Older 'n Dirt!!

"Hey Dad," one of my kids 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. "Grandma cooked every day and when Grandpa 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. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. 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 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called "pizza pie." When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it 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. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what t! hey did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.

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.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
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 o! nes that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

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

Well shovel me under 'cause I remember all that.. even had the Fresnel lens over the old Dumont TV to make the image bigger because the screen was only 6 inches measured diagonally..the next door neighbour had the deluxe Marconi with the coloured gel on the screen..Mighty Mouse always had green boots until he jumped into the air then he went red...

Even when I was in University you could still have lunch for a quarter [ Mars Bar and a Mountain Bew - in a bottle - no cans ] and comics were a dime..

'back when I was a kid they were a nickel...I recall us boys screaming when they went up to 12 cents because we used to collect pop bottles for the refunds.. 6 bottles got you 12 cents.. the cost of a comic and two Bazooka bubble gums.. had to give up the gum when ' inflation ' hit...
As for the Studebaker.. damn.. my dad drove one!!
gawd!!! the memories...still, its funny how history repeats itself.. we're all sliding back to the Tiny TV's again.. only these are handheld and all the kids are squinting at their cell phone screens...
Guess Dick Tracy's wrist videophone is now a reality instead of a comicbook fantasy..

okay, nurse... I'm ready to back in my box, now...

I can still remember the sound of the horse hoofs on the brick streets delivering milk before sunrise.

My grandfather owned a Studebaker truck and a DeSoto automobile. The truck was black and the car was pink and white.

I also got my little bottom spanked when I was caught pushing the floor starter on my father's 1941 Ford automobile.

My wife, who is six months older than I am, always tells people that she is older than dirt and then points to me and says that I am dirt.


I have to admit that the one about the newsreels may be real or just a later memory while watching historical programs.

How about this coke for a dime, penny candy and you can trust your car to the man who wears the star, the big red texico star.

I was DRO at the last supper, and I believe you're all older than me.

gunny- you sure made me feel good I don't know anything older than dirt but if you guys are that old I sure am in trouble the only one I know for sure is Coach he is a couple of years younger than me.

Okay, so I only got 4, but there are moments that I think my time should have been then rather than now. Things sure have gone down hill quickly in this world. One give and you get two takes.

Thanks Gunny...
Even though we just welcomed Grand number 3 into the world last weekend, I didn't feel older than dirt until noww....lol

C-Mom

hmmm... must getting really old as I completely forgot about even posting this thread. Was wondering why my name kept popping up....

quote:

Originally posted by HarryP:
I can still remember the sound of the horse hoofs on the brick streets delivering milk before sunrise.

.

That brings back memories. My Dad spent his whole life delivering milk. When my Sister and I were small, we used to go with him occasionally. Started out with the horse drawn wagons, and then went to the Divco's. They impressed me with being able to drive them standing up or sitting down. We only had one picture with my Dad, my Sister and I, and the horse drawn wagon. I'd give anything to be able to find it now.

Heck,I'm so old they didn't even have dirt in my day......some sort of primordial ooze I think they called it...

"Your still young" huh??

guess thats good thought

his momma's nipple ain't even dry yet......

My mind is like a steel trap, rusty and illegal in 37 states.

quote:

Originally posted by thegunny:
It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red.

LOL, Ok, so lemme get this straight gunny. When you watched Lucille Ball she had a blue head, a red torso, and green legs and feet? I think she looks more real in black and white! Still though, it is rather inspiring to know that even back then stupid companies made stupid products, and stupid people bought them, just like they do now. Perhaps America CAN maintain a superpower status economy.

quote:

It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day.

Yeah, until it stopped in front of a burning house and the firefighter climbed the ladder and turned blue. LOL! I am never going to get over this.

This topic topic actually interests me, as when my dad tells me about his life growing up he's like, "I had to walk to fifteeeeeeeeeeen miles through knee high snow barefoot to school, and you know what? WE DIDN'T WHINE ABOUT IT! That's the problem with you young people these days, all this whining that you do." It's actually kinda interesting to here about what people really did back then.

Admittedly though, all the fuss'n old people make about us young'ns can be funny in it's own way. At my local Hardeez there's this really old lady named either Ethel or Bertha or some other 1920s name who's always complaining about the kids that walk in. "You want a milkshake? Boy, when I was your age we didn't have milkshakes. We didn't have cups either, if we wanted milk we had to drink it straight from the tit! Young people and your milkshakes...*mumbles on*"


God Bless America.