Exactly a hunderd years ago today when I was a kid there were aniseed wheels, K-Bars (milk-flavoured ones were the best, just like milk-bottle lollies), speaking of which, milk was 4 cents per (glass) bottle, a one kg of Colby didn’t require a mortgage and a mortgage didn’t require 3 jobs to pay off, Jelly tips tasted very raspberry, King-size Dairy Milk was…, well…, King-sized and it tasted cocoa-butter good and not palm-oil skanky, pineapple-flavoured Fru Jus were about the best thing in summer, Sunday nights were Disneyland and Country Calendar and tinned-spaghetti toastie pies made with a jiffy iron in the coal range or on the open fire, Tales of the Unexpected and Monty Python were in the black and white telly somewhere too, korma chicken pies weren’t invented yet, Grease the movie was released, you could swim in all eN-Zed rivers and lakes (and you could drink from them too), you could just rock up to the Routeburn track and walk it, toheroas existed and you could make soup out of them as long as you didn’t get your fingers stuck in the shell, anyone could buy a half-dozen oysters, a paua pattie and a scoop of chips at Riverton, condensed milk was made near Invercargill and with it and malt biscuits you could make lolly cake with Eski… I mean, First Nations lollies.
Enid Blyton hadn’t been banned from school libraries just yet, avocado toast hadn’t been invented, nor had baristas, everyone understood the value of vaccinations because everyone had a Plunket or Karitane nurse helping and mallowpuffs were the third-most luxurious thing (after Christmas cake and plum pudding with custard).
A hundred years ago, the great car debate wasn’t ICE versus EV, it was Holden versus Ford. School was good; I mean we enjoyed school and school made us clever because we all knew that School Cert and UE were the ticket to a good life. That was all back when I was a kid, all so long ago.
And isn’t it helpful that we have rose-tinted memories?
What were your favourite things from a hundred years ago?
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