Man I'm Old

What are you laughing at?

Re: Man I'm Old

Postby pappygriffin » Wed Dec 18, 2019 4:07 pm

All true - and I remember them well except for the Luftwaffe. But we had blackouts and A-Bomb drills. At school first we would hide under our desks (a much better position to kiss our ass goodbye) but then they determined all the glass windows would blow in so we had to go out into the hallways and crouch against the walls. And deliver newspapers only 6 days a week (must have been a typo).? I did it for 7 days and we had morning and evening editions. Saturday night we would go down to the local grocery store and take one of their carts for our Sunday delivery. Each paper weighed about 3 lbs!! I could go on and on but kids today don't care just like I didn't care about my dad picking clinkers out of the coal pile or my grandad on WPA building roads and railroads (I care now though). I had a great childhood and wouldn't trade a minute of it. But, lets get back to flying before this thread gets out of hand. Love this site - if you haven't signed up for the Premium version - do it. Instead of 20-30 minutes downloading files - you can do it in seconds. I don't know why I waited so long. Will definitely renew when the time comes. Clear skies to all! Bob
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Re: Man I'm Old

Postby H » Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:30 pm

'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?'
Cold cereal — anything else had to be heated.

'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'
'It was a place called 'at home...'
We lived on a farm near the border with the next town south of us; if we'd lived in town there were a few diners with waitresses for older folks but Dad went straight to work after breakfast and I had to catch the bus directly to school.

'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, & if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'
It was a porcelain-clad kitchen table and food cooked with a wood range for us but, once I was past my toddler years, it was my choice how much of what I put on my plate (which included at least one spoonful of everything served); whatever you put on your plate was to be eaten (by you).

... I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Except if we had a dire need to use the toilet, wash our hands and return to the table, we didn't leave until Mom and Dad were done.

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.
Dad married Mom a year before WWII ended but, except for a visit with her realatives on Prince Edward Island, they never left the U.S. after Dad returned home; to my knowledge, neither were ever on a golf course and Dad never had a credit card (died while still 55) but Mom had some later in her life (she died Sept. 4, 2017, at 95½-yrs-old, the last of my preceding generation).

My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
I had one of those bicycles but, as said, went to school by bus. Didn't bicycle to town until I got my Huffy 3-speed with 52 books of TopValue stamps.

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. 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...
We purchased a home that already had three antennas on the roof; early on, antennas were sold for each channel's frequency and ours were for channel 3 (CBS, Burlington, VT), channel 6 (NBC, Schenectady, NY) and channel 8 (ABC, Portland, ME); however, we didn't get a television until I was near eight but when asked if it was a color TV I'd say, "Yes — black, white and shades of gray!"

I never had a telephone in my room. Our 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.
There was never a phone in our house until I was in my teens — just one between the kitchen and living room and, yes, it was a party line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home...
Pizza... delivered? Some while after my cousins moved out of it (I was in my early teens), the house was torn down and a Pizza Hut replaced it.

But milk was [delivered] & so was bread.
Milk was delivered every day — by our Jersey cow, along with eggs from our Australorpe hens; late Spring through Autumn we also had wild strawberries, red and black raspberries, various apples, plums, blackberries, butternuts and grapes as well as corn and other vegetables from our planted gardens.

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 AM every morning.
This wasn't until my parents were divorced and Mom and I used our truck to take bundled papers to area drop-offs for those delivery boys to pick up. We then finished our 101-mile route by delivering to rural recipients.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?
No...

MEMORIES:
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.
Mom ironed in the kitchen, next to the stove, with her water sprinkler.

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Not only my parents early cars but the first I had on the road, a 1962 Buick Invicta convertible.

Ignition switches on the dashboard.
I had a cheat with this: my off-road Renault's ignition switch broke and I installed a toggle switch and, to engage the starter, a doorbell button in the dash.

Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Never used them.

Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
A rather large iron but used a butane torch.

Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
Only for our tractor and my bicycle. The hand signals are still part of our NH driver's test but, if you use them bicycling, you're apt to get a 'hello wave' just before they hit the horn and run you over.

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 at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (Only 3 channels! If you had a TV!)
7. Pea-shooters
8. Howdy Doody
9. 45 RPM records
10. 78 rpm records
11. Hi-fi records 33 1/3 rpm
12. Metal ice trays with lever
13. Blue flashbulbs
14. Cork popguns
15. Studebaker's
16. Wash tub wringers
We had large storage galvanized milk cans but gallon glass jugs for house use.
There were cartoons before the movie at an outdoor theater.
Not sure about the 78s but still have 45s and 33-1/3s in storage.
Knew of them but never had a cork popgun; the first shooting toy gun I was familiarized with was a Mattel revolver with plastic bullets; however, I was shooting with a 22 rifle when I was five.


OK, Mr. older than dirt, seems I'm buried beneath it with you!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Same here...


8-)

'
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