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Memories by Beb Jackson Cotter

In 1961, what color was your bathtub? Ours was light blue. It matched the sink and the toilet, the tile floor and the walls. Our new bathroom was nothing like those with old-fashioned white fixtures in other houses. We were right in style.

When I think about it now, I smile. Eventually I had become frustrated with the color blue. What color for the curtains, the towels? Blue or white? Nothing else worked. White fixtures would have been so much more fun to decorate around.

A few years ago, we stayed at a motel in North Dakota. The bathroom fixtures? Pink! Wow! Classy, modern, up-to-the-minute for the 1960s, and a definite memory maker for us now in the 21st century.

I never had a gold refrigerator or stove or dishwasher, but colors were also popular in the ’60s and ’70s for kitchen appliances.

And now, when I think about it, cars also were of different colors, blues and reds and yellows and greens and browns, even pinks. Maybe occasionally, you would see a black one, almost never gray. Colors, plus the incredible exterior designs, are what make today’s classic car shows so much fun. There’s certainly no problem finding your vehicle in a parking lot.

These memories popped recently when a friend mentioned avocado green. When we moved to a different home in the 1970s, avocado was the popular color, and the contractor who built that house must have gotten a good deal on green carpet. Every bloomin’ room — green and tan, green and yellow, green and blue, light green and dark green. Gradually, the carpeting was replaced, but it took quite a while. And 50 years later, I still don’t care for the avocado color.

It is interesting, too, thinking back to furniture styles. Here again, in the sixties, many homes were decorated either in Danish Modern or Early American. We had a modern style chair in the living room that did not have front legs. It was supported by a wooden triangular design extending from the chair’s back support. It must have been pretty sturdy. It was used a lot, and no one ever tipped over on it. Our bedroom set was also Danish Modern. It’s still just as beautiful as it was 60 years ago.

I remember attending a home interior decorating party where very modern and early American styles were promoted. When we were asked our preference I could not respond. My home has always been a combination of modern and classic and antique with a good dose of sentimentality thrown in. I guess it always will be.

If the universal law “What goes around comes around” is true, I doubt if the person who created that phrase was also referring to the resurgence of pretend Early American furniture or the extremely straight lines of Danish modern styles, or even some of the unusual designs and colors of 1960s station wagons, sedans and convertibles, or maybe gold refrigerators, avocado carpets and pink bathtubs.

What a trip down memory lane that revival would bring.

Bev Jackson Cotter is a lifelong resident of Albert Lea.