TBT: 1970s Cooker I Miss

Back in my years in England, we had an up to the minute 'cooker' or as American English says a stove. Yes, it was small but it held an good sized turkey and I really learned to bake with that oven.

But the best thing ever was the eye level grill aka known as a broiler in the US.  There's nowt as good as cheese on toast made with a slice of thick Yorkshire bread and a good sized piece of Caeraphilly cheese. Oh I miss that and believe me an electric broiler doesn't hold a candle to a 1970s English grill pan. And then when we finally got North Sea gas! Eh by gum lad, that were the life.

TBT: Oh The Papers I Wrote

Ah yes....things wives do. Foolish things wives do. We've all heard about the wives who slaved away as typists, back when the world used typewriters, to put their dear hubby through school or residency or blah blah blah.

Well back in my day, I urged my then husband to finish HIS degree while he was working full time. In the UK in those days, I was not allowed to work because of the 'status of forces' agreement. So I wrote papers for him so he could sleep instead of staying up to do his own schoolwork. He graduated and when a M.A. program was  offered, once again I encouraged him to go for it. He did and I read more books on international affairs than I had ever planned to. It was hard to discuss these with him since he, of course, was not reading them! In fact, one time when 'his' paper' did not receive the usual A, I was furious and kept telling him to go discuss that with his professor. Naturally, he refused and I stewed a long time about that undeserved B.  Undeserved at least in my mind.

But eventually this duplicity was over and he received the Master of Arts degree. The ceremony was held in London and it was in the early 70s I believe. Another wife and I decided there was time before the actual event to wander around the streets of London which we knew fairly well. A stop in a pub led us to almost missing the actual event. I recall wearing a fashionable maxi dress and having to pick my dress up to dash back to the ceremony. I still think maxi dresses are a pain in the ..... Maxis and clog like wooden soled shoes do not lend themselves to quick movement I found.

He's the one in the back row, 2nd from right with the grin and the stache. I now wonder 1. How many of these men are still alive and 2. How many did their own classwork for that degree???

Life leaves us with many unanswered questions.

ThrowBack Thursday - Oh Those 70s

Yes, I know many of you were not even born in the 70s. Many of you. But these two lads of mine were.  Here they are, their very first time in California - mine too - in the desert near 29 Palms. I have always supposed that is a Joshua Tree but what did I know? I had spent most of my life on the East Coast, and the prior 7 years in England. I'll stick to this story until corrected.

These boys of mine have grown up to be men older than I was in this 1975 photo. The 8 year old knew how to look cool but the almost 4 year old may have been embarrassed by the non matching pattern of his trousers or did he know the future was so bright he had to wear shades! Fortunately, they no longer wear trousers like these. But then again, I've seen these plaids come back. What's old is new, over and over. I bet there are houses in this barren landscape now! A lot happens in almost 40 years.

Flashback Friday

My dil asked if we had any old photos of her husband when he was a child. As his own mother should have most of those, this is the only one I have. It was scanned from a collection album my dh's sister had. All we could tell was that it was a school shot from the 70s. That boy with the reddish hair now has a Ph.D. in Mathematics. For those of you who read here often, this is Bekah's father as a child.