By Peter Hewitt —
Once you get to be thirty-nine (or, rather, eighty-five) it’s amazing to recall how many changes have taken place during your lifetime.
To start with, Cambridge is where I grew up. Our house cost $5500.
In the early 1930s, we had an ice box, and the ice was delivered by horse and wagon, as was our milk.
There were gas street lamps that were lit by a man on a bicycle.
We had a coal-burning furnace and kitchen range. Our furnace man had what my father called an elbow problem, and the furnace would go out on the coldest nights.
The first car of ours I can remember was a 1920 Essex named Geraldine. Before that there was a Hudson named Esmeralda. (Our cars always had names.) Then there was a 1929 Packard (The Leviathan), which was acquired in 1936.
You could mail a postcard anywhere in the country for one cent, letters for three cents. Two cents within your town. Good Humor ice cream cups cost a nickel. Saturday morning kids’ movies at the U.T. (University Theater) were a dime.
But the most surprising memory of all is that we could pick up the old black stand-up telephone, ask for Williamstown No. 9 and get my grandparents’ house!
Peter Hewitt is a former resident of Dublin who retired to RiverMead along with several other Dublin residents.