Older Than Dirt!

[MajestyJo]

Oh how I remember!!!! Scary!

OLDER THAN DIRT

LightningBugs / 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 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! 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.

=====

"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."
Have a great week!!!!!!

[MajestyJo]

Well, I guess I am older than Dirt. I got a 22.

But if these things are part of being dirt, then the seeds I sow will be in fertile ground.

There are a few more I can remember:-

Poodle skirts & fuzzy sweaters
Saddle shoes
Ice cream Parlours - a whole store just for ice cream
Fresh baked bread from the kitchen or bakery.
Unlocked doors to your home
Watching the the Friday night fight with my grandpa on his tiny TV
Going to the butcher with my grandma and picking out the chicken that was running around in the yard. Seeing it killed and cleaned. The sawdust on the floor in the butcher.
Deserts that came from the kitchen not a bag or box.
Iceboxes that needed ice to stay cold. And lugging out the big drip container.
Clotheslines - nobody had a dryer.
Big bonnet hair dryers.
Going to the beach late at night because it was too hot to stay inside.
Neighbors who knew you and you them.
Double features at the movies.
Doo Wop music (that you could understand the words to).
The first man on the moon.
A vacation was a trip to the mountains to get away from the city. ( Not Paris, Mexico, or Cancun)
Bel-Aire cars (not SUV's or Hummers)

It is nice to go down memory road every so often. But times change and people. Now we are in a fast paced techno babble world. My kids now know when I say "I remember when..... "they are going to hear a story of how different life was. For the most part times back then were good.

From my friend Lildee

[MajestyJo]

Dear Lildee,

Thank you for adding to the list. I hadn't added a few of my own because I had an appointment.

I remember those clothes lines with a line divider and wooden clothes pegs. Also those circular ones which stuck up from your back yard like a giant umbrella.

I was raised with outhouses. We had two outhouses, one attached to the garage and a two-seater about 50 ft. behind the house.
I remember seeing my grandfather's Clydsdales pulling the plough when I was six.
I remember plucking the chicken and hating the smell, especialy when my mother burned newspaper on top of the wood stove to singe the pin feathers.
Chopping kindling to start the fire in the wood stove. (I once started a chimney fire that could be seen over a mile away because I forgot to shut off the draft)
Bathtubs on legs
I was 17 when I had my first taste of pizza, it was cold and I never touched it for years. It was a plain slab one and when I tasted one years later I resented all the time I had wasted because of my first impression.
We didn't get a TV until I was 14.
My dad had a Model T and I let the seat fall on my sisters finger and she never lets me forget.
Maybe a Desota car can be added to the list.
I use to own a Rambler thanks to my dear #2.
Root cellars
Unpasteurized milk, skimming off the cream from the top of the pail fresh from the barn.
Carrying water from the well.
Stacking loose hay
The smell of fresh clover when you laid in the field and made angels and looked at the clouds.
Heating the water in the reservoir of the wood stove and bathed in a tin tub, one was square and when I got older a round one.
Homemade bread, pies and cakes.
Fresh churned butter and straight from the hen eggs.
Lye soap and washboards to clean your clothes.
Remember getting my hand stuck in the wringer, and stead of releasing it, I rolled it back out! Duh!!!

[MajestyJo]

Sometimes we need to remember WHAT the Rules of life really are.

1. Never give yourself a haircut after three alcoholic beverages of any kind.
2. You need only two tools: WD-40 and duct tape.
If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40.
If it moves and shouldn't, use the tape.
3. The five most essential words for a healthy, vital
relationship are "I apologize" and "You are right".
4. Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.
5. When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It's easier to eat crow while it's still warm.
6. The only really good advice that your mother ever gave you was: "Go! You might meet somebody!"
7. If he/she says that you are too good for him/her û believe them.
8. Learn to pick your battles. Ask yourself,
"Will this matter one year from now?"
How about one month?
One week?
One day?
9. Never pass up an opportunity to pee.
10. If you woke up breathing, congratulations!
You have another chance!
11. Living well really is the best revenge.
Being miserable because of a bad or former relationship just might mean that the other person was right about you.
12. Work is good, but it's not that important.
13. And finally, be really nice to your friends and family.
You never know when you are going to need them to empty your bedpan.