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Location: Vero Beach, Florida, United States

My name is Pat and I live in Florida. My skin will never be smooth again and my hair will never see color. I enjoy collecting autographs and playing in Paint Shop Pro.,along with reading and writing. Sometimes, I enjoy myself by doing volunteer "work" helping celebrities at autograph shows. I love animals and at one time I did volunteer work for Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Sometimes It's Just a Memory.

OLDER THAN DIRT

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..

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  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.

13 Comments:

Blogger Debi said...

Okay, I won't tell my age.

"...I was allowed to sit there until I did like it." LOL...me too! And the "May I be excused, please?" Ha! We've passed that one on down to our kids!

7:19 AM  
Blogger Daphne said...

I'm only 35 but we had candy cigarettes, and my car had a dashboard ignition! i too was 'allowed' to sit at the table until I ate my dinner. We didn't have a dryer (or a washing machine, for a long time), we spent the summers canning and blanching/freezing (and yes, I lived in town, not on a farm), and my mom made all my clothes. Things changed when I turned 11 or 12, when our fortunes turned for the better... but I still know how to can, how to pinch pennies with the best of them, how to collect rainwater for my garden, and how to sew! Oh, and my brother had a paper route! Some things don't change as much as you'd think... (but my friends were so privileged it makes my teeth hurt)

11:01 AM  
Blogger DesLily said...

Debi: it never hurts to be polite, but some never learn that.

Daphne: lol I may have to steal that sentence about your teeth hurting lol.. I am so old my mother had a "wash board" in the sink before we got a washer with a wringer on it and don't think that wasn't hard to crank when you had bulky clothes to go thru it.. then of course it went to the close line! I still love clotheslines but apts like I am in won't allow them...which isn't right when its a developement for old people on fixed incomes, you'd think they'd bend over to help us save a few dollars! oh well..sorry didn't mean to get off on that lol

11:16 AM  
Blogger Nikki in Niagara said...

That was fun! Asking to leave the table, what a concept eh? Or the nights I had to stay at the table until I had finished because of all the starving children in China.

One more point and I'd be as old as dirt but at only 41 I still get to stay in the "Don't tell your age" category!

12:24 PM  
Blogger Astaryth said...

Whew! I remember 10, so I stopped short of being 'older than dirt'. LOL! I probably remember a few things others my age may not because my grandparents lived in the country. Heck, I remember pumping the pump outside to get water AND when they finally had the bathroom put indoors and we didn't have to go out to the outhouse :)

12:41 PM  
Blogger DesLily said...

nicola: just asking any permission is amazing lol trust me you aren't old as dirt .. I am! when I was young "Broadway was a Prairie!*

JJ: LOL.. I remember we had an indoor toilet when I was very young but not a bathtub.. we still bathed in the sink!

12:52 PM  
Anonymous She said...

Great memories! :)

1:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you were trying to make me feel old..boy howdy..did you suceed! I did remember most of those things. We didn't get a television until late but used to watch Saturday night horror movies at friends. Mom's would pop corn and we'd make popcorn balls with melted caramel and karo syrup. Had to butter your hands to keep it from sticking to you and it was hot!
I did collect 45's and loved my record player. One of the best Christmas presents ever. Folks told me they couldn't afford Chritmas presents that year, so wasn't expecting anything but after all the presents had been opened, Socks and what nots, there came music from the kitchen. Ran in there and there was the prettiest single record player ever! Still don't know how they came up with the money for that, but took that sucker everywhere with me until it finally gave up the ghost. Even remember my first 45 was Tennessee Ernie Ford's 16 Tons. (Think that was because Mom and Dad really liked him.)
Great list..Vala3

4:06 PM  
Blogger Helen said...

I am older than dirt. I remember all those things LOL. Some things we had and some we didn't. How about cooking on an old cast iron range, draweing water from the well with a rope and bucket. No inside bathroom. Not going to mention anymore LOL. Helen

4:44 PM  
Blogger Cath said...

I got 7... but a couple of them were American and I'm probably old enough for those if I knew what they were. (Studebreakers???)

Fast food for us was fish 'n' chips from the mobile van on Friday nights, occasionally. The rest of the time Mum cooked. I still live like that to be honest, cooking most of the time. Oh and I had a bike just like yours! Great post, Pat.

6:40 PM  
Blogger Ladytink_534 said...

I sometimes wish I could have experienced that time in person instead of through books and movies.

9:12 PM  
Blogger Kathleen said...

I got up to 8...good memories to look back on some of these things!

11:57 PM  
Blogger DesLily said...

she: I also remember wood/coal burning pot belly stoves and an iron stove my grandmother had that burned wood..and.. a feather bed mattress on an old spring. now I feel like singing "grandmas feather bed" by John Denver lol

you are too energenic and into excercise to stop long enough to feel old Vala!..and I am happy for you for that! I remember my portable record player too! that and putting that little plastic thing in the middle for the thin spindle.

Helen: I'm old dirt too lol dusty dirt.. if you blow the dirt aside in the ground is written: "In the beginning..." lol

Cath: a studabaker was a car. and I don't remember ANY fast foods when I was very young.. not until I was 10 and older i guess.

Tink: every age has it's memories. When you get old you look back and can't believe things you have now that you didn't "back then" Technology never stops.

kathleen:the funny thing is..we got along fine without the things we now have.. which makes things very interesting indeed. so I look back and some "new things" are great yet I don't think everying is for the better.

5:18 AM  

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