Orange Crackers and Black and White Milkshakes...A Throwback Memory

Kate's Log - StarDate - 3 February 2012

Recently, I made a purchase of Lance Toast Chee peanut butter crackers.  You know the ones, orange crackers with peanut butter.  Though lately, it's hard to find the peanut butter.  Eating these crackers takes me back to my childhood and the 1960's.

I grew up in Fairmount in Philadelphia or as it is known to many today, the Art Museum area (say this with your best Thurston Howell III voice). But to us old-timers, it was and always will be Fairmount.  Back in the day, the neighborhood was mostly blue collar and middle class and filled with kids.  In the summer, we would play outside the house all day and never wanted to "come in" for anything.  But at the end of the day, we would need to return home, take a bath and settle in to watch TV.  There were only three channels back then and we had a black and white TV..imagine that.

Every once in a while, my sister and I (and brother when he got older) would get a special treat..a black and white milkshake and orange peanut butter crackers from Maxine's.  Maxine's was a corner store in Fairmount; some of us remember corner stores.  We had a lot of them in the neighborhood back in the 1960's but not so much now.  Maxine made the best milkshakes in the world or at least the best shakes in our little world.  And she always loaded up her ice cream cones with tons of ice and push it down into the cone.  Not like Steven's who would give one little 3/4 of a scoop and not even push it down into the cone...the nerve.  But I digress. When we were all spic and span and shiny clean, "Mom" would walk over to Maxine's and get us our "special treat".  I remember we couldn't wait for her to get back.  We would run to the kitchen and get out our glasses.  Mom would pour half of the shake into each glass and one of us could not have a millimeter more than the other or WW III would break out.  And we would each get three crackers.  We would retire back to the living room, sit on the floor (with Dad snoring on the sofa) and watch our favorite shows...The Monkees, Gilligan's Island, Batman (pow, bang)  and so many others.


To us, there was nothing in the world like those black and white milkshakes and orange peanut butter crackers.  I very rarely have a milkshake now days but, when I am enjoying those crackers, if I close my eyes, I can still see my sister and I sitting on the floor, in our bathrobes, dipping our crackers into the shake and dreaming of marrying Davy Jones or Mickey Dolenz....those were really the days.

We weren't monetarily rich but we were rich in so many other ways. And that is why simple things like a milkshake and crackers were so special to us. I was and am very blessed and I would not trade my simple, innocent childhood for all the milkshakes in the world.

More stories and adventures to follow.

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