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DOK
07-01-2005, 07:56 AM
Took the quiz at the end and confirmed what I already knew.....I"m older than dirt, but those memories of less "convenient" times are some of my fondest:



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 firetrucks 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 in to it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down and 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 water 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.

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

M1894
07-01-2005, 08:37 AM
DOK,

It looks like there are a few on this form that qualify for the Older than dirt title. I was 17 before we had TV, it was a Muntz. First car in family was mine, (1931 Ford Roadster) Yup! I can remember all ot those things, I guess I came along before dirt was thought of too. Don't forget that we also came along before School Busses. Transportation was either Shanks Mare or public transportation. (Trolly Cars) And that was at your own expense, not the School systems.

Lee L.

Jack Monteith
07-01-2005, 09:39 AM
The phone number was 8r3. The "school bus" had sleigh runners and was propelled by 8 hooves some winters. The washing machine not only had a wringer, but had a Briggs & Stratton gasoline engine. You could, and I did, legally buy a gun without a license at the age of fourteen.

Bye
Jack

kdub
07-01-2005, 09:39 AM
Well, maybe not older than dirt, but certainly came along when it was still cooling down! :p

First pizza - when in the Army.

First TV seen - at a friend's house when around 15.

Always had a car in the family, except in WWII. Couldn't afford the gas and tire coupons.

You guys remember spinner tops?

My Columbia Flyer bike (maybe 60#) had a chain guard, but the chain kept coming off, anyway!

Victory Gardens at every home in WWII? We had them.

Saving tinfoil, string, scrap iron and old tire drives for the war effort? Savings Bond stamps? Cost a dime each once a month at school. Classes competed to be "100% Today" with all students buying at least one stamp.

The list goes on and on - worst memory was the cardboard inserts in shoes because of the rationing - couldn't get repairs without coupons. All commodities rationed and every member of the family issued a personal ration book. Powdered soap, butter, cigarettes, meat - every thing rationed.

gomer_pile
07-01-2005, 11:26 AM
several of those thigs are still around.
the wax coke bottels, the blackjack gum (one of my favorites), juke boxes at resturants.
and you can still find howdy doody in some places.

many of these things were still rather around back in the 80's and early 90's

DOK
07-02-2005, 12:17 PM
One of our daily newpaper cartoons is "Zits".....about a high school kid and his parents. Today's cartoon was just one square with Dad on the sofa with his son and three friends. Dad say, ".....and when I was you age, my entire family had to share one telephone line." First kid says, "NOWAY!", and second kid say, "WHOA!" and third kid says, "DUDE!, and the last one say, "Who got to choose the ring tone?"

Dan

M1894
07-02-2005, 01:32 PM
He forgot to tell them it was a party line, Probably 1-long,and 2 short rings, like ours, with no choice of style. I'll bet it would be hillarious watching one of the modern day kids try to use a rotary dial phone. :D :D :D

Lee L.

DOK
07-02-2005, 02:49 PM
a party line, Probably 1-long,and 2 short rings, like ours :D :D :D

Lee L.

Ours was 2-longs and 1-short with 13 people on our self constructed and maintained party line. You could always tell just about how many people were listening to your conversation by the strength of the signal. And as I remember, the signal was usually pretty weak :p :p

Dan

kenh
07-02-2005, 06:52 PM
Hudson, Nash, DeSoto, Willys.
Never lived in a house w/a phone til' I was about 16
That coke was .05 cents.
Wings cigarettes.

M1894
07-02-2005, 08:48 PM
kenh,

I see we have another candidate, Welcome to the old age fraternity, but you forgot the Kaiser, Frazer, Cord, Franklin and Tucker. Don't forget, we also got .02 cents back for the bottle.

Lee L.

kenh
07-02-2005, 09:00 PM
Kaiser/Frasier best forgotten, also their spawn, the HENRY J!
Prooly very few folks here have sen a Hudson pick-up, or a REO pickup.
Jack Armstrong, Terry and the Pirates.

DOK
07-03-2005, 05:51 AM
Kaiser/Frasier best forgotten, also their spawn, the HENRY J!
Prooly very few folks here have sen a Hudson pick-up, or a REO pickup.
Jack Armstrong, Terry and the Pirates.

Not to mention Hi, I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe, that's my dog Tide, he lives there too.....or the ever popular secret decoder rings.

Dan

M1894
07-03-2005, 08:51 AM
Don't forget Captain Midnight, Blackhawks, Green Hornet, Inter Sanctum, Sky King, Tom Mix, Hop along Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Then we had sports hero's Babe Ruth, Bob Feller, and Mickey Mantel. Also had good music as well, such as Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey,Glen Gray, Jimmy Dorsey, Arti Shaw Benny Goodman, Harry James,Woody Herman, Les Brown , Jan Garber, and many more. I guess I did get here before the cooling down as well.

I think the best thing we had was family time and values.

Lee L.

DOK
07-03-2005, 10:42 AM
Don't forget Captain Midnight, Blackhawks, Green Hornet, Inter Sanctum, Sky King, Tom Mix, Hop along Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Then we had sports hero's Babe Ruth, Bob Feller, and Mickey Mantel. Also had good music as well, such as Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey,Glen Gray, Jimmy Dorsey, Arti Shaw Benny Goodman, Harry James,Woody Herman, Les Brown , Jan Garber, and many more. I guess I did get here before the cooling down as well.

I think the best thing we had was family time and values.

Lee L.

Geezz, Lee, you've got a lot better memory than I do! I recognize all of 'em, but sure couldn't have listed them.....I'd suspect your wife helped, but she's obviously a lot younger.

Dan

M1894
07-03-2005, 02:14 PM
Actually DOK, she is 2 years older. But those were my favorites as I was growing up, Heck I even owned a Cord, and a Henry J as well as 3 Hudsons.

I still listen to the Big Bands, and watch very little TV, so the Band Names are as familliar to me as they were back in the 40's and 50's.

Lee L.

Gasbag
07-03-2005, 02:25 PM
You guys can remember all that stuff from the big band era. You just can't remember what you had for breakfast.

kciH
07-03-2005, 02:37 PM
This test is faulty.

kdub
07-03-2005, 03:18 PM
You forgot Bill Halley and the Comets! :D

M1894
07-03-2005, 03:35 PM
You guys can remember all that stuff from the big band era. You just can't remember what you had for breakfast.

Foul!! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Lee L.

M1894
07-03-2005, 03:42 PM
You forgot Bill Halley and the Comets! :D

Sorry kdub, Prefer the Ink Spots, the Platters, Dean Martin, Frakn Sinatra, and The Andrew Sisters.

Lee L.

DOK
07-03-2005, 04:02 PM
Actually DOK, she is 2 years older. But those were my favorites as I was growing up, Heck I even owned a Cord, and a Henry J as well as 3 Hudsons.

I still listen to the Big Bands, and watch very little TV, so the Band Names are as familliar to me as they were back in the 40's and 50's.

Lee L.

Aw, married an older woman, hey. Bet you chased her until she caught ya? It must have been your looks because it sure wasn't the Henry J !!

Dan "robbed the cradle, myself" O.K.

P.S. Speaking of old music, one of my all time favorite pieces of music is Sing, Sing, Sing.....great stuff.

DOK
07-03-2005, 04:04 PM
You guys can remember all that stuff from the big band era. You just can't remember what you had for breakfast.

Appreciate your point, but please remember, the big band music was a lot more memorable than oatmeal.

Dan

M1894
07-03-2005, 04:41 PM
Aw, married an older woman, hey. Bet you chased her until she caught ya? It must have been your looks because it sure wasn't the Henry J !!

Dan "robbed the cradle, myself" O.K.

P.S. Speaking of old music, one of my all time favorite pieces of music is Sing, Sing, Sing.....great stuff.


DOK, if you have Satalite TV, there's one channel that is just Big Bands, and a number of others that have any type of music you prefer. I just route it through my sound system, and leave the TV off, unless there's a special program one of us wants to watch usually one of the old musicals where you can understand the words, or the news.

Yup!! She caught me on a bus going from Birmingham Ala. to Panama City Fla. She was going on leave, and I was ending a leave. We wrote each other for a year, and then got married, That was 46, almost 47 years ago. I don't know what I would do without her now, Sure hope I don't have to find out. Probably have to hire a keeper!! :D :D :D

P.S. I still prefer my movies without four letter words.

Lee L.

DOK
07-03-2005, 06:18 PM
DOK, if you have Satalite TV, there's one channel that is just Big Bands, and a number of others that have any type of music you prefer.

Yup!! She caught me on a bus going from Birmingham Ala. to Panama City Fla. She was going on leave, and I was ending a leave.

P.S. I still prefer my movies without four letter words.

Lee L.

I have digital cable TV and do have multiple music channels, pretty good stuff.

And yes, obviously something about a man in uniform?

As for language, I very much resent much if not most of the language that supposed represents the "real world". Well, three years in service and six years in college and my real world sure didn't use those words....certainly not as a "matter of fact" commonality.

Just took a break from watching Dorthy, the Scarecrow, Tin Man and Cowardly Lion and have to get back to see how it ends ;) ;) ;)

Dan

M1894
07-03-2005, 10:09 PM
Yup, She was Army, and I was Air Force.

Looks like a good movie tonight, MulanII on DVD, but at least it's a good way to spend the 4 th of July, a lot safer than being on the highway with everyone rushing home so they can get to work in the A.M..

Time for the weather and off to bed.

Lee L.

mjs3240
07-04-2005, 06:01 PM
Hey:
I still have my Dad's 1958 Studebaker Transtar Delux Studebaker Pickup that I learned to drive in in 1958. I remembered all of them. I guess there is no doubt that I am older than dirt.
Pedo Viejo

MMichaelAK
07-05-2005, 03:03 PM
I took the test. Seems a lot of you gentlemen have about 30 years on me. Scored 14 points or items I knew about from before we moved when I was 7 so a lot of stuff was still around in 1973. We did have dirt back then. I remember that. It was brown. Grass grew on it. It got on your clothes and made mom, "mad as a wet hornet".Those were her exact words. Mix it with water to make mud and if sticky enough you could build with it or make mud balls for throwing at your friends. Another way to make mom, "mad as a wet hornet".

Being dad now, I get to introduce my kids of some of this stuff now.

I remember when I thought 35 was older than dirt... ;)

ironhead7544
07-05-2005, 07:05 PM
"No video games? thats impossible! What did kids do?" Quoteing my kids. I got a 25 on the test. How about the Rambler Metropolitan? I had a Corvair. Plastic Bubbles? Little crystal radios that needed no battery? 8mm movies? .22 skeet? Shooting galleries using real guns and ammo? I guess we had some fun stuff back then too.

rifle-man
07-05-2005, 07:18 PM
Dang I ain't been here an hour yet and you guys got me feeling old! I scored 18 so maybe it ain't all ya'lls fault. :D Don't forget the five and dime stores , getting to go to town about every 2nd or 3rd Sat, and best of all getting water from the dug well!

DOK
07-05-2005, 09:41 PM
Dang I ain't been here an hour yet and you guys got me feeling old! I scored 18 so maybe it ain't all ya'lls fault. :D Don't forget the five and dime stores , getting to go to town about every 2nd or 3rd Sat, and best of all getting water from the dug well!

Took the eggs in Saturday night and then got a dime to go to the movies and then back at Power's Produce by 9:00 to walk home with Grandma.....one mlle from the uptown square, but safest place you can imagine. And yes, on a hot day, the hand operated pump for the well water was the best. Upgraded to electric pump in the pump house when we got electricity.

Dan

P.S. $44 this afternoon for golf shoe cleats and wrench and new golf glove and then $26 for a round of golf......how things have changed.....no well water, but the girl on the golf cart took good care of me for $2.50 a bottle of water.

kdub
07-05-2005, 09:58 PM
Didn't know you were a high roller, Dan -

You could come on out here and we could step out my back yard to the 9th tee box. 'Course, have to play in 110 -115* temps, but for an ol' Ioway Boy, shouldn't be too tough, especially as you're conditioned to walking a mile to and from the movies! :p

DOK
07-06-2005, 05:41 AM
Didn't know you were a high roller, Dan -

You could come on out here and we could step out my back yard to the 9th tee box. 'Course, have to play in 110 -115* temps, but for an ol' Ioway Boy, shouldn't be too tough, especially as you're conditioned to walking a mile to and from the movies! :p

Have a real love/hate relationship with golf. I'm finding out that you can't buy the game (had four drivers made last winter in Florida) but am still trying. I'm a five handicap if the wind is blowing my direction and I don't count the last 17 holes.

Dan

M1894
07-06-2005, 10:17 AM
Dang I ain't been here an hour yet and you guys got me feeling old! I scored 18 so maybe it ain't all ya'lls fault. :D Don't forget the five and dime stores , getting to go to town about every 2nd or 3rd Sat, and best of all getting water from the dug well!


No, I didn't forget the 5 & dime store, there's still a wonderful one in Branson Mo., only the prices have gone up quite a bit, but most of the wonderful things we remember from our youth are still for sale there. Usually go there about once a month or so.

Welcome to the fraternity of old folks! This is the best site around if you are looking for information, or just want a place to sit back and relax with our favorite subject. There is a lot of talent here, and if someone can't give you an answer, they will point you in the right direction.

Lee L.

rifle-man
07-06-2005, 01:38 PM
Say Lee, I lived around Bald Knob- Batesville area bout 35 years ago, if you don't mind me asking, where abouts are you?http://shootersforum.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

M1894
07-07-2005, 09:32 AM
Say Lee, I lived around Bald Knob- Batesville area bout 35 years ago, if you don't mind me asking, where abouts are you?http://shootersforum.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Between Scott and N. Little Rock. Right now am managing a Corps of Engineers Campground.

Lee L.