Caroltee

'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.
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, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never 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 & 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 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 was 21 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..

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 --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.
On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His 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. 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.
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.
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 on the telephone
8 Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11.. 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])
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H greenstamps
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 some of the best parts of my life.

wolfkitty

I'm not even older that dirt old (54), but I fell into that category. Oh, my! I remember my grandmother having a wringer washer, too.

debbieumphress

I am older than dirt too as I remembered most of them. It used to spook me when the channel went off at night and played the national anthym first then went to the Twilight zone sounds. This was fun trip down memory lane. I sitl have my 45's, 78's, and 33's. I still have a working 8 track plater and tapes, and no telling what else. Looking forward to seeing everyone else's test score. They still sell the wax bottles with soda. I still have a few ice trays with that handel that pinches me, adn those wire stands for putting jeans and pnats on. Remeber the long aluminum curlers that you could curl your hair with to look like shirley temple. I ahev about 20 of those that my mom used on me. What fun.

Sadiemae

Now I have special permission not to tell my age. That was close... Good thing we raised our own cows so we didn't have to have milk delivered.(Therefore I don't kow how it was delivered.) If not, I might have gone over...HeHeHe

Qbee

Whew...I'm just not allowed to tell my age. Wolfkitty, I think some of it has more to do with how much money folks had than age. For example, I am 45 but my grandmother was very poor so I remember, wringer washers, peddle sewing machines, filling the big metal tub outside EARLY on summer days so that the well water would be warm from the sun come time for my evening bath (you did NOT want to have to bathe in water straight from the well!). She even had a party line when I was little....the phone would make a buzzz sound and several ladies would all pick up...LOL. Truth is, those were some of my GREATEST memories!

Lacelady

I'm older than dirt too. The only ones I didn't remember were the US ones that didn't make it to the UK!

Gramof6

I really enjoyed the trip down memory lane! I guess @ 57 I am older than dirt because I remembered all of them. LOL I always hated the smell of freshly Mimeographed Paper! LOL

twistedsheets

Now I know I am not older then dirt, but studebakers were still around and driving roads when I was young. I can relate and remember all of that. I also remember gas being 25 cents a gallon at the age of eighteen. I am only 52, tho some young rascals may call me older then dirt, I think I 've got a while togo. Today the way things are the kids are lucky to see the age of 18 or 21. Because they are so busy out there doing stuff our parents would have beat us half to death for, had we been doing that.Back when I was a kid, getting your butt whooped with a razor strap was not considered child abuse. Nor was taking a big old switch fron a tree., and disiplinning your kid. Today everything is child abuse.

twistedsheets

Oh, reminds me too the wringer washers! I can remember more then once getting my hair caught in the wringer. First time I screamed so loud my mom thought I was being attack by some child killer. Boy did I scare the it out of her! But I thought it would chew me up to peices. I got spanked for playing with her waher when she finally got me unraveled from that thing. I was 16 before we finally got a a newer model with no wringer. Now I actually miss tho old wringers!!

beachlady

I remember all of them and I am older than dirt......and getting older daily!
Aren't all those memores just great?