memories for thos of us older than dirt

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Feejer/Weejer man

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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. !

'Mum 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.

But 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 Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 19.

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 --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.

There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend :

My Dad is cleaning 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

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 remembered 11-15 =You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!

Especially to all your really OLD friends....

Russ Meagher

 
I will date myself by recalling that our family doctor would come to house to sew us back together when we had a major crash or disaster growing up... Four boys can be somewhat problematic...

Mimeograph paper and fluid was about the only way to get high in school... There was no marijuana or drugs other than beer in high school.

 
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I am not older than dirt, but I do know the guy that is, he posted just above me here. Fun, humorous, and oh so true reading!

 
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13 :rolleyes:

While I knew about party lines, I can't remember ever being on one. And while I also knew about and saw washboard ringers, I don't remember anyone I knew actually using one during my lifetime. I mean -- I didn't want to have a perfect score!

 
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exskibum: I actually came up with 16. How did they leave off our listening to "Wolfman Jack" on a tiny handheld radio in the middle of the night! Of course, I know "Wolfman" was a West Coast disc jockey, broadcasting from Tijuana with huge power.

 
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exskibum: I actually came up with 16. How did they leave off our listening to "Wolfman Jack" on a tiny handheld radio in the middle of the night! Of course, I know "Wolfman" was a West Coast disc jockey, broadcasting from Tijuana with huge power.
Anybody remember record players in cars that would play 45's.... They were mounted under the dash and were about the size of a VCR.

 
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water inside

Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

Black Jack, Clove, and Beemans chewing gum

P.F. Flyers

Telephone numbers with a word prefix...(Raymond 4-601).

78 RPM records

Green Stamps

Beanie and Cecil

Roller-skate keys

Drive ins

The Fuller Brush Man

Reel-To-Reel tape recorders

Tinkertoys

Erector Sets

Slot cars

The Fort Apache Play Set

Lincoln Logs

15 cent McDonald hamburgers

5 cent packs of baseball cards -

with that awful pink slab of bubble gum

Penny candy

35 cent a gallon gasoline

Jiffy Pop popcorn

Do you remember a time when...

Decisions were made by going "eeny-meeny-miney-moe"?

Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "Do Over!"?

"Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest?

Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening?

It wasn't odd to have two or three "Best Friends"?

The worst thing you could catch from the opposite sex was "cooties"?

Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot?

A foot of snow was a dream come true?

Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute commercials for action figures?

"Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense?

Spinning around, getting dizzy, and falling down was cause for giggles?

The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team?

War was a card game?

Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle?

Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin?

Water balloons were the ultimate weapon?

there was no AARP <sigh>

 
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Anybody remember record players in cars that would play 45's.... They were mounted under the dash and were about the size of a VCR.
Sadly, yes. The neighbor directly behind us (2.5 to 5 acre parcels) was 3 years older than me and also played baseball. I recall seeing one in his '55 Chevy convertible over at the ball field one day as he showed it off to us.

What will they think of next?

 
I scored 15, and I'm not that old! I mean, that wasn't so very long ago, only a couple years, or so......

 
Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water insideSoda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

Black Jack, Clove, and Beemans chewing gum

P.F. Flyers

...

Jiffy Pop popcorn
Don't forget typewriters - I've seen people thinking they're "some sort of computer-something" and be even more shocked when they found out it was fully manual and didn't even have a power cord. However, Black Jack, Clove, and Beeman's gum are still available here in Florida, and on Amazon.

For an example of "progress", pant leg clips for bicycles have now turned into velcro straps, and they're crap.

And in a twist, my coworker's Infinity has an ignition switch on the dashboard, but it's a button now. That one just gets me. It seems ultra-strange to me.

 
12, and the only reason I know about washtub wringers is that my grandma never thought she needed anything better. She was probably the last human on the planet to keep one in regular use.

When we upgraded to a color console TV and I was given the previous 19" b&w "portable" to use in my room, I was somebody!

 
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I know nothing of any of the shit you old fukers mentioned...

Must be I somehow slipped into the geriatric ward. :to_become_senile: :pardon:

:jester:

 
Geez we must all be old goats. Maybe we can all go to the same old folks home and race scooters and pinch the nurses after slamming too many prune juice shooters!

Remember when they used to fill the tank, wash the windows, check under the hood and tire pressure?

Or

Drive-ins? Anyone ever watch the movies?

 
Had a relative with a late '50s Plymouth Fury 2 Dr Hdtp. with a factory record player.

Oil could be found at service stations in jars (like Mason jars) with metal screw-on tops -- then modernized to round Qt. cans that needed an opener.

Even bread was deliverd to the home -- the Omar Bread Man.

In the 'Wolfman Jack' vein (local celebs):

Kukla Fran & Ollie, Garfield Goose, Roundhouse Rodney, Soupy Sales, Cousin Brucie, American Bandstand (Dick Clark may still be hosting that...?), Mickey Mouse Club's Adventures of Spin & Marty.

:rolleyes:

 
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Remember wax candy syrup bottles, transistor radios, slide rules, library index cards, horse hair plaster walls, giving a Christmas gift to the mailman (no women "letter carriers"), penny candy that really cost a penny (or less), playing flashlight tag, oakwood school desks with the seat attached and an inkwell in the corner, mimeograph machines with purple ink on your fingers, overhead projectors were high-tech, bias-ply tires were the only ones available, a button on the floorboard triggered the high beams, manual rotary mowers were all people had, and grass and hedges were clipped with hand clippers, trolleys were a dime, and you didn't expect to get paid for helping the widow down the street carry groceries or mow her lawn.

 
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OrDrive-ins? Anyone ever watch the movies?
:lol: Reminded me of the last time I was at a drive-in. There was lemon gin and a yellow Toyota Celica involved. It was half-past midnight when some a**hat started blowing his horn so we poked our heads up to take a look. Turns out my foot was caught in the steering wheel ...... :rolleyes:

 
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