Good Old Days Magazine

Launched in 1964, Good Old Days is the original nostalgia magazine, featuring reader-provided stories and recollections from days gone by. Good Old Days is targeted to home and family interests, including crafts, nostalgia and home décor

Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Looking Back
Dear Friends of the Good Old Days, When we were selecting the cover for this issue, I was immediately and wistfully drawn to the image of the youthful skater couple. Their outfits are so well coordinated. Their skates are so pristine. They aren’t lay
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
FROM the MAILBOX
I enjoy reading Good Old Days from cover to cover. In the May/June 2021 issue there was an article about an icebox. Like in that story, when the iceman came down our street, all the kids got a washcloth and he gave each of us a piece of ice to eat. I
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
Good Old Days®
Editor Mary Beth Weisenburger Art Director Brad Snow Publishing Services Director Brenda Gallmeyer Editorial Assistant Melissa Moeller Senior Graphic Designer Nick Pierce Senior Copy Editor Kristan Seitz Copy Editors Mary O’Donnell, Lana Schurb Publi
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Expecting Unexpected Company
As I remember it, back in 1958, the national Sunday pastime was visiting. In other words, dropping in on folks, often unexpectedly, was common. This came about in our area because not much was open on Sundays in Fremont, Ohio, or anyplace else for th
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
A Forgettable First Date
The date Nov. 12 is one I will never forget. It was a Thursday. My best friend and I had decided to double-date the following night. The two of us were equally nervous—not because we were undecided about who we wanted to ask, but because we had disco
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
No Invitation Required
“Company’s coming!” was a weekly refrain on Sunday mornings when I was growing up. Every Sunday in the summer, our rural home was blessed with visitors, even though no invitations had been sent out and no RSVPs were required. There were two reasons f
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Skating Like Sonja
Sonja Henie started it all. That tiny Norwegian skating sensation whirled, twirled and twisted her way to more Olympic and World Figure Skating Championships than any other skater. But Sonja’s real ambition was to go to Hollywood and become a movie s
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Rummy Royal and Charles Chips
It’s Friday night and Mr. Dailey is dressed in a bolo tie and has a pocketful of pennies. It must be family game night! It’s time to put on our best poker faces. The Daileys, Jim and Betty, lived down the street from us in Tulsa, Okla., back in the 1
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Snow Houses and Winter Picnics
Winter and subzero temperatures were no reason to stop having picnics when I was growing up in Iron River, Mich., in the 1940s and ’50s. When it was cold outside, we kids still enjoyed hot chocolate, cookies and peanut butter sandwiches within the sh
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Unlucky in Love
“You are never to sit in a parked car with a boy, never ever. Not under any circumstances,” Mother admonished. “Do you understand me?” I replied by nodding my head. It was 1954 in Illinois and I was just 16 years old. At last, Mother, who was the dis
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Rewind
When was the Pentagon dedicated as the headquarters for the United States Department of Defense? Find the answer on next page. Question: We found this Milton Bradley board game in my wife’s parents’ basement, but she doesn’t remember playing it. The
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Laughter and Chatter
During my childhood in the 1960s and early 1970s, I always looked forward to a visit from my mother’s younger brother, Phillip, and his family. They traveled from Michigan to our home in Marion, N.C., where Phillip was born and raised. After Phillip
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Hula-Hooping It Up
Our usual Saturday-night gathering with cousins became unusual when they met us at the car with souvenirs from their vacation in California. They had Hula-Hoops, the first ones seen in our part of Missouri in 1958. Wham-O had just started marketing t
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Share Your Stories and Photos With Good Old Days Readers!
Have you ever wondered who the writers and photographers in Good Old Days magazine are? They’re people just like you who enjoy reading and sharing sweet memories of the past. You can be part of this magazine too! Send us your heartfelt true stories a
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Flying To The Ceiling
There was a time when we as a society were not so generation conscious. We intermingled with people of other age groups. Invitations regularly had a “PS. Bring the kids” tacked on the end. Grandparents were at gatherings too, and if they were on the
Good Old Days Magazine5 min read
Book Weather
Ohio winters are unpredictable. One year may be mild, almost springlike. The next, an arctic vortex whirls down from the north and seizes us in its blizzardy grasp. Those are the best days for chatting with friends to discuss books and share recipes.
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
A Celebration In Room 10
The third graders of Room 10 loved games and elections and cupcakes and cookies, but they did not love Valentine’s Day. The boys especially were not fans! Back in 1970 in North Riverside, Ill., giving a valentine to each member of the class was manda
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Drawing Cars
In my middle and late childhood and early teens, around 1960 to 1967, my family lived in a lower-middle-class section of the North Bronx. As most people know, you don’t need a car to get around New York City. Nevertheless, about two-thirds of the kid
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Cutie Pie, Won’t You Be My Valentine?
In elementary school back in Texas, I was awkward and terribly shy, and believed I was unpopular and anything but cute. So Valentine’s Day, the day of expressing friendship, admiration and love, was a mild source of apprehension for me. But I loved b
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
BITS & PIECES
I grew up in a small town in Virginia, and I guess I was a typical teenager growing up in the 1960s. I loved rock ’n’ roll music, teen magazines, makeup and really cute boys. One summer day while running errands with my mom, my life changed when I sa
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Bossy And The Boys
I just ended a telephone call with a lifetime friend. We always seem to get past discussions of our aches and pains, the politics of the day and family situations to reminisce about one adventure or another we shared in our youth. This story is one o
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
In Hiding
In the 1950s and ’60s, I grew up on a small farm in northeastern Colorado. Our home was just over a half mile from the nearest highway. One day a fellow school bus rider exclaimed, “It looks like you live in a field!” She could see our house sitting
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Fresh Dresses and Warm Clothes
Having school clothes was never a big problem for me. My grandmother, Bertha Workman, could make anything out of the printed calico fabric from flour and feed sacks. And all of her family kept warm in winter thanks to her beautiful hand-stitched quil
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
The Great Gildersleeve
Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve was a popular character appearing regularly on The Fibber McGee & Molly Show. Gildersleeve was the perfect foil for Fibber McGee and he was also his next-door neighbor. On one occasion, Gildy and Fibber solved a dispute b
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Picture THIS
Submitted by Nolan Spencer of Deerwood, Minn. Nolan was 9 years old back in 1948 when he was introduced to the winter sport of darkhouse spearing of northern pike by his uncle Einar. In the photo, Nolan proudly displays one of Einar’s hefty catches f
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
A Treasured Tradition
In the 1960s, Sundays were reserved for visiting relatives. If we weren’t traveling to a relative’s house, they were coming to ours. It was tradition, after Sunday Mass, to gather the family into our station wagon and head out to visit relatives all
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Frozen Windows and a Pickup Truck
If only the walls could talk, they could still tell a story of bonding between a father and his son. The drywall and two-by-fours that formed those walls might remember a time, nearly 60 years ago, when that father, short on money but driven by ambit
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
For Love and Money
When World War I ended in 1918, the world had changed. The “Roaring Twenties” ushered in new attitudes as evidenced in the culture and in its books and movies. In 1925, Hollywood staff writer Anita Loos produced a series of rather scandalous articles
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Lake Lessons
In the early 1950s, when my grandpa and grandma Frederick purchased some rural acreage in Maineville, Ohio, they dug a small lake after the house was built. It didn’t cover more than a couple of acres, but it became the stage for fond memories and mu
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
In This Issue
Words are forward and backward, horizontal, vertical and diagonal. cards cold company date family friend frozen fun game gentlemen host invitation kiss laughter love movie reading school skating snow valentine visitor warm welcome Key for puzzle on p
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Boxed Shirts, Bedspreads and Bud
The smokestack towered high overhead; one could see it from two blocks away. “Rainbow Laundry” was printed vertically from top to bottom on two sides. I liked going there with my dad’s shirts, especially in the winter. The people were friendly, and t
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Nixon Plot
The year was 1941. In those days, the guys styled their hair like Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. The hairstyle favorites of the ladies were Ginger Rogers and Dale Evans. On date night, the men sported suits and the ladies wore dresses. In Philadelphia
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Hijacking Of The Crescent
It was 1969, and I was relaxing aboard the Crescent, the train from my home in Atlanta to Auburn Ala., where I was a student at the university. It was after dark that Sunday evening when the conductor came down the aisle. “I’m looking for Valerie Fle
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Seed Catalog Dreams
In the 1950s, Vancouver, Wash., the town where I grew up, had dark, dreary, extremely rainy Februarys. But that month, I would hurry home from school to check the mailbox. On weekends, I would open an umbrella and sprint out to meet the mailman. “Wai
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
The Loving Quilt
In my memory I often travel back to southeastern Kentucky and my childhood. Our family was close and loving. We played and worked together. Many winter nights we spent helping my mother, Delcian Hall-Swanson, quilt. In those days, making quilts was a
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Q&A: ON YOUR MIND
Each issue on this page, we will feature a question that will be sure to prompt a flood of heartwarming memories. Send your 100-words-or-less responses ASAP to Editor@GoodOldDaysMagazine.com or to Good Old Days Q&A, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, IN 4671

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