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    Those Were the Days
    Those Were the Days
    Those Were the Days
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Those Were the Days

    By Edwin Croyle

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    About this ebook

    A chronicle of growing up in the 1950s in small-town America. Experiences include bicycling, games we played (both summer and winter), description of Thanksgiving Dinner at Grandma's with her coal stove, and playing baseball even when there were not enough players for two teams. Sometimes we played with as few as three players. Of course there are sections on our schools, elementary and high school, and rock and roll. The old swimming hole, part time jobs, and even electric trains get some attention. Come along with the author on a journey to a small town of 200 people and learn or remember how we lived in the 1950s. It was a magical time in a magical place.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEdwin Croyle
    Release dateSep 20, 2018
    ISBN9780463557501
    Those Were the Days
    Author

    Edwin Croyle

    I was born to a loving family in a town of 200 in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1941, grew up there and graduated from Forbes High School in the same small town of Kantner. After graduating from Penn State, I began teaching math and science in Dallastown Public Schools in Dallastown, PA. The next year my sweetheart and I got married in a double wedding with her twin sister and her fiance, and then took an eight-week camping honeymoon across the USA with Norma's sister and new husband (separate tents of course). After a few years I became a counselor and moved to York Campus of Penn State. My brother-in-law and I became interested in the potato chip business, and we started Saguaro Potato Chip Co. in Tucson, AZ. Our customers didn't do as good a job as we did, so we exited the chip business and re-entered education, leading to my position of business manager of Vail School District just outside Tucson. Within a few years the principal of Grace Christian School asked me to join the staff, and I agreed. I was math/science teacher and business manager until I got the bright idea to go into the photography business full time. Once again, the customers didn't do their part. After Norma retired from teaching, God called us into a ministry to people in campgrounds, Creation Beckons, and we have been in pursuit of doing that full time since then. In the midst of all this, God blessed Norma and me with three great blessings, our three sons, Tim, Brian, and Jason. Their presence in our lives is a larger blessing than I could have ever imagined, and they have brought three beautiful ladies, Michelle, Adrienne, and Danielle into this family with no daughters. Our latest blessings are seven grandchildren, Josh, Megan, Emily, Jonathan, Benjamin, Haley, and Noah. I never really understood how each of us could be God's favorite until I had grandchildren, but now I understand because I experience the same feeling that each one of my grandchildren is my favorite. Throughout my life I have enjoyed putting thoughts to paper, and when I began receiving inspirations from God, I began writing devotionals on many different topics. I hope you will enjoy the ones included here. God bless you with His best!

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      Book preview

      Those Were the Days - Edwin Croyle

      Those Were the Days

      by

      Edwin Croyle

      Copyright 2018

      Cover Design by Edwin Croyle

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment. It may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this ebook, please purchase an additional copy.

      Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Table of Contents

      Remembrances

      Magical Time--Magical Place

      Pappy's New Car

      Kantner E.U.B. Church

      Fishing with Daddy

      Boy Scouts

      Potter County

      Games We Played

      Winter Games We Played

      Red Skelton and Walt Disney

      Baseball

      Running from the Bulls

      Those Who Served

      Stoystown Pioneers

      Pittsburgh Pirates

      Baseball Cards

      Bicycles

      Lionel, American Flyer, or Marx

      Christmas Memories

      Doing the Dishes

      1950s Cars

      Thanksgiving Dinner, Christmas Dinner, and Grandma's Coal Stove

      Lohr Feed and Implement

      Newberry's

      2-18

      Our School

      Rock and Roll

      Three Friends

      Silly Rhymes

      Do You Remember?

      And Now, Many Years Later

      End Notes

      Magical Time -- Magical Place

      The time was the 1950s, and the place was small town, USA. Actually, the small town was Kantner, PA, with a population of 200. I know the population was 200 because I counted everybody several times during the decade of the 1950s. There was a little fluctuation, but not much. A one-mile bike ride from Kantner was Stoystown, population about 450. Hooversville was only five miles away and had about 1200 people. I once had a friend in junior high school who, trying to impress me, said, You can't get me lost in Hooversville. Being from Kantner, I was impressed. You see I wasn't sure I could find my way around Stoystown.

      A trip outside the immediate area, certainly not a bicycle trip, was a ten mile ride to Somerset. Now we were getting into the big time. Somerset had a courthouse, an armory, a hospital, and several shopping stores grouped around the diamond. The diamond was the biggest intersection I had ever seen. It actually had four traffic lights. The center of the diamond between the four traffic lights always seemed to be a sort of free for-all demolition derby to me, but by the time I was sixteen, I had learned how to negotiate it in my father's car.

      At Christmas time at least one of the stores would have a window featuring electric trains, particularly Lionel electric trains. The kids from the movie, A Christmas Story had nothing over on us as we slobbered all over those store windows. Somerset, with its population of about 6000, was big time, but even more impressive was Johnstown, a twenty-mile drive away. We seldom went to Johnstown; Somerset met our needs, but the sophisticated kids from Hooversville preferred Johnstown with its population of about 60,000. That was beyond our comprehension, but every so often a journey was made to Johnstown for school shopping. Johnstown didn't have a diamond. It had a square park in the center of downtown with the streets and four stoplights around the square. Most of the stores faced on the square, but I think I remember going down some side streets to get to additional stores.

      One memorable trip to Johnstown involved one of the traffic signals and a neighbor lady who drove my mother and me to Johnstown. One of the lights turned yellow as we entered the intersection, and our driver obediently stopped. Unfortunately, she had stopped too late, and we were in the middle of the intersection. A policeman walked over, and with a smile (grin) on his face, said, It's okay you can go on through. After we got through that intersection, we stayed clear of the square for the rest of the day.

      In our magical town of Kantner, everybody knew everybody. We didn't necessarily like everybody, but we did know everybody. The central place to play in town was Wirbick's yard. At least we called it Wirbick's yard. It was a fairly large flat open space beside the Wirbick's house, with grass that somebody mowed. Most days found anywhere from three to eight kids gathered there playing some sort of game from baseball to tag to strawberry drop to hide and go seek.

      Just outside Kantner were several junk yards with acres and mounds of wrecked and worn-out cars. It was, and still is, a big business in the area. I can tell you that the stories about nasty junk yard dogs are true. Fortunately, the dogs were most often kept chained, but they did keep a watch on anyone who entered their domain. The clanking of the chain was enough to frighten most people. I'm sure the bark, the look, and the charge to

      have an inexpensive choice for the various parts my 1951 Chevy needed. I was a good enough customer that the dog got to know me, and just gave me a Yeah, I know you look, but He still didn't completely trust me.

      Unlike the movie A River Runs Through it, Kantner didn't have a river, but we did have an awkwardly named stream, Stoneycreek River. A major national highway, the Lincoln Highway, and the railroad both ran through town, and we were surrounded by strip mines. The strip mines became good places to pick berries and a good place for us young boys to start mini landslides and to throw rocks to our hearts' content.

      I've heard that those of us who grew up in the 1950s were repressed. Repressed we may have been, but we did have fun, and I think we grew up pretty normal, whatever normal is.

      Back to Top

      Pappys New Car

      Okay, this didn't really happen in the 1950s, but it's a treasured childhood memory. I remember Pappy's new car. Pappy was my mother's father. I don't know how we came to call him Pappy, but it fit. Pappy bought a brand new 1949 Chevy. Long and black, the style was called Fleetline, and it had four doors. Sitting in the showroom of the Windber Chevy dealership while Pappy was settling the details wasn't all that boring for an eight year old. I looked at all the cars wondering which one was Pappy's. Well, it wasn't any of those. It was in the back being prepared for him. It looked new and it smelled new. I sat on the front seat beside Pappy on the way home, feeling really proud to be riding in a brand new car. I could sit anywhere on the front seat I wanted. I could sit up at the edge of the seat or I could sit back against the back of the seat. There was no seat belt to force me into the proper seating position.

      I also remember Pappy letting me sit on his lap and steer the car. Grandma and Pappy lived next door to us along a one and a half lane road that ran out of macadam just at Pappy's house where the surface became red dog. The red dog, mentioned elsewhere in these pages, was a type of rock (red) that kept the road from becoming muddy when it rained. One day Pappy sat me on his lap and let me steer the car on the road to his house. I did keep it out of the ditch on one side and out of people's yards on the other side, but if the tires had been paint brushes, they would have left some pretty squiggly lines going up the road. Fortunately, no one was coming the other way while we wound our way to Pappy's house.

      I remember one other ride in Pappy's new car. One day he said, Let's go for a ride. I was always ready for that, so I got in. He told me to look at the odometer. It showed 5999.0. It was about to turn over to six thousand! I had missed all the other thousand mile turn-overs. We drove, or rather Pappy drove over town and back. (It was a small town.) Just before we pulled into his driveway, the odometer showed 6000.0. I don't think my eyes moved from the odometer the whole time it went from 5999.9 to 6000.0. It may not sound very exciting now, but I was thrilled at the time. I couldn't wait to tell my mother and daddy and sister about it.

      One day Pappy and I were coming back from a trip to Somerset. Route 53, the road between Stoystown and Somerset was a well used two lane macadam road. As we were driving, several young guys flew by us, swerved back into the right lane and disappeared around a turn. Several miles later we saw them sitting beside the road with their hood up. Pappy stopped behind them, and we got out and walked up to them. I thought he was going to offer to help them. Instead, he let them have what for concerning their fast driving that endangered others on the road. Maybe it was because Pappy was tall. Maybe it was because he looked like he would not accept any back-talk, but they just stood there and took it. We got back in Pappy's car and drove off. Yes, it was a different time and a different place.

      Pappy was very protective of his

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