Older than Dirt

[angelwing]

OLDER THAN 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.

[coriolis]

Older than dirt.

[angelwing]

Older than dirt here too

[vbhoutex]

Definitely older than dirt. Nothing wrong with that!!!!

[GalvestonDuck]

Apparently, I shouldn't tell my age.

[CajunMama]

Oh crud...older than dirt here too!

What was butch wax?

[JonathanBelles]

im getting older!

[vbhoutex]

im getting older!

You're just a young thang!!! You couldn't remeber any of that unless you were told about it.

And don't reming me about the older!!!

[JonathanBelles]

im getting older!

You're just a young thang!!! You couldn't remeber any of that unless you were told about it.

And don't reming me about the older!!!

lol i do remember some of those.

[GalvestonDuck]

Oh crud...older than dirt here too!

What was butch wax?

It was a heavy-duty depilatory product used in salons to remove hair from the legs of hardcore, manly women who preferred not to shave and stay "natural" until a rare special occasion that may have called for a dress, pantyhose, and smooth legs.








































Kidding!!!!!!!!

Seriously, Butch Wax was probably comparable to the Bed Head products of today. It was a thick goop that came in a jar, usually with a stiff "brush" on the lid, that guys would use to keep their flat-tops and duck-tails in place. My guess is that it was used in a similar fashion to the grease they used in the movie Grease, combing through their hair to slick it back and style it.

[vbhoutex]

That's right duckie!!!

[Cookiely]

I'm old as dirt too.
They forgot gas for 15 cents a gallon and you got dishes or glasses and full service, cleaned all the windows, checked all the fluids, check the tire pressure. That's what I miss.

[Aslkahuna]

Twelve cents for a gallon of gas here. I may be older than the Earth as I remember all 25 and then some. Many a Friday and Saturday night we would pop corn in the big iron skillet with the top on and toast Marshmallows in the fireplace. You remember 45's? I remember 78's! Inkspots, Benny Goodman, Glem Miller, Andrew Sisters, the Dorsey Brothers, those were the musical artists my Parents listened to. We would listen to the news on the Radio every night before going to sleep. Newsreels before the movie? What about the Saturday Matinees that had not only those but Cartoons and a Serial-had to go every Saturday so as to not miss the next Chapter of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Some of those traditions have carried over, I still hang the wash out on the clothes line and I can fruit and make homemade Jam in the Summer. Oh yes, and the trains that came by all had Steam Locomotives. One of the cars my Father had was a Nash "Inverted Bathtub" because that's what it looked like. Besides Sears and Roebuck there was also Montgomery Wards. Five and Dime stores and those Cokes in the machines? Five cents.

Steve

[azsnowman]

Twelve cents for a gallon of gas here. I may be older than the Earth as I remember all 25 and then some. Many a Friday and Saturday night we would pop corn in the big iron skillet with the top on and toast Marshmallows in the fireplace. You remember 45's? I remember 78's! Inkspots, Benny Goodman, Glem Miller, Andrew Sisters, the Dorsey Brothers, those were the musical artists my Parents listened to. We would listen to the news on the Radio every night before going to sleep. Newsreels before the movie? What about the Saturday Matinees that had not only those but Cartoons and a Serial-had to go every Saturday so as to not miss the next Chapter of Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers. Some of those traditions have carried over, I still hang the wash out on the clothes line and I can fruit and make homemade Jam in the Summer. Oh yes, and the trains that came by all had Steam Locomotives. One of the cars my Father had was a Nash "Inverted Bathtub" because that's what it looked like. Besides Sears and Roebuck there was also Montgomery Wards. Five and Dime stores and those Cokes in the machines? Five cents.

Steve

What was pet dinosars name Steve, Dino?



SORRY

Yup....I remember ALL 25 of 'em. The BIG thing back in West Texas was the 5 cent "Dr. Pepper" soda machines. Does anyone else remember putting peanuts in your Coke, Woolworth Stores and Variety Stores, taking the "tubes" from the tv's to the Variety Stores to have them tested and spending a WHOLE $1 for the tubes?

[Bobbie Lee]

My parents had been married for 17 years before Mom was unshackled from that wringer washer! I'm glad I was too little to be taught how to use it... Mod cons are my LIFE!

[angelwing]

Oh geez Bobbie, my mom got rid of the wringer when my dad retired in 1980! ANd she still kept it for the heavy duty stuff as she called it-dirty rags, rugs and I knew how to use it! And they didn't get a color TV till he retired, I never knew the rose bow parade had such beautiful color till 1980! Even watching the Mummer's Parade in Black & White was horrible listening to them describe the colors, sigh.

[Bobbie Lee]

And I thought I had a deprived childhood. We got a color TV in time to see the moon landing in '69, and once Mom got a "real" washing machine, she never looked back! Looking back on that now, I'd think the mere IDEA of additional laundry to run through a wringer washer could have been effective birth control.

[Aslkahuna]

Actually my pet Dino's name was Rex.

Steve