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
Editor's Note
In the busy world we live in, it can seem difficult to think back and remember happy memories in detail. I am both lucky and blessed because as I read each of your submissions it sparks memories of my own. I often find myself calling one of my sister
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Good Old Days
GOOD OLD DAYS GoodOldDaysMagazine.com Editor Kathy Lynch Art Director Brad Snow Associate Editor Melissa Moeller Senior Graphic Designer Nick Pierce Copy Manager Kristan Seitz Copy Editors Mary O'Donnell, Läna Schurb Publishing Services Manager Miche
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FROM the MAILBOX
I was delighted to see the article “A Real American Family” in the January/February issue. As a teenager I read the book Cheaper by the Dozen over and over. I was determined that I, too, would have a dozen children. When I met my husband-to-be, I tol
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
The Sweet Scent of Summer
The shrill chirp of katydids always gets to me. Add to this the soft glow of a street lamp filtering through the leaves of a big maple tree, the sound of children playing down the block, and the creak of our old porch swing as I relax in the warmth o
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Uncle Walt's Last Fight
The article entitled “New Boy in Town” prompts me to tell of my own experience in boxing, way back in 1921. I was a member of a dance orchestra, four musicians and a banjo player. I was the banjo player. By a strange coincidence, three of the four mu
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
Flashback fun!
In 1949 in Kerens, Texas, a 49-foot Santa Claus was built to entice customers to shop locally. In 1951, it was purchased and moved to the Texas State Fairgrounds in Dallas where it was renamed “Big Tex” and revamped to wear a Western shirt, jeans, a
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Summer Finances
June 1954 had arrived in Flint, Mich.! And for a 10-year-old boy, summer had officially begun. For the next three months this meant absolute freedom from 7:30 in the morning until dinner at 6 p.m. We were able to do anything we wanted that would not
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Our County Fair Project
The Lincoln County Fair at Merrill, Wis., was held in early August. Some of the 4-H Club members had calves, pigs, chickens and rabbits that needed care and training for the event. Some chose baking or gardening or other sorts of crafts or skills as
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Kids Of The River
In Barrington, R.I., in 1965 when I was 12, the water was our summer playground and the creatures within it were our playthings. The Barrington River originated in a tidal estuary, flowed through town on its way to Narragansett Bay, and beyond that e
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
A Musician And Cobbler In A Bow Tie
My uncle Paul was a one-man band. He could play the accordion and harmonica at the same time. He was also a cobbler, and he owned the shoe repair shop in downtown Upper Sandusky, Ohio. The smell of shoe leather and adhesives was the first thing I not
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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
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Wrong Way
Back in the late 1960s, my brother, Steve, played Little League baseball for his grade school team, the Eisenhower Dragons in Tulsa, Okla. Unfortunately, this was several years before somebody intelligent recognized that second-graders have certain p
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Mischief Times Two
The beautiful, peaceful green Catskill Mountains in New York were a great place for a sleepaway camp in 1956. That's where I spent the summer when I was 13 years old. Tunis Lake Camp had a lovely large lake, playing fields, a cabin for arts and craft
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Rewind
What was the name of Andy Taylor's aunt on the television show The Andy Griffith Show? Find the answer on the next page. Samson and Delilah Battleground Jolson Sings Again Sands of Iwo Jima I Was a Male War Bride Twelve O'clock High The Heiress Littl
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Adventures With Cousin Donnie
I truly believe that the person my cousin Donnie became was the result of being raised mostly by our grandparents during his formative years. He learned to listen, think, become confident in his ability to handle any problem and make it work in a pos
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Singing After Supper
I have many wonderful memories of growing up in the beautiful countryside of Tyler, Texas. My dad painted homes for a living, and he grew fruit and vegetables to feed the family. He sold fresh produce and eggs to friends and local restaurants to supp
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Fifties Family Road-Trip
Through the 1950s, family road trips were my fathers summertime passion. With our big red dog beside him on the front seat, and my mother, my sister, Jolene, and me squeezed together in the back seat of our green Buick, my father would take us on our
Good Old Days Magazine3 min readDiet & Nutrition
Dinner at Grandma's
When my sister and I were growing up in the 1940s and ’50s, we'd walk to my grandparents’ house every Sunday after Sunday school. We lived on a farm and my grandparents lived in town. After five days of not having other kids around, using an outhouse
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Let's Go To The Fair
The Ohio State Fair is the first fair I remember. It was the summer of 1962, yet impressions of that day remain fresh. Except for the pig barn, I had to be dragged out of each of the buildings housing animals, especially rabbits. I had always been en
Good Old Days Magazine1 min readDiet & Nutrition
Flashback fun!
Encouraged by the U.S. government during both World Wars, victory gardens provided fresh fruits and vegetables to families when most commercial produce was being diverted to feed servicemen at home and overseas. In 1944 alone, 20 million victory gard
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Mini-Mart
In the summers of our early childhood during the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the days stretched before us with the promise of increased daylight and a blank canvas, my neighborhood friends and I rode bicycles together in our quiet street, pullin
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
A Diamond In The Rough
A few years ago, I visited my hometown of Hammond, Ind. I walked the half-block from my childhood home to my favorite place of all. Standing where home plate used to be, I gazed out across what was once the “Wild West” of our neighborhood: an open fi
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
El Rancho DRIVE-IN
In San Francisco—actually in South San Francisco—there was a drive-in movie theater called El Rancho. Back in the 1950s, El Rancho was a very popular place. I can't remember what the admission price was, but once you were in, you got two movies, two
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
America the Beautiful
O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed His grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining ses! O beautiful for pilgrim feet, W
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BITS & PIECES
Sunday gatherings at my grandma Ethel and granddad Jim McGuire's home always meant a full house of not less than 50 people for dinner. After hours of cooking by the women, the big, long, oilclothcovered kitchen table was ready for supper to begin. Gr
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Dangerous Assignment
Movie actor Brian Donlevy starred on radio's most popular spy series, Dangerous Assignment, where the action was enthusiastically twofisted and complimented by the allure of exotic locations such as Singapore, Cuba and Tangiers. As Steve Mitchell, Do
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Bike of His Dreams
Growing up in Wichita, Kan., in the 1960s was probably no different than for any other boy in America. Having a bike of your own was very important, and if you didn't have the bike you wanted, you spent hours dreaming of it. That's what I did. I spen
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Man Who Quoted Shakespeare
Technically born in 1910, my uncle Tom sometimes seemed to have stepped right out of a time machine, arriving from a much earlier century. The overachieving Renaissance man was most famous for being a master gunsmith, his chosen profession. Also, a t
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In This Issue
Words are forward and backward, horizontal, vertical and diagonal.
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Picture THIS
Rosemond and her classmates of Friendship School went to the American Legion Fair nearby in Caruthersville. The boys played the jugs and other instruments while the girls square-danced. Here the students’ picture was taken with Missouri's then-Senato
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Who's a Scaredy-Cat?
I woke early, but the summer sun was already blazing hot—hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. The extensive heat wave had parched our front yard, creating huge cracks and crevices in it. The grassy lawns—yellow and burnt—smelled like bales of ha
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Homecoming in My Hometown
Growing up on a farm in central Illinois near the small town of Cullom has provided me with a lifetime of happy childhood memories. Life in the 1940s and ’50s was a carefree time filled with simple pleasures and lasting values. Although I lived on a
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Glimpses of Time
During the Great Depression in 1932, a book titled State Fair, by journalist and native Iowan Phil Stong, was published. It was the same year that Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly a plane across the Atlantic, the Lindbergh baby was kidnap
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
Flashback fun!
In August 1963, the novelty song Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter From Camp) by Alan Sherman was No. 3 on the Billboard charts. The lyrics expressed a child's complaints about conditions at “Camp Granada” and his wish to come home—until the last
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Staying Ahead of Carol
Dad usually had two weeks of vacation each year. He worked for the Boston Edison Company, one of the earliest electric utility companies in the United States. In July, we would go to Cape Cod with my mother's family. But in 1954, Dad had four weeks o
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
After the Carnival
When I was a child, we lived in the small town of Algona, Iowa. I thought our house was in the best part of town. In reality, it probably was the poorest part of town, but I didn't know it. The reason I loved our neighborhood was because it was just
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
Popular Songs in 1957
Answers: 1-F; 2-D; 3-E; 4-G; 5-B; 6-C; 7-A ■
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Oh! The Boardwalk
The only joy that surpassed a day at the beach was a night on the boardwalk. Stepping into Kiddie Land at Seaside Heights, N.J., left me wide-eyed like nothing else could. The Wurlitzer organ music from the merry-go-round, the sugary scent of cotton
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Bare Bones Baseball
Baseball was the national pastime when I was growing up in the 1950s. We played every day in the summer. It was really the only choice unless your family was fortunate enough to belong to a country club where you might golf, swim or play tennis. We j
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
The Old Settler's Farm
In the 1930s, our family lived in Grand Forks, N.D. In 1939, my maternal grandparents, Orin and Marie Greenman, sold their taxi company, 777CAB of Grand Forks, and moved to Bemidji, Minn., where they bought an old settler's farm from the 1900s in Sug
Good Old Days Magazine1 min read
Flashback Fun!
The first patented drive-in movie theater opened in New Jersey in 1933, and by the 1950s, there were over 4,000 outdoor theaters in the United States. ■
Good Old Days Magazine4 min read
Newspaper Girl
I'll never forget the summer of 1953. That's when I took over my sister Carol's paper route. The route had been handed down to Carol four years earlier by my oldest sister, Suzanne. At first, I looked forward to the task. But my interest in and desir
Good Old Days Magazine3 min read
Perfect Close-to-Family Weekends
Growing up in the 1960s was a much simpler time. My parents were hard workers. They grew up during the Depression, and they knew the simple pleasures of life and embraced family time. With our family time being on Sunday, there was much work to be do
Good Old Days Magazine2 min read
Playhouses and Mud Pies
In the summers of my youth, in the mid-1950s, in the small community of Weirwood, W.Va., many young girls had playhouses. I had always been lucky enough that my father, Basil, would take the time, when he was not at his coal mining job, to make one f
Good Old Days Magazine3 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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