Friday, March 11, 2016

We're older than dirt!!

Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite 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 kitchen table, & 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. 


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, travelled 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 13. It was, of course, black and white, and the station and we got three stations, CBC (Vancouver), CHEK (Victoria), and KVOS (Bellingham)  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 & so was bread however, they were only delivered to those who lived in town; we lived in the country and went every two weeks into town to shop for groceries. 

All newspapers were delivered by boys and I delivered two newspaper-the Vancouver Sun and the Nanaimo Daily Free Press, six days a week, lucky I had an afternoon route, but I still had to have all the papers delivered by 5:00. My route was about six miles and was not fun in the rain or the snow.

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 : How many do you remember of these 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 : Taken from the Book Son of a Gun-the Live and Times of a Lifer Brat by Macs(Sw) Chet Beates Thanks to Judy for bringing this quiz to my attention it was fun walking down memory lane.


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 table side 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. (there were only 3 channels !! [if you were fortunate]) 
  7. Peashooters 
  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 flashbulb 
  14. Cork popguns 
  15. Studebakers 
  16. Wash tub wringers 
  17. Outhouses
  18. Butch Wax
  19. S &H Green Stamps
  20. Drive Ins
  21. Mimeograph Paper
  22. Blackjack Chewing Gum
  23. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
  24. Wax Coke shaped bottles with sugar coating
  25. P. F. Flyers
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 !!! 

My personal score was 22

We might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of our lives …. 

Don't forget to pass this along !! 
Especially to all your really OLD friends

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