Here's something I just received from an older friend and former Marine. It sure brought back some memories!
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 18.
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 19 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 5 AM 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 table side 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 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 some of the best parts of my life.
Don't forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really good OLD friends!
*As to the Stopper top with all the holes in it, I found one in the kitchen junk drawer. Do you remember what they called the bottle with one of those stuck in the top? A 'lettob gnileknirps' of course!
I can remember each one of those and more!
For example;
How about the early, 'original?' l Kadee couplers that all to often came uncoupled on curves due to a smooth face on the coupling faces and no little lip to prevent them from slipping apart which they all too often did! I still have a few left I'll have to post a picture. Also they didn't come with the curved steel uncoupling arm like today. on the under side of the knuckle at the front edge was a hole that you inserted a common pin shaft after it had been clipped it off and filed it so it would fit into the hole on the knuckle.
How about Mantua's answer to solve the problem with the Kadee's and their hook & wide hoop style coupler. I still have some of thise too I think.
How about the old Atlas fiber tie flex track that required quite a lot of manipulating to get the curve you wanted adjusted and set, and set it was firmly in place! I still have some. The fiber ties also tended to chew into your hands.
How about the old sharp flanged wheel sets s that were literally a real drag when trying to pull a string of cars down the rail. I still have some of those too.
How about the Old True Scale Milled wood road bed that allowed a guy to carefully insert a three foot length of rail into the milled rail keepers on the road bed and then spike it in place. It came in curved sections too as well as turnout base I think?
How about metal trucks frames with stiffer springs than those used on the Kadee couplers to support the weight of the cars and actually allowed some up and down travel to the truck bolster. That was standard in earlier times and even a few of the later Roundhouse kits still came with sprung trucks and metal side frames.
How about Ulrich's early attempt at a track cleaner with a fluid tank on a flat car with a shed on it and a sprung felt drag under the car that the solution would drip on to clean the rails as you pulled it around. I still have the reminents of the car left.
Oh, back then all car and locomotives came as kits that a guy had to assemble including a fair amount of filing to clean off casting flash.
Yes, how times have changed.