Biography, Autobiography, Memoir discussion
Nostalgia
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I remember my mother had a container on the side of a cabinet that she collected green stamps. I don't remember her ever buying things with them but I am sure she did.
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I had a tupperware party a couple of years ago. They still have them but I dont personally go as its too expensive. One of my former classmates was a sales rep.
Koren wrote: "So many times when we read a memoir about someone's childhood it brings back memories of our own childhood. I started this discussion as a place we could share something we have read that brings ba..."I think the green stamp lives on, just in electronic format. I have an app that I scan my grocery/drug store receipts and get points that I can redeem for products. I also have a rewards system with a beer store that I get 'bottlecaps' that I can redeem for merchandise and gift cards.
I haven't been to a Tupperware party in a long time but I googled it and you can order them online. https://www.tupperware.com/shop-publi...
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Good point. I never thought of Green Stamps being a precursor to the rewards programs we have today. I belong to a website called mypoints.com where you can get points just by looking at different websites and more points if you buy things. I also get points on my credit card. I have gotten a lot of restaurant gift cards from those sites. Still not as fun as having the physical stamps and pasting them in a booklet but nice to get a freebie once in a while.
Julie wrote: "I haven't been to a Tupperware party in a long time but I googled it and you can order them online. https://www.tupperware.com/shop-publi..."So they do still make Tupperware! My mother used to go to Tupperware parties.
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So they do still make Tupperware! M..."
I knew they still make Tupperware but I but it doesnt seem like people have any kind of home parties anymore. Dont they just send notes to all their friends asking them to buy something online? Personally, I try not to buy plastic unless I have to but I'm not throwing out the old stuff. Probably should. I love my glass bowls and cast iron frying pans.
Koren wrote: "Karin wrote: "Julie wrote: "I haven't been to a Tupperware party in a long time but I googled it and you can order them online. https://www.tupperware.com/shop-publi..."So they do still make..."
Well, I know some people were still trying to have parties to sell stuff a few years ago, but I won't go to those as a rule, so yes, many do ask people to follow links now.
I would never send junk mail and links to buy stuff to my friends as a rule. I dont like being spammed and being a marketing mule.
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It gets to be more and more all the time. Now you can hit up your relatives everywhere to buy stuff your kids are selling for fundraisers and have it delivered to their house. Girl Scout cookies come to mind. Between fundraisers and GoFundMe accounts I'm getting tired of getting hit up for to buy stuff and rarely donate to anything.
One thing I miss is fresh apples being delivered to your door, and milk. In glass bottles. I heard passports arent even being stamped anymore. I have one but havent been anywhere since it was updated.
I havent read anything that brings back nostalgia yet, someone would have to write a memoir set in the 80s...but maybe if I re-read Babysitters Club books everything will come back....I do remember actually collecting postage stamps. They also had first day covers. It was really a hobby my Dad did and he actually bought all the new stamps for me. I had a few penpals...overseas ones too, but if you were from the UK it was boring to get letters from that country as the stamps were all the same having the Queens head on them.
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I do rememb..."
One of my boys collected stamps but I think I did it more than he did.
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Koren wrote: "The book I'm reading now, Tom and Huck Don't Live Here Anymore: Childhood and Murder in the Heart of America mentioned that kids used to go outside and play all day, not coming home u..."There were some neighbor kids when I grew up who weren't allowed in the house during the summer during the day. We wandered all over the neighborhood and had a above ground pool in the summer so we spent a lot of time in that. When we got to be 11 or 12 my Dad took us to work at the Park District to volunteer till we were old enough to get jobs there.
I miss having a milkman! I haven't even seen a house with a milk chute since the early 1980s...And, yes, glass bottles. Everything used to come in glass. Shampoo, medicines, food. Even glasses used to be made of glass (chuckle). There were glass drinking straws although they were usually made of paper. Shopping bags were made of good, strong brown paper too, not plastic.When is the last time you saw Black Jack gum, or Sen-Sen, or Bonomo's Turkish Taffy? Or even a Carnation breakfast bar?
Or a Space Food Stick???
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Milk chute. Now there's something I've never heard before. But then I grew up on a dairy farm. We just went to the barn and drank the unpasturized milk from the tank. Funny I'm still alive!!
Not to long ago (maybe about 8 years ago) when my kids were younger we used to get Oberweiss milk delivered in glass bottles. We had a plastic cooler that they would place them in at the front door. I eventually cancelled because it was not cheap but I loved knowing that the bottles would be re-used. We occasionally pick up bottled milk at the Oberweiss store in town but mostly we get their ice cream-so good!
You can still get paper shopping bags at the grocery store but they are so cheap and ripe quite easily.
Koren wrote: "Fishface wrote: "I miss having a milkman! I haven't even seen a house with a milk chute since the early 1980s...And, yes, glass bottles. Everything used to come in glass. Shampoo, medicines, food. ..."In the world where I grew up everyone had one of these:
https://images.app.goo.gl/iCqfS978aGG...
Fishface wrote: "I miss having a milkman! I haven't even seen a house with a milk chute since the early 1980s...And, yes, glass bottles. Everything used to come in glass. Shampoo, medicines, food. Even glasses used..."I remember being quite amazed when my mother got milk delivery one of the times we lived in San Franciso, because as I said, we never had that in my home village area. All the milk was brought up by truck via the ferry.
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https://www.pinterest.com/jess_mcinty...
Koren wrote: "In Double Take: A Memoir the author mentions Pogs. I had totally forgotten about them. My kids must have collected hundreds of them. https://www.pinterest.com/jess_mcinty..."
My daughter collected those. I don't if we sent them to her when she got married and moved out of state or tossed them.
Mr Whippy ice cream truck...now not so common but it used to go round playing Greensleeves and kids would run out to buy icecreams. Less kids live in my neighbourhood now as everyone's gotten older although some families are returning to the neighbourhood and raising their own children/grandchildren.
Last year our neighbourhood playground FINALLY got an upgrade.
We now have a flying fox and fitness gym equipment for adults.
Jade Taniwha: Maori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa by Jenny Bul Jun LeeNot really a memoir but sort of a theses of oral interviews with four different Maori-Chinese people and analysis of their identities growing up. It was kind of a bit over-analytical and academic for me, but it did trigger some school memories, though not so much nostalgia.
Primary and Intermediate school I have hazy memories of, I remember not really hanging round with too many people and being different, (often the only chinese!) but then I had birthday parties and lots of friends came so it wasn't that I didn't have any friends at all.
High school we were streamed and I was put in 'the brainy class' which meant I couldn't take practical subjects, which was rather annoying as they clashed with the bursary subjects. I think you start to know your 'class' when you get stratified in high school, but I think pigeon holing people so early (age 13) is not always beneficial. They base it all on those weird IQ tests.
I remember that for school it only mattered if you went were your friends went, but often what happens is you learn with the same people all the time and don't really get to mix with others outside your home class. I wasn't that social in high school though and everyone else already had sports and youth groups but, for the most part I wasn't interested in all that.
In terms of culture, chinese culture was not taught at all in school, and maori culture was the background ethos in primary school, where we sang songs even if we didn't know what the words meant. Everything else was in English, but I would say secular education didn't make it easy for culture to flourish. My high school was more like a learning factory that just graded you and sent you out to work or university.
Christine is incredibly nostalgic for me. It brings back so many memories of middle school. The new 55-mph speed limit put in place in that era; Sean Cassidy, John Travolta and Eric Estrada everywhere you looked; and of course being bullied. Among MANY others. I have been wanting to re-read that one for a while but the pleasure of the haunted-car story is so mixed with infuriating school memories.
Storytime - Growing up with books has made me a little nostalgic for my childhood books.I grew up in the 80s so I had a different set. But I remember fondly
The Secret Garden, Baby Sitters-Club series, and other girly series, Garfield Comics, choosing a Lucky Book Club book each term from the catalogue, as well as sneakily reading my sisters Sweet Valley Twins series.
I remember going to the mobile library and having a junior library card, getting out exactly four books, and reading them each week, even if I didn't understand them, I probably read a lot more than I remember. I have since given all my childhood books away to my little cousins or sold them, I'm not really one for keeping every book after I've read it, so I probably have to hunt around for the ones I did read if I wanted to re-read them.
Koren wrote: "So many times when we read a memoir about someone's childhood it brings back memories of our own childhood. I started this discussion as a place we could share something we have read that brings ba..."Yes, those stamps were cool. My mom bought me a mini-carpenter set with them when I was about 8. Thank you
Biography, Autobiography, Memoir
Books mentioned in this topic
Storytime (other topics)Christine (other topics)
Jade Taniwha: Maori-Chinese Identity and Schooling in Aotearoa (other topics)
Double Take: A Memoir (other topics)
Double Take: A Memoir (other topics)
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Today I was reading a memoir where the author grew up in the 50's and one of things he mentioned was S&H Greenstamps. For those that don't know, Green Stamps and Gold Bond stamps were given when someone purchased something, usually at a grocery store. You pasted them in books and when you had several filled books you could shop in a catalog (I hope you know what a catalog is), or go to a real store if there was one nearby and buy something without money, just using whatever number of filled Green Stamp books was required. When I had my first baby we got several large items with the stamps and I remember one of them was a stroller. It was a lot of fun watching the books fill with stamps and dreaming of what you were going to get with them. I wish they still had that.