Category: Flashbacks

Posted on

Remember Shakey’s Pizza Parlours?

Shakey’s used to have pizza parlours all over the country. Where I lived in the Washington DC area there were a couple dozen, back in the 60’s – 80’s. Sometime in the late 1980’s they started closing their restaurants. I don’t know why. They were really popular with families because they had a great variety of pizzas on a buffet and everyone could eat as much as they wanted of their favorite toppings. Plus they had great music entertainment at night, with rag time or dixie bands playing songs that everyone knew and could sing along.

Entire baseball and softball teams would come in to their closest Shakey’s after a game and eat pizza, drink beer or soda and have a lot of fun. We had our baseball team party at Shakey’s every year.

There’s nothing like them around here any more. Miss them and the great family entertainment.

Posted on

Picnics and Fireworks

I wonder how many families in America actually celebrate the Fourth of July with a picnic and fireworks?

That’s been the tradition in my home as far back as I can remember. My folks used to take us to  the community park  for a full day of family activities, with a parade, pie eating contest, arcade games and concerts on an outdoor stage – followed by a half hour show of fireworks as it got dark.

Of course, my dad often performed on stage with the local bands on their request. I was always so proud of him to see him take the stage and play the piano and sing along with whatever music they chose to play. He could wing it if he had never heard the tune before and he was always happiest playing the piano.

Posted on

Y Mail

I see that Yahoo has introduced two new email service extensions to their free emails: @rocketmail and @ymail. I guess the @ymail is a slam on Google for their @gmail accounts.

I got my very first email account at MSN about 20 years ago. I had one at AOL for a while but didn’t like the AOL service and gave it up, although I have to admit that a few other times over the years I would get suckered into signing up with AOL again for accessibility issues or some reason. But AOL just never did it for me.

I can’t get past the fact that I was invited to go to work for them when they first opened offices back in the 80’s. When I went for the interview and took a tour of their offices, I was struck by how stressed out and anxious everyone seemed. There was absolutely no laughter or happiness evident in any of the cubicles or offices.
I knew after that tour that I didn’t want to work in an office environment like that. Quality of life is more important to me than the paycheck. So I turned them down and have had a bad taste for AOL ever since.

Posted on

English Muffins

As a kid we had English Muffins in the pantry just about any given day of the week. It was a staple that we bought every week at the grocery store.They couldn’t be just ANY English Muffins – they had to be Thomas’ English Muffins. The ones with the “nooks and crannies” for the melting butter to run down and pool up in little delicious butter puddles for each bite.

The English Muffins are much more than a breakfast bread. I eat them in the afternoon as a snack, with a coating of peanut butter on top that melts down into the nooks and crannies and makes each bite a smooth delicious mix of muffin and sweet peanut butter.

Sometimes we use English Muffins in place of hamburger buns . . . gives a grilled burger and your favorite toppings a whole new take on delicious.