When I was a kid

I used to think Cheerios meant cereal in general, so I was likely to point at a box of Wheaties and say, "I want some Cheerios."
The only kinds of cereal I remember having in our house were Cheerios, Wheaties (breakfast of champions), Nabisco shredded wheat, and corn flakes; Wheaties was my least favorite.  The shredded wheat biscuits were layered in the box with cardboard separating the layers, and at one time they had Lone Ranger and Tonto information on them.  I would pull the cardboard out from between all the layers before I even ate any of the shredded wheat.  
At the movies I liked Judy Canova, Martin and Lewis, Ma and Pa Kettle, Roy Rogers, and Abbot and Costello.  
I saw my first television around 1950 at somebody's house in Iowa; a little boy about my age told me that Red Skeleton (that's how he pronounced it, with three syllables) was going to be on soon, but we left before the show started.  The television screen was tiny and round.
It seemed like every time we went on a trip very far from home, we'd have a flat tire.
My mother, who did all the driving for our family, always told the gas station attendant to put in a dollar's worth of gas.
Coca-Cola tasted a lot better than it does today.  If you want to know what it used to taste like, get a Coke in Mexico.
We got wonderful cherry Cokes at the drug store across the road.  
I only knew of one person who was divorced, and people whispered about her.
I didn't know many people who had indoor bathrooms.  Even the churches had outhouses.
My mom slapped me for using the word "crap" in place of "stuff".  Daddy said it all the time, and I honestly didn't know it was a bad word.  
My mom slapped me for saying, "When I grow up I don't want to get married, but I want babies."  
I was seven years old, and nobody had told me anything about how babies got here.  I thought it happened like a miracle in the Bible:  one minute there's nothing, then magically a baby appears out of nowhere.  Poof.  
I was twelve when I got my first idea about how babies got here; I was in the barn playing with my cat and she started having kittens.  I still had no idea how they got inside her, though.  
Later, after we moved to the city, a school nurse got the sixth-grade girls together and told us some stuff.  None of it made any sense to me.  
I wanted a pony more than anything.  
I used to talk gibberish to myself and pretend I was speaking the Indian (native American) language.  
I really wanted to be an Indian.  
I hated how the Indians always lost the battles in the movies. 
Daddy listened to boxing matches on the radio and threw punches in the air right along with Joe Lewis.    
I asked my mother if I was pretty and she said, "No, you look too much like me to be pretty."  
I asked my mother if we were rich.  She laughed and laughed, and then laughed some more.   
During the Christmas season, Mother had home-made candy in dishes around the house.  I would go to every dish and eat all the brown sugar candy out of every bowl.  Mother didn't care.  She always liked to see people eat.     
I loved fruitcake.  I still do.  
Halloween was simple, innocent fun; nobody was worried that it was witchcraft, and a boy could dress up as a girl without anybody thinking something was wrong with him.  In fact, it was the funniest costume ever.  Lots of the Halloween treats were home-made goodies like cookies or popcorn balls.     
Since I'm stymied for anything to put on my blog today, I'm giving you these random memories.  

Fruit

Early last summer while we were at Orscheln's, I bought a dwarf Golden Delicious apple tree that was marked down to $12.  It was rather late to be planting a tree, but as it happened, we got lots of rain throughout the summer, and the tree made itself at home.  
Since it seemed to have done so well, I thought perhaps I should get some more dwarf trees so it wouldn't look so lonely.  A couple of months ago I ordered two more trees:  One Fuji and one Gala.  My favorites!  Fujis are late and Galas are early, so I thought it might give us a steady supply of apples each fall.  
From what I understand, a dwarf apple tree only yields about two bushels when it's mature.  We'll see.  
When I ordered these last two trees, I was told they'd arrive in November.  I also ordered three Heritage raspberry plants that I planned to put in the garden area, but later found out they can't be near certain garden plants.  
Yesterday the UPS truck came by with my trees and vines.  Instructions told me to soak the raspberry plants' roots in water for at least an hour and the apple trees' roots for at least six, but no more that twenty-four, hours.  
I soaked the berry vines and dug holes for them in the back yard near the fence.  It was rough going, because we haven't had rain in over a month.  But I got the job done.  In order for the apple trees to have their roots in water as long as required, I either had to plant them in the dark or wait until this morning.  I chose the latter option.
I awoke to the pitter-patter of rain, a welcome sound indeed.  Running out to the rain gauge, I saw we already had over a half-inch of rain; it was coming down slowly, just the way I like it.   It showed no sign of letting up.  
Finally I put on my coveralls and a sock hate and slipped into Cliff's Muck boots (because it hurt my ankle trying to get into mine) and went out to plant trees.  I figured I could get the job done before Cliff woke up; that way he wouldn't feel forced to plant the trees for me.  It wasn't, after all, his bright idea to buy more trees.  
The coveralls and stocking hat were soaked through by the time I finished, but I got the job done.  At least it had rained enough to make my digging easier.  Now all I have to do is wait for spring and watch for buds that will tell me the trees lived through the winter.  

There's my little apple orchard.