I remember all of these, you?

[Airpark]

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 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 15. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, 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 5 A.M.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.

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:

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 telephones
5. Newsreels before the movie
6. TV test patterns that came on after the last show and were there until shows started again in the morning. (There were only 3 channels !!
7. Peashooters
8. Howdy Doody
9. 45 RPM records
10. Hi-fi records
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!!! THAT'S ME !!!

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

 

[arjay]

Well,I'm older than dirt! The first fast food I can remember was a place called the denver drumstick and the food came in a carton that looked like a train car.

 

[kb5601]

I'm 54....And remember every one
Only a kid, but life was easy then...
We thought we were poor....but we had it made
KB

 

[wetdog]

Older than dirt here.

 

[zzzippper]

I'm old. You can add rotary phones and drive-in movies..

 

[tomtheturner]

I also remember the outhouse, out back . . . The hand pump in the kitchen. The barrel to catch rain water, so the ladies would have "soft" water to wash their long hair.

The garage had a dirt floor, but two concrete ribbons about 6 inches wide the length of the driveway spaced just far enough apart for a Model T's tires.

When we got a car with a "heater" in it!!! Oh yes, a radio too!!

The milkman delivering our milk, the Fuller Brush man coming around, and the Debit Life Insurance man who collected once a month.

The coal fired furnace. Boy the house would get dirty when it was delivered down the chute into the basement. My father was sure happy when we got an automatic stoker for the furnace. A real step up!!!! The house was warm when we got up in the morning.

So many things to remember . . . .

Best Wishes,
Tom

 

[AnthemBassMan]

-I'm "only" 47, and I remember using or seeing all of the above except the newsreels before a movie. I loved it when we would go to this one little restaurant. They had those jukeboxes at every table. Even if we weren't allowed to play them every time, it was still fun to flip through the song lists.

-My Grandparents still had a party line with their neighbors until they sold their farm in 1987 or 1988. And Grandma still used a wringer washer with a huge galvanized tub in the basement for all the laundry. And of course, Howdy Doody was well into reruns when I watched it. My neighbor when I was growing up had a Studebaker Avanti. One sweet looking car. Basically a Corvette with another body on it. But it was kind of an ugly burnt orange color.

L8R,
Matt

 

[GKC]

Well, I'm 63, and remember all 15...so I guess I'm "older than dirt."

We lived out in the country for part of my youth, and we had an 8-party line. These two old ladies would talk to each other on it for hours, and would not give up the line to anyone for any reason. I remember my stepfather once holding a rifle near the phone and shooting it out the back door (there was nothing for many miles to hit) and one old lady said "Did you hear something?" and then they just kept on talking.

I remember my mother taking shirts and soaking them in a starch solution in the sink, rolling them, and putting them in the refrigerator until she could iron them. Dry clothes she did sprinkle with the bottle/stopper (she used a Coke bottle, I think.)

I remember being able to buy cigarettes as a kid...my parents would send me to the store for them. Kids smoked openly at school (not in the classroom, of course.) Pickup trucks had rifle racks in the rear window, and were usually full...even parked at school. They were never broken into and stolen.

Our television (we only had one) was black and white, and we only got three channels. There was no remote...well, I was the remote, since my stepdad would tell me to get up an change the channel. It had a rotary dial channel selector, and went from 2 to 13, if I remember correctly.

I not only remember 45s, we had 78s! We used to have a lot of LPs (long playing albums) that we'd listen to on the "stereo" (meaning it had two speakers.)

I don't ever remember eating "take out" food. All meals were cooked at home, or we'd go to a restaurant (seldom.) There was a pizza restaurant in town, but I don't recall them delivering.

A good thread...thanks for the memories.

 

[arjay]

The first color tv I remember seeing was built from a Heathkit by a neighbor and his dad.They worked on that thing for months

 

[Bkreutz]

I'm older than dirt (I remember all of them), but there were people that suffered more than me. I was visiting relatives in Iowa once, we were sitting around the table when the phone rang. Nobody got up to answer, I'm wondering if everyone except me is deaf! I finally asked why no one is answering the phone, the answer was... "That's not our ring" then I noticed the phone had no dial on it. My introduction to operator dialed party lines (their ring was 2 shorts and a long) At least in Seattle we had dial phones. (I won't even go into the plumbing arrangement at the Iowa farm )

PS I had a Studebaker Lark, 1964

 

[Comrad]

shovel me and call me old dirt.

 

[LTC]

14 out of 15 for me, I don't remember newsreals before the movie, but then I am older than dirt. Right?

We ate what was put in front of us also. Mom cooked it and we ate it. We also needed to ask to be excused. Who didn't?

Fast food? We never heard the term. I saw my first McDonalds in Hampton Virginia in 1966 while stationed at Langley Field, I was 19 at the time.

The closest thing to fast food were the local hot dog stands. Those of you from NW NJ or NE PA, do you remember "Hot Dog Johnnie's" on Rt. 46 or "Jimmie's" at the foot of the old bridge between Phillipsburg and Easton or Toby's in Phillipsburg?

My first two automobiles came with a crank. Sort of a auxiliary starting system.

Our cell phone or pager amounted to Mom hollering for you out the back door. Who remembers the correct response to that call? A hint, it wasn't "WHAT!" It was "yes mother I'm coming."

I remember a bunch of friends pooling the loose change they had in their pockets to provide gas money to the driver for a couple hours of cruising the strip in Easton.

Played Army and or Cops & Robbers on the school play grounds, with all nature of toy guns and the police weren't called to arrest us.

When you got thirsty while out playing you didn't go to your plastic bottled water, you went to the hose or the creek.

We were lucky as we always had a TV of sorts as far back as I can remember, but it only had about 6 channels out of NY and 3 channels out of Phila ( 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, & 11). It did require you playing with the selector for the motorized aerial mounted to the top of the house. Programing generally ended at midnight.

Motive power was "shanks mare" or bicycle.

Those were the days.

LTC

 

[arjay]

My folks were friends with an older (60ish) German woman that lived in an old miners house above central city.There was a wood cook stove in the kitchen and a small parlor stove in the front room.Out back and up the hill was a 2 holer out house.In the garage above the outhouse was her model T.The road up from town was so steep,she had to back it up the hill the last 1/4 mile.

 

[pharmer]

At almost 61 I qualify for "older than dirt" although I do remember it being invented. Joe

 

[cussedemgun]

YEP, & more

Cars with a hand crank in front to start it when the battery was dead

Gas pumps with a hand lever to fill the glass measuring bowl on top

Penny candy

Pickles from a barrel

Dixie cups - ice cream in a paper cup with a paper lid & wooden spoon

Mail was the letters delivered by the letter carrier, packages came by railway express

Sears was actually Sears & Roebuck mail order business with a neat catalog that came three times a year. Spring/summer issue, Fall/winter issue, & their much awaited Christmas catalog

I could go on, but it's time for my med.s & nap

 

[shouldazagged]

I could list things most of you youngsters probably never heard of. They sure pre-dated that list.

 

[wbraswell]

I think I remember all of them, sometimes I forget. No WalMart, Sears & Roebuck sold their own line of guns and motorcycles, so did Montgomery Wards. The only convenience stores were 7-11 and locally owned. I remember when 7-11 first got Icees. I remember DeSotos, I remember in 1959 when all the new 1960 cars came out and the latest fad was compact cars, the Falcon, Comet, Valient, Corvair, and others. I remember all Cokes were 6 1/2 oz. If you wanted 10 oz. you got Pepsi or Royal Crown, and you had to use a bottle opener, or a car door latch. Jax and Falstaff beer, man that was bad. I remember the first cars with quad headlights, and fins, they looked like the future. I remember watching "Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in Black & White, and dreaming how exciting it must have been in color. Rode my bike to and from grade school. I remember Volkswagens with flip out turn signals.

 

[WuzzFuzz]

The news reels at the movies was "News of the World", with that ring going around on it...One maybe two cartoons..Tom and Jerry, or Heckel and Jeckel. A highlight was to see a Three Stooges short. On Saturdays, there was the two or three parts of a 10 or 12 part serial...Of course, they'd leave the end of the reel with a "Cliff Hanger", so you'd watch the next episode to see what happened...One I most remember is one of the old John Wayne serials, and there was a old train involved...Then you'd get the coming attractions....THEN..you'd get to see the movie. Not bad for a dime..... And you were allowed to bring your six guns to help shoot the bad guys....(Cap Guns)

And..for some of the out lying towns...there were the out door movies on a portable screen...Not the drive in movies...But one fellow would come to each town and play the above stuff I mentioned...When he had to stop and change reels, then that was intermission time, to either chase some more of the girls, or disappear into the park.

.


Two drunks got lost, and were in the zoo....A lion let out a loud roar...GRRRRR...The first drunk said.."Let's get out of here".. The second drunk said, "Why, the show is just about to begin".

Get it...the Lion roars before the beginning of the movie


WuzzFuzz

 

[steelslaver]

I am only 62 and I remember them all. plus, phones with no dials, ALL the stores being closed on Sunday. In our little eastern Montana town some had outdoor "facilities" most my out in the country relatives had outhouses, some didn't have electricity or running water.

Most important I remember moms whose work was raising us kids and what a job they did!

 

[gdnagle]

I always tell my wife that it shows your age when you go into a Cracker Barrel and remember using or seeing used everything hanging on the ceiling.