Aid in Grandma’s fridge was a permanent fixture. Flavor always red. Tang was saved for mornings thanks to the argument winning, space-faring astronauts. Sugar content? Not a problem! The metallic pitcher, the cubes, and the red mustache were a representation of hydration in the seventies.
Aluminum Tumblers That Froze Your Hand
Everyone had a color that was theirs. Woe to the cousin who took your turquoise. Those anodized metal cups turned any drink arctic, and your fingers with it. Each sweated rings onto the porch rail and rang like bells when dropped. Now I own a reproduction set and I can report they still work perfectly.
TV Trays for Special Occasions
Dinner was always at the table, but special nights meant TV trays unfolded in front of the Wonderful World of Disney. Eating in the living room felt like getting away with something. Grandma had opinions about it and allowed it anyway, which is the entire grandparent job description. The trays had a beautiful autumn leaf design that I could still draw from memory.
The Jello Mold Was Considered a Salad
Every get-together included lime jello with fruit cocktail balanced atop lettuce, otherwise known as salad. There was this wacky copper mold of a fish on the kitchen wall, which would make appearances for special occasions. You dutifully ate it, and to tell the truth, it was passable. The seventies definitely had a disjointed interpretation of gelatin, and Grandma was an advocate for it to the end.
Plastic Covers on the Good Furniture
The formal living room had a couch preserved under fitted plastic, waiting for company important enough to unwrap it for. Bare summer legs stuck to that plastic with a sound I can still hear. I never got to see the plastic come off the couch and I now suspect the couch outlived everyone who protected it.
The Avocado Green Everything
These items came in just two singular colors, avocado green or harvest gold: the fridge, stove, phone, and countertops. Grandma’s kitchen was green, with daisy decals on the cabinets, and that palette meant modern once. I get a visit from a ghost when that color palette comes back in design magazines.
S&H Green Stamps Were a Family Project
Groceries came with strips of green stamps, and licking them into books was a job kids fought for. The catalog was studied like the Bible and we saved for the coveted fondue pot. The ultimate prize was a trip to the stamp redemption store. The program strengthened skills like patience and teamwork, and all we got was a lamp we were incredibly proud of.
Sunday Drives to Nowhere
There was no plan after church. Everyone piled into Grandpa’s car to cruise and look at neighbors’ farms and houses. A stop for soft serve was possible but never guaranteed, which kept the suspense alive. Time was cheap, gas was cheaper still, and I’ve never felt as rich as I did then.
The Station Wagon’s Way-Back Seat
Being able to ride with the seat facing backwards in the station wagon was the ultimate path to freedom and the perfect view in America. You could wave to truckers and pump your arms to honk the horn. Seatbelts were non-existent in the back of the wagon. The seats formed a rolling clubhouse that was the best way to view scenic America on a long summer road trip.
Sleeping on the Porch During Heat Waves
The upstairs always got hot so the cousins and I fell asleep on the porch as cordwood next to the crickets. The distant dogs and the adults chatter through their screen door made the safest sound I’ve ever heard. Air conditioning fixed the heat and abolished the porch sleeping, and I still haven’t decided if the trade was worth it.
The Cousin Pile
Summer, and with it all the cousins descended upon Grandma’s, divided by age into sleeping arrangements. We were all fighting by day and defending each other by the bouts of night. No holiday dinner has bonded like those Grandma’s floor pallets did. Group texts are nice, but they do not replace pallets on Grandma’s floor.
Snapping Beans While the Radio Played
You couldn’t just sit on that porch, you’d get handed beans to snap, corn to shuck, and peas to shell. The transistor radio either had the ballgame or country music playing, while the pile went down as the sun did. Chores and leisure were intertwined. Every worry I had at nine got solved by a paper sack of green beans.
The Transistor Radio Under the Pillow
The little radio you used to bring to bed with you played AM radio and Top 40. AM radio stations would come and go with the weather. More often than not you’d fall asleep listening to a baseball game and wake up to static. Every pair of earbuds I’ve bought since have a blood relation to that cheap, plastic earbud. None of them has ever sounded as good.
Hand-Crank Ice Cream Took All Afternoon
The White Mountain freezer used a combination of ice, rock salt, and a hand crank. The crank started easy and finished impossible. Slowly, everyone took their turns. The youngest would sit on the towel at the top to add some weight. Then everyone would wait for what seemed like forever to produce maybe a quart and a half of ice cream. The amount of work put into it made it hands down the best ice cream you could get.
Tomatoes Eaten Like Apples
Grandma’s tomatoes never saw a fridge and barely her kitchen. She would hand you one that was still warm from the sun and you would eat that over the grass, dripping, with a salt shaker. Store tomatoes have spent fifty years failing to reach that standard. Every tomato I plant is an attempt to get back to her garden, and every August I get about ninety percent of the way there.
The Drive-In Double Feature
Pajamas on, station wagon loaded, and the playground under the screen before dusk. The speaker hooked on the glass, and Grandma brought grocery sacks of homemade popcorn because concession prices offended her. You were asleep by the second feature, which was the plan all along. Getting carried inside half asleep, pretending harder than necessary, that was the true feature presentation.
Church Happened No Matter What
You had that routine down to an art on Sunday mornings. You were in your seat, dressed, and ready to go by nine. The fans in the pew racks were an advertisement for the funeral home. At the sermon’s halfway point, a peppermint appeared from her purse, timed like clockwork. I did not see the significance then in the distribution of peppermints, and I run the same system from my purse today.
The Encyclopedia Settled All Arguments
With the World Book Encyclopedia set in the den, the internet was A through Z at the time, in a cream and green binding. Any argument, “How Far is the Moon,” or “Do Snakes Hear,” got settled by the volume with the right letter. Searching required some manual labor so we remembered the information. We knew less then, but what we knew, we knew all the way.
Fly Strips and the Swatter
The spiral fly strip hung from the kitchen ceiling, doing its horrible work all summer. The swatter hung on its nail, and Grandma could wield it mid-sentence without breaking conversation. The screens defended the house against most of the attack, but summer was siege warfare. Nobody mentioned it, it was the cost of July.
The Percolator Started the Day
You woke to the percolator burbling and the smell of coffee reaching up the stairs. Grandma had been up for an hour, the first load of wash already on the line. The coffee was for grown-ups, but the smell belonged to everyone. Drip machines supposedly make better coffee, but no morning since has announced itself so well.
Going to Bed While It Was Still Light Out
Summer bedtimes took place while the big kids were still outside, leaving me to lay in my bedroom angry as the world continued outside. Birds argued, the screen door slapped, and the adults laughed low on the porch. It was the gentlest injustice of my entire childhood, and I sleep worse now in perfect darkness.
Running Errands Meant Riding in the Truck Bed
Riding in the open bed of the pickup on a folded blanket, exposed to the elements and waving at everything, that was the norm on feed store runs. Because Grandpa said to, we held on over the railroad tracks and that was my only safety system. Of course I am legally obligated to be horrified now and of course I am. It was glorious.
The Garden Was Half the Groceries
One of our favorite supper conversation starters was the phrase, go pull six carrots and see if the corn is ready. Our grocery store runs were for flour, sugar, and coffee. The rest was, among other methods, shelling, snapping, and shucking. I always thought we were poor, now I pay for what used to be free from her back door at the farmers market.
Nobody Ever Said I’m Bored Twice
You could only say it once. The second time grandma wrote down beans, weeds, windows, and then you remembered you had an important game down at the creek. Boredom was no longer an issue at Grandma’s house, thanks to her consequences. I have used her system for raising kids with a lot of success, and I am happy to report it has still kept its power.
