Melmac Memories

How could I have forgotten?  Story in the current New Yorker brings back memories –  1950s,  house full of boomer babies,  and in the kitchen – MELMAC !!  We were so lucky to live in exciting modern times, when you could actually buy sturdy colorful dishes that the kids couldn’t break!

In a web site for Melmac collectors (yes, of course there are Melmac collectors) I just found this -- it looks almost like what we bought 60 years ago -- but we had tumblers as well, and I think we bought two sets.  Our neighbors did the same,  and then we cleverly swapped.  They took all the yellow and orange ones, we took the turquoise and grey.  Hard to believe I felt good about that, but I did.

As the years went on and the kids got older, eating off dull turquoise plates – and drinking from grey 'glasses' -- lost its appeal.  We replaced it with blue-and-white Johnson Brothers china, and I gave the Melmac set, still intact, to -- ???  Maybe to my sister?   At any rate, I do recall that whoever had it next complained to me one day that the damn stuff wouldn’t break.