Mid-Century Memories

blue-bottomed cups

When I was little, growing up in Cary, Illinois, Wednesday night was grocery night. Mom and Grandma and I (and later my little sister) climbed into the Ford Fairlane for the trek into Crystal Lake to the Piggly Wiggly with that wonderful googie zig-zag roof. If we were good, Grandma treated us to sundaes at the soda fountain on the counter.

Both Mom and Grandma loved the weekly “give-away” specials of dishes and books and all kinds of other household items. My mother, right up to her death, loved these little plastic cups with the pink bottoms. Those were part of a weekly give-away. The cups came in three colors: pink, blue, and yellow. Mom collected the pink, and Grandma collected the blue.

Every day for lunch, my mother made herself ½ a swiss cheese sandwich with an Oreo on the side, chased by milk in the little plastic cup with the pink bottom. She did this for years, and now there is only one remaining pink-bottomed cup in the cupboard.

Lately, I had some luck. I ran across some of the blue cups while junking, so I bought them, and now I share with you a piece of my memories of my mother and grandmother. So take a cup, pour some milk, and munch on an Oreo, and know that life is good.

5 Responses

  1. I will always remember our pink-bottomed cups…a fixture in our house for decades ans decades. Thanks so much for the memory of Mom on the eve of what would have been her 79th birrthday. Love you, Mom! And your homemeade Oreos!

  2. Toulouse says:

    I had never seen these little gems until I saw this post. My friend Ray has been taking care of his elderly parents in Cameron for the last 3 months and helped clear out some old things. As luck would have it, he ran across a box full of the little cups and other pieces that Maureen remembered from childhood. Maureen is now lucky owner of Rays moms box of stuff ! Now if he could just run across a pair of Russell Wright twin beds !

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