Please bear with me. It's that time of year again. You know, when one day it's searing hot (just over a week ago, remember?) the next, someone turns a switch and—wham—it's fall... Autumn. Too early for frost or heavy dew on your windshield, and the sun still shines, but the furnace starts to come on and you know it’s over.

The time of year that, besides putting me to work cleaning my roof and gutters, raking leaves, and all those good things associated with preparing for winter, I become reflective.

Is it just me, or is this a natural, yearly twinning of season and mood change prompted by the first falling of leaves and the withering away of summer and all its happy associations of the beach, barbecues on the sundeck, etc.?

As I, we, get older, I think the phenomenon becomes more pronounced. So, this week, an affectionate look back at a simpler world.

The kids in this 1930 photo of the PNE are enjoying the pony rides. When I came along, the daily radio reports of the Vancouver extravaganza meant doom and gloom—that summer was almost over. —*Wikipedia*

* * * * *

For me, summer’s end used to begin with the week of the PNE. When I was of school age, radio and TV coverage of the Vancouver extravaganza, the biggest of the fall fairs, was the death knell for summer vacation, the cold-water-in-my-face-notice that my time was running OUT.

Up until then I'd be so busy enjoying my summer freedom (I'm referring to my preteens) that I'd been able to block from mind that the clock was ticking, that every day was bringing me one step closer to the misery of another year of school.

But I don't have to worry about that today. Instead, I find myself looking backwards in time, almost with a sense of wonder, at the many and seemingly ever- increasing changes that have occurred since I arrived on this mortal plane.

Actually, the chance mention of oleo margarine in a conversation, and a Facebook post on pencil sharpeners (people still use pencils?), and back to school sales, set these thoughts in motion. Then a shuffling of my files turned up a list I'd begun of some of life's passing fancies. Now, admittedly, I'm out of touch with some aspects of our modern society and living habits, so some of the items I'm about to mention may still be with us, perhaps in some other guise. Chronicles readers with grandchildren will probably be better able to judge in this department.

I'll begin with a small highlight of my earliest years: gifts that came in cereals and bubble gum cards. It's interesting to note that the original baseball cards have become highly collectible and extremely pricey. Who knew?

Every boy had to collect baseball cards. —*www.throwbacksportscards.com/most-valuable-baseball-rookie-cards-of-1950s*

I believe the yo-yo is still with us but cap guns, at least those using real exploding caps of gunpowder, are no longer considered safe for children, let alone firecrackers. I guess BB guns are a thing of the past, too, although air-powered rifles with considerably greater and deadlier ‘firepower’ were still in sporting goods stores the last time I looked.

I don't suppose they make model airplanes out of balsa wood anymore, either. I'm referring to ones that you launched by hand and powered with miniature gas engines. (These were children-style, not the more elaborate and expensive radio controlled models of today.)

As for soapbox racers made of scraps of lumber, wire and wheels recycled from a wagon or such, forget it! No foot-pedal-power for today's kids (excepting, perhaps, skateboards) who start, almost from toddler age, on mini motorbikes and ATVs. In my day, we progressed from wagons and tricycles to single-speed (at best, three-speed) bicycles by high school.

And this year's Cowichan Exhibition reminded me that the circuses aren't anything like they used to be.

We still have carnies with their rides and games as we did back when, but every year or so while I was growing up in Victoria, a real circus with live animals would come to town. The one that sticks out most in my mind, probably because I knew his name from the movies, was the Clyde Beatty Circus.

The visit of a circus was a stand out event when I was a boy.
—*www.circusesandsideshows.com/circuses/clydebeattycircus.*

It was bigger and better than most, at least of those that I was privileged to attend, and I remember peddling from Saanich to the fairgrounds on Esquimalt Road to watch the roustabouts erect the enormous tents. Then returning in the evening with my parents to see the great man himself, dressed in khaki fatigues and armed with only a whip, step into the cage with the lions and tigers.

From my seat high in the bleachers, I held my breath in awe as the trapeze artists did their magic on ropes and swings, high overhead. By far the best, of course, for a child, were the clowns.

Travelling circuses, those with animal acts, have come under the fire of animal rights activists since then, as have rodeos. As an adult, of course, I can see that life for animals in cages and being always on the move is undesirable, even cruel. But as a kid...

The memories roll by. Of milk and bottles that jingled as they were delivered to your door; of scooping corn syrup for your pancakes from a can with a spoon; of homemade root beer and icebox ice cream; of the last of the ice boxes as refrigerators became the norm; of Mom graduating from her wood stove to an electric model, from a wringer washer to an automatic. From a clothesline to a dryer.

Of Dad no longer having to stoke a wood burning furnace; of me not having to haul and stack mill slabs that, even with gloves, somehow always slivered your hands. Surely few men or women of that era mourn these last mentioned changes in their daily lives!

And no more Watkins or Raleigh man, no more vegetable man, no more ice cream man, no more milkman.

There was a time, believe it or not, when homemakers such as my Mom, her friends and neighbours, looked forward to the monthly arrival of the Watkins or Raleigh sales representatives, usually an older man in our neighbourhood.

Mind you, no more strap in school, either. Now, there's progress for you. Too bad it didn't come in time for me.

* * * * *

It has occurred to me, since I began this mental ramble, that some changes are so subtle, so seamless, as to be almost unnoticeable. Years can pass before you notice they’re no longer part of everyday life. When did you last read a classified ad? If you still read a newspaper, check the classified section; if it still has one, it’s a ghost of what it used to be. Classifieds were a paper’s lifeblood, but no more. Long gone is the day when most newspapers were thick.

Working on the presumption that many Chronicles readers are middle-aged to seniors, here’s a glance into the near past, that of our own lifetimes. You know, nostalgia—defined, by the way, as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past”.

(Speaking of nostalgia, I’ve developed a theory from watching antique car auctions online. The day of the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s classics appears to have peaked. But muscle cars and trucks from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s are hot and draw the highest bids. The older vehicles were your fathers’ choice of collectible; these newer vehicles are the cars of choice for today’s buyers, ‘boomers’ and those who, now comfortably fixed, can finally afford to buy that dream car that was beyond their reach in their youth.)

Well, it’s a theory...

Back to changing times and what we fondly term nostalgia. Here are just some of the things, in no real order, that have come to mind over the past week as I let my mind wander down memory lane. How about you?

Coupons. Why, I remember when these were valued like real money by some avid coupon-cutters. I used to print for a lady who saved 1000s of dollars per year by collecting, trading and cashing in coupons; she even made real money by teaching others how to use them to best advantage.

There was a time when you could identify a car’s make from a distance. Certainly, there was no mistaking the Studebaker. The first time I set eyes on one, I wasn’t sure which end was which. —*www.classicnation.com/1950-studebaker-champion/*

Back to cars: remember when they had real identities—one look and you knew its make? Well, that day has long gone, as have landmark names like Studebaker, Packard, Nash, Rambler, Pontiac and Mercury. Trucks? That last time you saw a Fargo, a Hayes, or an International, to name just three of more recent vintage, was at an antique car show.

Book-of-the-Month Club. This is how I began my library. With a weekly take-home pay cheque of less than $50, this was an affordable way to buy quality books. Ditto the Columbia Record Club. The only catch was having to buy a set number per year and declaring, each month, if you weren’t interested in the latest offering or you’d automatically receive one in the mail and be billed accordingly.

Speaking of that pathetic pay cheque, it took almost two of them to pay for my first purchase, a seven transistor radio, when I began work with The Daily Colonist. Transistor? What kind of radio was that, you ask?

Kids of today may think watching YouTube videos or movies on their cell phones or computer screens is great, but it’s nothing like the real McCoy: Saturday matinees. I’ve mentioned before that, in that pre-inflationary age, we kids could go to town and home on the bus, watch a movie and buy an order of french fries on a 50 cent allowance!

Or, when I was 20 or so, smorgasbord in Chinatown—all you could eat for $1.49!

Tilikum Drive-In’s final showing was on November 11, 1979. —*www.newspapers.com*

Another movie highlight of those halcyon days was, weather permitting, the Tilikum Outdoor Drive-in. Which, upon closure, became the Tilikum Flea Market—the greatest flea market ever, as far as I’m concerned. Oh, to have my time over again!

Which reminds me of Woodward’s $1.49 Day. Gone, gone, gone, like Eaton’s, The Bay, Sears, Woolworth’s, Kresges, Field’s, K-Mart and Zellers.

Earlier, I mentioned pencils. I still use one—one—to gently mark paragraphs of special interest in books. So I keep an eraser handy, too, but it’s a dollar store ballpoint pen for most everything else.

By far the best innovation over the past 20-odd years is the computer. God, how I used to curse my typewriter. Make a mistake or change, and you had to start over or use white-out or an eraser. Bummer!

But change, once it takes root, is irreversible and soon taken for granted as if it has always been....

Well, I’ve rambled enough for today. It must be that time of year.

They’re Not Making the ‘Good Old Days’ Any More