Forum Game A–Z: Back when I was a kid, there was still..., Part 2

Dear Community,
Here is Part 2 of the forum game “Forum Game A–Z: Back when I was a kid, there was still...” You can read the previous posts via the link.
Have fun with it.

D - Disco - with Ilja Richter

Those were such great Saturday nights

D for steam locomotive

Yes, these days only train enthusiasts still know what a steam locomotive is. It was quite a beast, chugging into some train stations back then. 

Kids today grow up with nothing but electric things. Maybe they wouldn’t even get on a train pulled by a steam locomotive?

Petra, we were exactly the same speed, down to the minute. Yes, the disco with Ilja Richter—I remember that very well, too. The catchphrases “Lights out, spotlight on...” were legendary.

A steam engine—we had one when we were kids; it powered the Ferris wheel that my father built.

Best regards, Inge

Vinegar candies

My mom used to make these out of vinegar and sugar.

FDJ —Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ members)

—was a state-sponsored youth organization in the GDR. Back then, I always thought it was cool to wear the blue shirt.
However, I never liked those FDJ meetings. I still have my blue shirt, and it even still fits.


 

I’d never heard of vinegar candies before. But thanks to this post, I googled them right away. Well, it’s amazing what you can come up with when you’re creative. Maybe we could even try that out with the kids today—after all, there are only two ingredients: sugar and vinegar.

I remember the FDJ blouse , too. However, we only had one in the family, which the three of us girls had to share. But we didn’t really like it because it was made of polyester or similar synthetic fibers, so you’d get all sweaty in it. But I liked the color—that bright blue.

Love, Ina

G - as in Green Cucumbers 

Yes, you may be wondering what I’m writing about. Cucumbers existed back then just as they do today. But I have a childhood memory of green cucumbers that you don’t see like that anymore today.

The big, thick cucumbers kept growing in August, even on weekends. They were harvested by hardworking workers and then set down in vegetable crates in front of the greengrocer’s shop. So, lots of crates full of cucumbers. On a Sunday. Next to them was a locked wooden box with the inscription “Honor-system cash box ... 10 pfennigs per cucumber.” 

Of course, we children went over and filled 2 huge paper bags full of cucumbers and dutifully paid. They were always made into a big bowl of cucumber salad. 

When it was peak harvest time for tomatoes, you could also buy tomatoes this way on weekends. Does the “honor-system cash box” still exist anywhere today?

Best, Ina

Dear Ina,

in my region, some smaller farm stores still have “honor system” cash registers.

I find it really nostalgic when fresh eggs are sold from an old farmhouse cupboard. Here, anyone can take what they need and then pay on their own by putting money into a securely screwed-shut piggy bank.

Hi Eddysmutti, it’s nice that something like that still exists today. I’d be a regular customer at a farm shop like that, too. You can present things in a “nice” way—a little nostalgia is good for all of us.

When I start my vegetable seedlings in the spring, I intentionally grow a few extra and then place the surplus seedlings by my garden gate to give away. Anyone out for a walk is welcome to help themselves, and a nice conversation naturally follows. People out for a walk even ask for this or that tomato variety for next year.

Best regards, Ina

Oh, and Ina, my FDJ blouse was made of cotton—it was more comfortable to wear, though you still worked up a sweat in them.

Dear Andrea, I also remember the UHT milk in plastic bags very well. It wasn’t always a clean affair when there was a leaky bag at the bottom of the container. I didn’t like touching those floppy bags. And yes, you had to put them in a container. You couldn’t pour it out without one. My grandma, who was very frugal, would always cut the tops off the plastic milk bags, wash them out, save them, and reuse them.

I as in Indian headdress for Carnival

My little brother had something like that. But he didn’t just wear it for Carnival; he’d also put on his colorful headdress when playing with his friends, as they played cowboys and Indians with the appropriate battle sounds. 

Oh yes, I was a Native American, and my brother was the cowboy. Yes, cowboys and Indians was a very popular game. We’d shoot with anything that looked like a pistol. And scalping was the most important part of taking someone prisoner.

J - Just playing outside every day

Did you ever go to your friends’ homes? I had friends; we played together every day, but never inside. Many didn’t have their own room at all, but shared one with their siblings. For example, my bed was in my parents’ bedroom. Our children’s room was so small that only the bunk bed fit in it, and there was hardly any space on the floor to play. We used the kitchen-diner for playing.

So we played outside every day. Behind barns, on the sports field, in a small park, or even in a cornfield. We were never bored. 

K = Potato picking

Back then, the farmers would come to the school and ask for hardworking harvest helpers.
Anyone who helped didn’t have to do schoolwork. 

We were driven to the field on open trailers, and each of us was given a wire basket.
When the basket was full, you would yell your heart out so an adult would come and empty the basket onto a trailer. For that, you got a plastic token. The price for one token was set depending on the size of the potatoes. Most of the time it was around 30 pfennigs. In the evening, you were carted back and received the corresponding money for your plastic tokens. Usually less than 2 marks.

Today that would no longer be permissible at all for occupational safety and youth protection reasons. 
It didn’t do us any harm.

The smell of a freshly plowed field brings this lovely memory back to me every autumn.

Oh yes, we also loved poking at potatoes as kids. My great-uncle in the Hassberge region would always light a potato fire in the evening, and we were allowed to roast potatoes :-) We’d have sausage made from a home-slaughtered pig and apple cider :-) well diluted with water :-) for us kids.

Best regards, Inge

Oh, Inge, you guys had it better. Where I grew up, the farmers were stingy.
There was only one pitcher of diluted juice, and it wasn’t even enough for everyone.

Such lovely memories of your childhood. I can just picture little Petra out there, running around with her friends. We certainly weren’t as closely supervised as kids are today. We had a lot more freedom. Our parents didn’t have time to watch over us constantly. If you were hungry, you’d just come home. Plus, everyone knew each other. You knew where everyone lived, and if necessary, you could even walk a friend home if she’d fallen off her bike and the wheel was now buckled. If you weren’t standing alone at the door, the scolding wasn’t as bad.

I was also out working in the potato fields back then. Back then, anything like that was possible. There was a shortage of workers, so the kids were called in to help. Unthinkable today. When I was a kid, we didn’t pick or glean potatoes—we collected stones.

Every weekend after the harvest, we’d go out to the surrounding fields to gather stones. Anyone 14 or older could join in. We’d meet early in front of the LPG office. Then, at 7 a.m., someone would come out and say they needed 50 people. They’d pick them out from among those waiting. We’d climb onto the back of a tractor and off we’d go to the field. The tractor drove at a snail’s pace across the field, and all around it, children and teenagers ran, collecting stones from the ground. We’d toss them onto the back of the tractor. Sometimes the stones were pretty heavy, and the field was soggy, so we’d get stuck in our rubber boots.

If we were lucky, we’d have brought food and drinks with us. After work, we were driven back and paid our wages. On Saturdays it was 12 Ostmark, and on Sundays 15. That was quite a lot of money, but it was also hard-earned.

Love, Ina

L – Tinsel Made of Tin Foil

This went on the tree every year at Christmas. It was made of silver-colored tin foil, and it got more crumpled with every holiday. After Christmas, it was smoothed out and put back in its little package. A Christmas tree without tinsel just wouldn’t have been the same.

After the GDR era, there was this new, smooth, shiny tinsel. It looked nicer at first glance, but it lacked that “crinkled charm of many Christmases.” New things sometimes have a hard time because that’s how we’ve stored them in our memories.

Best regards, Ina

M = Mikado

—the famous Mikado game. I’m sure it’s still around today, but what I remember from my childhood are those wooden Mikado sticks my grandma had. These sticks had red and blue stripes; one was black-striped, and there were also yellow stripes (those indicated the point value). Whoever had the most won.
Later, I had a Mikado game with plastic sticks—they were so beautifully colorful (solidly colored). I loved playing with them; they made such a lovely clattering sound when you dropped them on the table.
Unfortunately, it somehow got lost during all our moves. What a shame.

I still have a game of Mikado in my old game collection :-) I used to play it often with my children and later with my grandchildren—there was always lots of laughter when that one stick would wobble and you were out :-)
Mini-golf in the summer was always a blast when the whole family went to play.

Love, Inge

Nudossi

is still around today, but I used to love eating it when I was a kid—and I still do—but somehow it doesn’t taste the same as it used to. Can taste buds really change?

Dear Andrea, I do believe our taste buds change over time. Otherwise, I wouldn’t enjoy Brussels sprouts today—I didn’t like them at all when I was a kid, for example, but now I love them.

Plus, our brains have stored not only the food itself but also the emotional state we felt back then. For me, that was the Schlager candy bar. Later, as an adult, I bought one and took a bite full of anticipation. My taste buds simply tasted what it tastes like today—without all the memories from back then. But the ingredients in today’s products are probably not the same as those used back then. 

O for Grandma

Yes, I associate the word “Grandma” with childhood. Mine was short, a bit plump, could knit without looking, preserved pumpkins and plums, and baked a large sheet of crumble cake with good butter every weekend. The lady on the far left is my grandma. See, back then, all women wore smock aprons in everyday life :-)



Best regards, Ina

My grandma was such a sweetheart; I loved her very much. She made up for and put into perspective a lot of the mean things my mom had said to me.

Best regards, Inge

P - Paper collector
In our area, a truck used to drive through the neighborhoods collecting paper, back when there were no paper bins yet.
We could hand in old newspapers, catalogs, and things like that to them, and we kids got comics as a gift in return.

That’s interesting, Blume23. I don’t know of any paper collectors. Where I grew up, there were recycling centers for waste paper. You could take your waste paper there and get a small payment. You could also turn in bottles and jars. All valuable raw materials.

Q for Quality Control

I’m guessing that still existed back then. At least I know that was the case at my company (machine tool manufacturing). We had our own quality control department for the machines we manufactured. Since the industrial robots were exported to capitalist countries abroad, they always had to be in tip-top condition—hence the quality control.

Today, I’d say less importance is placed on the quality of goods. I wonder if companies can even afford quality control anymore. Given the quality of many products these days, I’d doubt it.

Rostbrätel (a popular dish, often served with bread)—mmh, delicious

Solyanka (a kind of soup)

tasted absolutely delicious—they’d chop up all kinds of leftovers and throw them in: sausage, cucumber, ketchup, or lecsó...

We used to call that “leftover stew” :-))) Andrea. I still make it today when I have enough leftovers.

Hugs, Inge

But the word “solyanka” evokes very different emotions and memories in us East Germans than the word “leftover stew.” “Solyanka” was always served at the club restaurants. As a bonus, it came with two triangles of toasted bread. But I liked “Würzfleisch” even better. Well, that was a long, long time ago.

T for Trainers

Yes, of course they still exist today. But today’s trainers look completely different from the ones I had when I was in school and as a child. We had those really flat blue ones with rubber soles. Nothing fancy like today’s. And today they’re not even called “trainers” anymore—they’re called “sneakers.”

Best, Ina

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