Memories

[Big-T]

For my OLD friends . . .
 
THOUGHT YOU MIGHT ENJOY THIS ...
'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. [/center] 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 16.
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 21 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 6AM 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 tableside 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 OLD friends....
 
 

[solo1]

25 plus! 45rpm records, that was later, I remember 78 rpm records, in fact I have a few of them.
I also have an Edison record cylinder but I don't go back THAT far.

Forgot to mention methanol was used for car radiators, bought it by the quart, pumped out of 55 gallon drums. Used a lot of it as it boiled away on warm days.  

Hupmobiles, Crosleys, LaSalles, Nashes, Hudsons, Overlands, Lincoln Zephyrs V12.'s, Graham Page, Frazer, Henry J's, Tuckers (never saw one).

[ricoman]

each one of the 25 brought back a good memory for me
thanks

[Big Rig]

23/25---Blackjack Chewing gum and butch wax???

[Jess from VA]

Man, I used butch wax to paste the front of my flat top haircut up in 1st-3d grade..... so I could look like my Marine dad. 

My baby sister stuck her arm in the hand-crank wringer over the washer.

I remember every one of those, except Packards.

[Garfield]

Is this the old timers thread?

[BF]

1. Blackjack chewing gum - No clue. 
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water  - By the truck load. 
3. Candy cigarettes - Momma hated 'em, we loved 'em. 
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles  - 6 ounce Cokes in the green bottle. 
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes - Untill about 5 years ago, my favoite breakfast place still had them. 
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers - That's how we got out milk from the Bordon man. 
7. Party lines on the telephone - We had a party line for about the first 10 years of my life. 
8 Newsreels before the movie - Mostly before my time, but I remember a few. 
9. P.F. Flyers - Can't tell you how many pairs of those (and Keds) I've had. 
10. Butch wax - My older brother used it for his flat top in the late 50's. 
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]) - That wasn't all that long ago.....was it?   
12. Peashooters - Never had one. 
13. Howdy Doody Before my time....but not my brother's. 
14. 45 RPM records - Still have them in a box somewhere.
15. S& H green stamps - Momma collected them from the Piggly Wiggly and "traded" them in at the S&H Green Stamp store. 
16. Hi-fi's - What else were you supposed to play your 45's on? 
17. Metal ice trays with lever Still had some of those as late as the 70's. 
18. Mimeograph paper - Blue ink everywhere. 
19. Blue flashbulb - For my Kodak Instamatic......those little cubes with the 4 bulbs. 
20. Packards - Before my time. 
21. Roller skate keys - A little before my time....but my sister had a set of skates that took a key. 
22. Cork popguns  - Yep....had one. 
23. Drive-ins - Some of the best dates I ever had were at the Drive-In movies. 
24. Studebakers - Dad had one. 
25. Wash tub wringers  - Momma didn't, but the next door neighbors had one. 

[Sodbuster]

I'm guessing you're in your late fifties or older cause I remembered all that stuff .... how bout jumping jumping up and down on the rear seat of the car when you were little before car seats and seat belts. I had to chuckle to my self when I saw Black Jack Gum .... reminded me of my uncle .... said it made him fart 

[RP#62]

I remember pretty much all that stuff.  Being a navy brat we went to the movies on the base.  I remember thinking what a rip off when it went from a dime to a quarter, just to see a movie.   Other stuff you don't hear anymore is playground games we used to play - I guess smear the queer is completely out of the question nowdays.
-RP

[hotglue #43]

Man... I'm at 100%......
but I alway say.."  Old Age and Treachery will overcome Youth and Skill everytime...."

[shortleg]

   When my Dad left to go to Korea our neighberhood only had
phones on the poles. The phone company had not grown enough
to supply a phone for all.
  The only way you could get a phone in your home was if you
were a wife with husband overseas or a doctor.
   We were lucky enough to have one,but it was a party line.
 I also remember waiting till some unGodly hour for my father to call
from Japan when on R and R
   Got my first stiches from hitting the dashboard of the Studebaker.
 Oh my God no seatbelt.
                 Shortleg[Dave]

[Garfield]

Thank you all who posted in this thread. You all make me feel so young 

[art]

that brougth back memories. I had a shwinn corvette bike with every goddie on it that I could get.I think now that I was a born biker. the valk fits the bill.Thanks for the good memories

[John Schmidt]

Man... I'm at 100%......
but I alway say.."  Old Age and Treachery will overcome Youth and Skill everytime...."

Mark, you got that right.  I remember the custodian, Tom Whitney, at my dad's school in SW Iowa where he was the Superintendent. He had a Lincoln Zephyr, bought it brand new after selling a farm left to him by an aunt as I recall. One of the last built around January, 1942. Car production halted about then when the U.S. entered the war. He and I had a run in, he ran over my dog and killed it, strictly and accident but as a little kid I was hurt and mad. So, next time he came through with his Lincoln, I threw a brick at it and hit the right side door. After dad found out....oh brother, stood up for dinner a couple days. I recall a friend of my folks in Omaha had a car that if you stalled it, it would automatically start up again. Don't recall the make, but his wife put it through the back of the garage which was on a slight incline. I easily remember the "new" Studebaker when it came out with the pointy nose. A girlfriend in HS had a little Crosely station wagon, as did our HS principal...he was a real jackass. So, one night when he was out of town, a bunch of us on the football team picked up his Crosely and parked it on his front porch right in front of the door....sideways. The man had no sense of humor about the entire thing. Did the same thing to the band teacher, except we put his Studebaker between two trees....with about an inch clearance front and back. It was payback also, seems he didn't like it when "someone" tossed a firecracker down the front of the Sousaphone while the guy was playing it during a game. Tossed a bunch of "innocent" members out of the band.

Those milk bottles with the cardboard cap stuck in the top were kinda neat. Always had the neck full of cream so there was a little bent glass tube with a rubber plunger you pressed down on the cream, causing it to run out the tube into a separate container. Very effective way to get the rich cream off the top. I also remember when margarine first came out, was in a plastic bag and was white. Inside that bag was a little capsule of coloring which you popped and kneaded by hand while it was all still inside the bag. That turned the margarine the color of butter. Seems like that came out during the war or soon after, must have been during since we still lived in SW Iowa. And I know you old farts recall the ration stamps....and we think we have it tough now!!

The telephone party line was the big thing on the farm, you could always tell by the ring who was getting a call...and if you were nosey you could listen in. They later came out with a phone that had a little lever where you hung the receiver, that lever enabled you to restrict the hook for the receiver so you could listen and the other folks on the line couldn't tell you were eavesdropping. My first motorized contraption came from the advancement of getting electricity on my aunt's farm. She had a one cyl. Johnson motor to run her washing machine. When she finally got electricity, they converted it to an electric motor and I bought her engine and helped my uncle mount it on my bicycle.

Aaaahhh....the good old days. YEAH, RIGHT!

[R J]

Rationing stamps was mentioned.

Gas was rationed on different levels.

They were 'A' through 'D'.   Regular vehicle was 'A', Police, Ambulance were like 'C' and farmers was 'D'.

All highways in the US had a speed limit of 35 MPH.

Grandpa put rope inside of a tire carcass so as to be able to continue using it.   Tubes were totally unheard of to buy back then.

We got electricity in the house when I was a 8th grader, and running water when I was a Freshman.     3 years later I was a Marine.   Shower everyday and etc.

We used to take a bath on Monday and mom used the same water to wash clothes in after we were done, or visa versa, don't remember, but it seems like we got the water 1st and the clothes 2nd.

Got 1 pair of new shoes at the start of school, September, so all summer we went barefooted..    Lots of stubbed toes, big toe that is.

Most of the kids today could not go through that time period.    I know of 4 grandkids that it would just kill them.   Yeah, they are mine......   There parents also would have a hard time.     I know I tended to get my kids what they wanted, since I didn't get anything in my growing up.

Christmas presents were like a flashlight, a shirt, or something of very little value, no $$$$$$$ back then.

Thanks for the memories, it makes me proud to be an American and to have lived during that time frame with President Harry Truman.   The guy where the 'Buck stops here'.

PS:    I remember all on the list.  1st fast food was $.05 McDonald hamburgers.  That was when I was stationed in San Francisco.    The 1st burger joint was out by the zoo, in the Avenues.   On $75 a month from the Marines, the wife and I ate several burgers in our tenure in San Fran.    We lived in Government housing for $15 a month.    I didn't have enough strips to pay more.   Once I made Staff Sgt, yupper my rent went up, and when I made Tech Sgt, then I was about double of my starting rent.     Still only made like $200 a month then.

[Robert]

Some of those are a little before my time more in line with BF but One thing not mentioned Evinrude/Johnson outboards. I can remember when the biggest one was a 15 to 18 hp. Used to ski behind a 40hp with a Lyman boat. Couldn't believe when the power went to 100.

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