Callie, it comes on at NINE O'CLOCK Eastern Standard time and repeats at ELEVEN O'CLOCK Eastern Standard.

Do different HBO channels have different schedules?

My son Chip tells me that I can watch The Gilded Age at any time of the day or night on HBO MAX.  I refer to one of those little poster-like things you get if you press on the little house on one of your remotes.  Me, I have not found my way around the hallways of my Smart TV as yet, let alone found my own locker.

But joking aside, I spend most of my time inside of the poster for PBS, watching episode after episode of All Creatures and some other goodies.

Thanks, MaryPage. I understand what you mean by not finding your locker searching the hallways!!!!!   Your time is an hour later than Oklahoma time so I "subtracted" when I went searching.
I have Cox Contour (which I like less and less as time goes by} on the t.v. that gets HBO).  I don't have a "little house" on my remote.
HBO 301 has Gilded Age at 6:35 p.m. and is showing Episode 1 tonight.  HBO 307 is showing Episode 2 at 11: p.m. tonight.  Both times are CDT.   Both numbers have reruns on Friday night, during the day on Saturday and on Saturday night.  Who knows?
I suppose this conversation should actually be in the Television folder since the Bait and Tackle is more for "general topics".

Switching to that:   My dil who lives on the other side of town posted on Facebook that the house shook for at least 15 seconds this morning because of a 4.3 earthquake close to the northern edge of the state.   I was out doing errands on my side and didn't feel a thing.  Evening news said reports were it was felt in Wichita.  Hope Shirley wasn't affected.
She's more of  a regular in the Soda Shoppe so I think I'll hop over there and ask.

Enjoy your evening, Everyfriend. Sleep well and have pleasant dreams.



     

Well, Episode 2 not only does not disappoint, it bests Episode 1.  I will not give you any spoilers, but to say I believe I am correct about the suitors lining up for SweetandTart Marian.  Hope she winds up with young Russell and never has to worry about finding $50 in her purse to normalize the agonies of the cook.

No fun to slink off to Television with my cheers & barbs.  For one thing, I've always yearned to be a critic, since clear back when I was a little thing and Mama used to bring a radio into my sickroom when I was lucky enough to be given a free ticket out of school because I was ailing with one thing or another.  I would listen to the real soap box operas all the day long, and Mama fed me lovely bowls full of pretty milk toast.  Umm; I love it still, and while I fix it for myself now, I would give the world and all to have her, that radio, Stella Dallas and Mama's milk toast just one more time.

I don't think Marian is going to walk the aisle into young Russell's family fortune, though.  I think she has already formed an incurable crush on that young attorney.  Okay, alter my bet:  I'll bet that young man out fames & fortunes all the rest.

Mrs. Astor makes her speaking debut in Chapter Two, and she is a delight.  Her gown  could probably have bailed out six cooks! 

Well,now I can't possibly wait until this weekend to see what happens in Episode 2 so will have to stay up to watch the 11:00 p.m. show!!!   I'm a night owl, anyway, so it won't be a problem[
 
Oh, MaryPage, your mention of milk toast brings back memories.  I loved it!   Also remember "White Tea", which was simply warm milk served in a fancy tea cup like "the ladies" used - along with a homemade cookie. 

My beloved Aunt Esther, who never married and spent a great deal of time with us, was NOT to be disturbed when One Man's Family was on the radio. Stella Dallas sounds familiar, and I think she probably listened to it, too.
 
Mother didn't listen to soap operas on the radio but when she was in her late 70's, she said all her friends were watching soap operas on t.v. and she thought she should, too.  Could I suggest one?
 
 At the time, I had started watching "Another World" = mainly because #2 son would nap on the couch if I was sitting there and I needed something to do.. Of course, he outgrew the naps but I kept watching "AW" every afternoon until it went off the air.

So I explained the idea of various story lines and that she might need to watch for a fairly long time so she could get them sorted out.
Several weeks later, I asked how her "project" was going and she said, "I watched for a week and that's the silliest thing I've ever seen!"  So much for soap operas.     She did watch the family dramas that were on in the evenings, though.  The Waltons was a favorite as was Little House On The Prairie.

Oh, those costumes in Gilded Age! They are magnificent.  I do wonder how the ladies managed to sit down with those bustles!



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I tell you what, when you are mebbe 10 years old and in the 5th grade, you have all the Joy in this world, strep throat or not, to be lying in bed all day listening to soap operas.  So named back in the day for a combination of their lurid dramas and the fact that the vast majority of them were brought to us by one well-known soap flake or another.  Remember, detergents had not yet been invented.  Soap flakes in slightly less lurid boxes were all there was out there.  We did not have gigantic groceries with baskets you could roll up and down aisles to pick out your stuff, either.  When you went into a grocery, it was a smallish room, with a counter between you and the clerk.  There were shelves lining the walls behind the clerk, but they did not contain a great variety.  The largest part of the store was through the door into the back, and customers never entered there.

You had a list.  That was an imperative.  The clerk took the list to a person in the back.  Then he or she chatted with you and any other customers waiting their turn.  A person came out of the back with your cardboard box full of the items from your list, and disappeared again.  The clerk added up your shopping, usually with a crank adding machine, and gave you a total, which you paid, or it was put on the family tab for the month.  A family member would stop in and pay up just after the first of the next month.

One thing I will swear to until the day I die: I was a healthy child, but a lot of bugs went around unchecked in those days.  By no means could I have been called "sickly."  Yet, these few days or a week or whatever that I listened to these wonderful, often only 15 minutes long dramas, was sufficient to bridge the passage of time until I lay there and listened once again.  Very little had changed in each story line.  Very few characters had been added or taken away.  It was a cinch for me to catch up completely!

I swear!

Mary Page, You brought back warm, quiet memories, of  being home sick with one of those old childhood illnesses that would sweep through the schools, back in the 1940's.  Chicken pox, mumps, measles, or the flu, sore throat, etc.  The worst one I can remember was Scarlet Fever. That one set me back for a long time, and when it was over, I looked positively skeletal, and my hair fell out! 

It was a given, the we stayed in bed, until we were well, and no longer running a fever.  Mother would come in and take my temperature off and on throughout the day.  I still have a clear visual picture of her standing beside the bed, shaking the thermometer down and popping it under my tongue.  Then holding it up toward the light, to read the good or the bad news.  I would watch her face for a hint of good or bad, but she was inscrutable!

Milk toast, Junket, Jello or applesauce,  were brought into the bedroom on a tray, and I was propped up on pillows to eat, or read a Nancy Drew book.  I looked forward  to noon, when the 15 minute soap operas started, and lasted for the better part of the day.  "Oxydol's Own, Ma Perkins", would start things off, followed by hours of drama, and some comedy.    My favorite was,  "Mary Noble, Backstage Wife".  Oh the troubles that poor woman encountered, over the years, with calculating women trying to seduce her famous actor husband!  Always failing of course.  Good prevailed over evil, on the radio soaps. 

And I remember them all!  I also remember listening to "The Shadow Knows", and a whole bunch of others that my brothers loved! Before the little radios, my brothers had crystal sets.. not sure how they worked but you had to lean or aim the right direction to hear.

We are getting a drizzle right now but temps are above freezing. That comes later tonight and after ice we are supposed to have snow for the next 2 days. I gotta go bring the snow blower to the garage & not a chore I look forward to. Gates to unlock & must move enough out of the garage to make room for snow blower. Time to get me ready to go out, will need a raincoat, maybe long johns? and for sure, rain boots, hat & gloves.

What I remember best was which ever one of us that got to go pay the grocery store bill always got a treat of a "Smoozie". I can still taste the difference in them and all others ice creams.

I remember lining up my dolls in front of the radio, giving each one a graham cracker -and settling down to listen to children's program "Let's Pretend".  Also remember teenage years listening to Big Band music from a New Orleans station after "lights out" - and listening to the political conventions late at night.  Loved it when the delegate would say "The GREAAAAAT State of (Wherever) casts its votes for...."

Marilyne, I read all the Nancy Drew books and still have one of them.  Also have originals (probably not first editions, though) of "Mary Poppins" and "Mary Poppins Returns" (sketches of her in the books sure don't look like Julie Andrews!!!!!!), and a set of "Jungle Books" by Rudyard Kipling, a couple of which wouldn't be acceptable today.  My favorite was/is "How The Elephant Got His Trunk".

Clouds drifting in from the southwest today with patches of blue sky now and then.  Only needed a sweater to go get hair done.  Weather gurus keep moving the "Heavy Stuff" time later and later.  I'm "in for the duration" so Bring It On!

Shirley, what's a Smoozie?

I read all the Nancy Drew books of my time, too.  I started on them a little sooner than most of you did, being I was born in 1929.  A few years ago, having noticed the Nancy Drew installments on one of our TV channels, I tuned in to one.  Nancy was having illicit sex with her High School boyfriend.  I could not handle that change in the Nancy I knew, so I got out of there and haven't gone back!

Oh, how I adored "Let's Pretend!"  Saturday mornings at ten, or was it ten thirty?  They did ALL of the Grime's Fairy Tales, and Hans Christian Anderson's, and so forth.

"How The Elephant Got His Trunk" was MY favorite of Kipling's Just So Stories, too, Callie!  My great grandson Will's favorite is about how the camel got his hump.  I named one of our first family dogs Rikki Tikki Tavi, after that brave creature.  He was a black miniature poodle from championship stock, so that name will appear in the lineage books forever.  We just called him "Rikki.

Shirley, the Shadow came on after bedtime, but I often got to listen in.  There was a squeaky door opening in the intro, and it would chill me to the bone each episode!  There was also "I Love A Mystery" on at night.  It was so thrilling to be scared into putting pillow over my head!"

I never got the mumps or scarlet fever, though I knew plenty who did.  I got the rest of them, and Daddy had never had Chicken Pox, so he got it from tiny me, and nearly died of it!  That was when we were stationed at West Point.

Radio sure allowed the radio generations to obtain vivid imaginations!

I remember listening to the Saturday morning radio shows, "let's Pretend".  Also listened to The Shadow Knows; Bulldog Drummond and there was something with Playhouse in the title. (could be wrong on that one) "Cream of Wheat is so good to eat, yes we have it every day"..think that was the theme song for Let's Pretend. One was presented by Buster Brown Shoes.
My favorite thing when I was home sick, was Milk Toast. I love it to this day. Mother would also make me homemade potato soup. Bet we all got our share of Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup!

Sometimes, a friend and I would have "Pearl Tea" which was sweetened condensed milk in a teacup, with hot water poured over and stirred.  Sweet and a fancy thing for us.

The music that introduced LET'S PRETEND was called "Country Gardens."  You can ask You Tube to play it for you and bring back that tingling anticipation.

Hmmm, Tomereader, it turns out you are correct and I am wrong.  I thought the Cream of Wheat song went with Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, which came on around five o'clock in the evening on school nights.  Now I am left to wonder why I associate Country Gardens so strongly with Let's Pretend. 

Anyway, my apologies.  You are right and I've got my tunes messed up!

"Country Gardens".  I remember it well.  In Grade School that was played every time classes were dismissed.  Classes would line up in their classroom and one by one, as called out, would march out of the building to the Victrola played "Country Gardens". I suppose it reduced the mayhem of kids running out on their own. I never knew the name of the song till many years later on the Internet, but I remember it well.

My brothers saw to it I had radios that worked UNDER the covers in my bed, and I loved listening. Your Hit Parade was another fav. I was listening to that when waiting for my oldest brother to come home after the last 9 months of the war in a German Prison camp. Dad & Mom went to the depot to pick him up but he hopped off the train on the other side so they didn't have that first meeting in public. He walked all the way home, down the main street of town because our house was many blocks straight south of the depot. I heard his footsteps and knew what happened, so I got to see him first & helped make it easier when Mom & Dad got home.... and Your Hit Parade played on. I was 10. He weighed a little over 70 pounds when released but before the military let him come home, they tried to fatten him up.
 
I was another Nancy Drew fan, MaryPage, and had many of the old ones that my daughter kept when we had to empty Mom & Dad's house. After that my daughter bought all of the new ones that came out. Like you, I was NOT in favor of them changing any of the moral standards! My mother had me believing that I should NEVER do anything I wouldn't want to read about me on the front page of the newspaper.

Did any of you read the Black Stallion books, and when someone asked me my fav book of all, turned out it was also my friend that is 10 days younger than I am. Remember, Freckles and His Friends?  I found a copy when the library was having a book sale so bought it & gave to my friend. I glanced thru but it wasn't like I remembered so I did not re-read completely. In my head/memory, it was perfect!

With 5 kids in the family we had all the diseases. My father had diphtheria at the same time my 3 brothers had Scarlet Fever. I guessing that was before my sister & I were born. Poor Mom, I was only 2 when I caught measles, whooping cough, pneumonia & had a drain hanging out my back from my lung. Our house was between where the doctor lived and the hospital so he would stop by to check on me, no appointments so often had to call me out of a tree to check the drain. Any wonder why I was the youngest? 

Callie, you don't remember the ice cream bar called "Smoozie"?  Chocolate covered ice cream but because sugar & all that was rationed during the war, it was not something we got often! But you are younger than I am. 

I never knew the name of that tune either, Rick, but did learn to play on the piano my one year of lessons. 

I adore music, and consider it the most amazing human gift, before all of the other arts; but am not blessed with BEING musical.  Like Shirley, I only had one year of studying piano.

However, I think, as I go over it in my mind, that Country Gardens and the Cream of Wheat song may be one and the same.  That is to say, I think they are played to a different beat, but are the same.  Try it for yourselves, and please tell me what you think.  Don't be intimidated by my wonky heart to tell me I am nutz.

Just listened to Country Gardens on YouTube.  It is not the Cream of Wheat song. Not even close.

Shirley, I'm not quite a year younger than you are but I don't have your photographic memory for details of the past - particularly the 1940's.  I vaguely remember a chocolate ice cream on a stick that was a version of an Eskimo Pie - but never heard them called Smoozies.

MaryPage, I also liked How The Camel Got His Hump and read that one and the "Elephant" book to my 2nd graders when I was teaching.  I always pinched my nose when I read what the elephant said while the python was pinching his nose and really emphasized the "HUMPH" sound the camel made. 

   I did take piano lessons and think I learned to play "Country Gardens - if it was in those red John Thompson books. We "measured" ability by the difficulty of pieces we learned.  I got as far as "Brahm's Waltz" but never made it to "Malaguena".\

Mrs. Bryant's students gave a recital every Spring.  On  a Sunday in May, between the morning service and the afternoon recital, the Presbyterian church (which my family attended) would be magically transformed from a sanctuary into a concert hall - complete with two grand pianos and standing flower arrangements.  The girls wore formal gowns and the few boys wore white shirts, ties and dress trousers.
There were piano solos, duets and even pieces with three players at each piano.  However, I can't remember a single piece that I played or participated in.
   Mrs. B. retired by the time I was in high school and I began taking lessons from the high school choir teacher - who occasionally played piano for parties and such.  She wrote out the melody for "popular songs" and I learned to chord the left hand and a few "embellishments".  Only one of those I remember is the "Manhattan Skip" but I suspect my fingers are too stiff to do that one nowadays. I think - if I tried hard enough - I might remember how to play "On A Slow Boat To China"

Rammel, you mentioned a Victrola.  I inherited my grandmother's floor model Victrola and a lot of records.
   When #2 son was in 3rd grade, his class came to our house to look at some of the antiques we had. They had to write thank-you notes afterwards which were to mention what they liked best.  One of the kids wrote, "The thing I liked best was the wind-up juke box."  Loved it!!!!

 

Just lost my post ---
Yours sounds like the one the school had. I remember it had a crank on the side.

Rammel, exactly - except mine (now my son's) has a different finish. The top doors are the "volume" - just open them wider to get louder. Records stored on shelves behind the lower doors.

Here is the "Cream of Wheat" song, recorded off of an old radio broadcast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LP8X_TPgFg

Yep, my folks had one just like that and my brother, many years later, bought the "portable" one, same type oak, that played those old big records.

Callie, the piano teacher my sister & I took lessons from also had recitals, I hated performing in any way but was mandatory so got up front to play "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers"... half way thru I forgot where I was (was playing from memory with sheet music in front of me), so folded up my music like it was really over & walked off. No more lessons for me. We had to play thru  pieces in those John Thompson books, several to practice for the next lesson. I never opened the book between lessons but got a gold star on every page. Mom would check on our progress & we did okay, my sister practiced enough for both of us. As a kid I never met a stranger & was not bashful, BUT I would not perform for anyone. My sister was thought to be so timid and bashful but she was like a little music box, just put her in front of people & turn her on.  Guess I was a strange kid & even stranger old lady!    I always thought of myself as a "people watcher"and I did record everything in my head about how others felt or did things.

Shirley, I was a lot like you.

My grandmother had one of those large, thick wood, record players, as they called them.  She had a lot of thick clay-colored records.  I remember a lot of Caruso, was that his name?  Singing "The Bluebird of Happiness."  And I loved "The Skating (ice) Song."

I am loving the trip back to my childhood!  So many of the things that you all remember are in my memory, too.  I must say I wasn't a particular fan of "Nancy Drew" but I read and re-read every book of that wonderful land called "OZ"! 

My piano teacher was Mrs. Sheldon and she made me work my way through John Thompson, too, Callie.  When I had gotten as far as I could go she switched me to Mozart and Handel.  By then I was old enough to want to do other things besides practice the piano every day so told my parents I didn't want to take lessons anymore. 

Shirley, I don't remember Smoozies but I do remember the chocolate ice cream bars that gave some lucky eater a FREE stick.  You could take the stick back to the store and get another ice cream bar for free!  I got one only once but I felt like I had won the "Sweepstakes".

MaryPage, "Let's Pretend" was my favorite.  It came on out of Kansas City, KS....on WDAF or KMBC at 11 a.m. Saturday morning.  I was always glued to the old Zenith radio at that time.

Rammel, our record player was a wind-up Victrola.  We had one record..."Runnin' Wild".  Played it over and over and over.   

I try to not live in the past but it is so nice to remember, isn't it?  Thanks, everybody, for brightening my day and reminding me of what I think of as a simpler and happier time.

Hi Phyllis  -  Good to see you posting here in B&T!   I think we all loved "Let's Pretend".  Not very many radio programs produced for children back in the 30's and 40's?  The only others I can remember that I listened to, were the ones that were on in the late afternoon.  They were all adventure programs with young hero's such as, Jack Armstrong, "The All American Boy",  brought to you by Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions!   I was a big fan of  "Captain Midnight", sponsored by Ovaltine, I think?   My brothers favorite was,  "Tom Mix", and his Ralston Straight Shooters!

There was a program that came on right after "Let's Pretend", called "Grand Central Station".  It was an adult drama, but I loved listening to it if my Mother would let me.  I always had Saturday morning chores to do, so those came first . .  .  then usually outside to play all day. 

I don't remember "Let's Pretend"  but probably watched it but didn't know the title.☺️  My favorite radio soap was "Ma Perkins", but I loved them all.  Funny but I never watched "soap operas" on TV.  Of course, all this soap opera "hearing" must have been done in summer or when I got home from school.  Remember sitting right in front of the radio with ears tuned into the latest.

The best Christmas I ever had was the year Santa brought me 12 new Nancy Drew books.  Reading kept me busy during the holidays when I wasn't playing Monopoly with the neighborhood kids.  We usually had some kind of competition going with one of the board games.  Also spent a lot of time jumping rope (remember all the rhymes that went along with that?) or playing hop scotch.

"Country Gardens" didn't ring a bell so I listened to it on You Tube and recognized the tune right away.

Sure did enjoy the posts and going down memory lane with all of you.

We are having a warm spell here in Northwest Florida but the temps will be going down again this weekend.  It's a little overcast but the sun peeks through the clouds occasionally.  Made some good chicken soup yesterday so will soon be time to eat lunch.

Have a good day!

We've had at least 6 inches of snow and my back yard reminds me of the poem that begins "The fence posts wear marshmallow hats",  except in my yard it's the solar lights along the edges of the flower beds.
Absolutely no tire tracks along the street.  Guess the neighborhood has "hunkered down".  Sounds like a plan to me. 

Oh, my, Jean, 12 new Nancy Drew books all at once, what a thrill.

I just listened & watched the English Country Garden by Jimmy Rogers & was fascinated by the flowers, they really were that beautiful behind the walls of the houses in Marlow & High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. I did appreciate the flowers and fact that nearly every yard was filled with perfectly manicured patches of flowers, a sight my mother would have loved.

"Wave the flag for Hudson high, boys
Show them how we stand!
Ever shall our team be champions
Known throughout the land!"

And then came on The Lone Ranger!

Phyllis, I swear to you, I read every single one of the 33, I think it was, OZ books!  And remember them still! They were my favorites, by far.  I had a lot of aunts and assorted female relatives who kept me well supplied. 



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Good morning 🦋

Logged in again.....just do not understand WHY I have to do it each and every time I come in😩😡. It says Iam logged in forever🤪🤪

Sunny day here and hoping it will be a bit warmer.  I am getting ready to head out to my endocrinologist appointment. I am hoping for a good A1C as he will take blood today.  I am not down on my weight as much as I would like to be but I feel I am doing this the smart way.....just a steady pound or two down at at time. 

Our hot water heater went out about a month ago and we have been not so patiently waiting for the plumber to come back and finish up the job.  He has put it off many times, but finally made it this morning.....arriving just over one hour late.  He was fitting us in.....or so he said!  We did not care so much that the old tank was sitting here as we did that we have  not had the whole house humidifier running the whole time‼️  It is very dry here and added humidity is a necessity. Now they tell us a solenoid is not working and it has to be replaced before the humidifier will work🤬 How long do we have to wait for this part to be completed 🤷‍♀️

I wish you all a good day 🦋

Jenny