How Old Are You?


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> Enjoy a walk down memory lane this morning! I did

>

> Subject: Fast Food

>

>

> 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 they 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 ones that you remember, NOT the ones you were told about !

> Your 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.

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I must be really old.

our telephone didn't have numbers just 2 longs and a short ring.

outhouses with a half moon on the door.

army combat boots with 2 buckles on the top half.

no television...just a radio with a 6 volt battery.

no locks on the doors...just a button and a hook to keep it closed.

kerosene lamps to do our homework.

lash la rue and tom mix at the movies.

nickel movies on Saturday.

yes we did have a covered wagon before we bought our first car in 1949.

I was 6 weeks old when japan bombed pearl harbor

Edited by bearskin
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I must be really old.

our telephone didn't have numbers just 2 longs and a short ring.

outhouses with a half moon on the door.

army combat boots with 2 buckles on the top half.

no television...just a radio with a 6 volt battery.

no locks on the doors...just a button and a hook to keep it closed.

kerosene lamps to do our homework.

lash la rue and tom mix at the movies.

nickel movies on Saturday.

yes we did have a covered wagon before we bought our first car in 1949.

I was 6 weeks old when japan bombed pearl harbor

By Gosh....

You really are older then the Average Jelly-Stone Bear...

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I didn't keep count but I assume I'm in the "older than dirt" category.

Only heard about Packards, don't think I've seen one on the road that wasn't already considered an antique. Never saw newsreels before movies. My first car had the windshield washer control, an actual rubber bulb you pressed with your foot to squirt the fluid, on the floor. Never saw an ice box. I still use a pant-leg strap when I cycle (my bikes have a chain "ring" to keep you from getting tangled in the sprocket but the chain itself is still exposed). Some of the others I only experienced because my extended family were mostly Missouri farmers (What? No mention of outhouses?). :)

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I can remember them all including the outhouse. The cottage where I lived from the age of 1 until I was 4 and the cabin I lived in from 1984 to 1988 only had outhouses. The only running water at the cabin was the creak down the hill, the only heat was a wood stove and I used Coleman lanterns and candles for light.

My grandfather drove a Packard and my first lot car was a Stude. As for music my grandmother still had one of those record players that used the cylinders. In 1956 my father bought a GE black & white TV in a cherry wood cabinet that had two doors on the front. I loved Black Jack gum. I could really go on about everything in those lists.

Damn, I miss those days.

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Older than dirt...

My first phone number (that I can remember): EMerson 2-7623 (Grandma's number started with MElrose)

Cloths pins to fasten playing cards to hit your bicycle wheel spokes; to make it sound like you were really tearing out on your 1-speed hand-me-down bike

Collecting glass pop bottles door-to-door to get that 2¢ or 3¢ deposit each (and later 5¢ for the really big pop bottles); and then carting them down to the store to cash them in to buy penny candies to gorge on

25¢ Haircuts in stinky barbershops

Wax red lips / black moustache candies

Drive-ins where food was loaded on a tray that was hooked to the outside of your car door

Dials on telephones

Homemade slingshots

Walking miles to school... uphill, both ways, in the snow or rain: (that is what it always seemed like). On a rare clear day we could see Mount Ranier off in the distance

Did our roller skates actually have bearings in the metal wheels? Didn't seem so... and yeah, keep that skate key on a shoe-lace looped around your neck if you didn't want to lose it

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