Jack Large
Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.'
'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'at home,' I explained. 'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school. I walked or took my bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
We didn't have a television in our house until I was 15. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at5AM every morning. Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? MEMORIES: My Mom cleanred out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.
How many do you remember? Head lights dimmer switches on the floor. Ignition switches on the dashboard. Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner. Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Older Than Dirt Quiz : Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom. 1. Candy cigarettes 2. Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes 3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles 4. Party lines on the telephone 5. Newsreels before the movie 6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels[if you were fortunate]) 7. Peashooters 8. Howdy Doody 9. 45 RPM records 10. Hi-fi's 11. Metal ice trays with lever 12. Blue flashbulb 13. Cork popguns 14. Studebakers 15. Wash tub wringers 16. Out house If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age, If you remembered11-16 =You're older than dirt!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
18 Answers
Dardaigh
FISH-O
Candy cigarettes - Yes... Popeye was on the little red box.
Coffee shops with Jukes - Yes.
Milk bottle delivery - Yes, but we didn't do that in our family.
4 and 5 - No
6 - Yes
7, Pea shooters - OH YEAH!
Howdy Doody before my time but I do know who he is.
45s and High-fis... big old YEP!
Metal ice trays with levers are a yes and so are the blue square flash bulbs. (Oh that is going back for Moi!)
13 and 14 no and wash tub wringers were going out but still "Way Cool!".
That was fun! Thanks for the memory flash back!
| 11 years ago. Rating: 16 | |
lindilou
I am both shocked...and pleased to say that my score of 15 out of 16 rates me...older than dirt...I did not see a Howdy Doody show...ever...although I do know who he was. I've also experienced no running water in the house or a well-pump at the kitchen sink!! And a crank handled phone at my grandmothers' home.And no power in the house...oil lamps...older than dirt houses!! And don't forget about push-mowers! And root cellars!! And open air combines and tractors...with an umbrella for shade!!! And gravel roads!! (Just kidding 'bout the gravel roads) :D
| 11 years ago. Rating: 16 | |
jhharlan
lambshank
I qualify for older than dirt, and I think I'd be older than that, except I don't think we had "howdy doody" or blue flash bulbs in Oz, perhaps they were for the more sophisticated in America, I had heard of party lines on the telephone,but I'm afraid as a kid we were reduced to using the public phone, a red box with a whopping big black phone.
| 11 years ago. Rating: 15 | |
nomdeplume
78 rpm records? I have a wind-up gramophone capable of playing these and a number of records going back to the 1930's.
| 11 years ago. Rating: 15 | |
Ann
Shootah
ROMOS
sunnyB
vjmathis
I think I'm just a bit younger, but my town may have been smaller. I remember all the things you've talked about. Except we didn't have party lines. What we did have was a woman everyone knew who would read any phone listing you didn't know by heart from the phone book. Now, that was Directory assistance!
| 11 years ago. Rating: 13 | |
Tommyh
Yes,I remember them all & a couple of others.Wood stoves,kerosene fridges.cars without A/C (Or heaters). & yes the milk was delivered.I grew up on a dairy & I BLOODY WELL DELIVERED IT!!
| 11 years ago. Rating: 12 | |
clu
Jack Large
When I told my grandchildren and great grand children that I walked to school UP HILL, twice a day for a total of SIX miles, they laughed, but it was factual.
I lived in a small town located in a valley. We lived up on one side and the High School was a mile and a half away, up the mountain on the other side of the valley.
I waked down on side and up the other in the morning, came home for lunch then back in the afternoon and home after school.
When asked why I didn't you eat in the cafeteria? I told them we did not have a cafeterias. Only the kids that came by bus from the farms were allowed to eat in the gym.
There were no "Snow Days" either, we went to school regardless of the weather. If it snowed the buses simpled arrived late. If it was hot we opened the windows or went outside
.
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| 11 years ago. Rating: 12 | |
daren1
doolittle
So, I am apparently older than dirt. What about clay? & one other question how much of the polar ice cap has melted since we took our first breath?
...and to add to your list: manual typewriters with a ribbon, getting 13 mpg was standard, the two-three hour gas lines during the embargo, the grape boycott, MLKjr and Kennedy alive, what space program??, no one could afford McDonalds when it first opened and it was fashionable to go there and actually eat there.
| 11 years ago. Rating: 8 | |
millie111
Stubid
