Maybe ‘Good Old Days’ weren’t really so good

In these troubled times, us old-timers like to think about the “Good Old Days” and we are primarily thinking of the 1950s and early 1960s when we were growing into adulthood. But on further reflection these might not have been so good after all.

Many of the adults in our neighborhood worked at minimum-wage jobs, which at the time I think was about a dollar an hour, and “sweat shop” was not some abstract figure of speech since many labored under horrible conditions without the benefit of air conditioning.

And we were a segregated community. I shudder to think what it must have been like in the Black neighborhoods when it was tough for us and it must have been tougher for them since they suffered greater than we did.

One day mother noticed a young Black girl digging in our trash. Her name was Alice and she said school was about to start and she didn’t have any clothes. Mother said she had a daughter about the same age and size and she would check to see if she had anything for her. Mother found a couple of dresses for her and this started an annual ritual when we would hear Alice’s soft knock on the back door as she arrived for the clothes that mother had usually set aside for her.

Once Alice showed up with a younger sister but we had nothing for her. Mother fretted all day because we couldn’t find anything for that cute girl.

We never knew Alice’s last name and don’t know what happened in her adulthood but she never fails to be a topic of discussion when our family is talking about the Good Old Days. MARSHALL WADE

Bella Vista