Paper grocery bags were used to cover our school text books.

Dad would get one pound of free coffee every week from work (he worked in a coffee plant) - when empty, my sister and I used them as piggy banks (we didn't want to smash our pretty glass one). Dad would use them to organize and store nuts, bolts, washers, nails. . . . .

We had an insulated silver box on our front porch with a lid. No need to lock it - no one even thought of that back then. No porch bandits - we didn't have them. Mom would put our empty milk and juice bottles in the box. They would be picked up by Dugan - he'd replace them with fresh milk and juice. The glass bottles were cleaned, and reused. No micro-plastics. We could also order fresh eggs, pastries, breads. . . Dugan would deliver them all.

Then there was the junk man. . . he would drive around on bulk trash pick-up days (once a month). He would sort through everyone's throw-outs, taking what he thought was salvageable back to his workshop. He did a fine job repairing - and then he would sell it as second-hand merchandise. Everyone laughed at him - but he had a beautiful home. It was a lucrative business.

Yard debris, grass clippings, leaves, twigs - all collected by the town and brought to the compost center on the town's back lot. Residents could go and pick up their garden compost for free.

Life was simpler. We had TV, radio, a turn-table, an above-the-ground backyard pool, that was it. Kids created their own entertainment. People actually talked to one another, face to face. Kids rode bikes or walked (no school buses) to school, and drank out of garden hoses (I still do.). There were side-walk sales, traveling carnivals, drive-in movies, phone booths, soda fountains. . .

Gosh I so miss those days.