A Trip Down Memory Lane . . . for older folks

Some things not mentioned. Maybe who ever wrote this is too young.

Homes without running water & indoor facilities. Remember the old 2 holer out back , w/the moon shaped hole in the door, & when u ran out of catalogues , there were corn cobs , for that purpose.
Before electricity was wired into some areas, & coal oil lamps were used.
Scrubbing boards for washing clothes. Before washing machines.
Baths taken in tin tubs in the kitchen , near the kitchen cooking stove , where the water had to be heated, & for warmth.
Traveling salesmen, peddling Jewel Tea products, Ralieghs products, Brooms & brushes , Watkins salesmen. They all traveled the rural areas of the country, bringing many items to isolated farmsteads, where the average farmer was able to get to TOWN , maybe once a month. These people had a credit plans as well , collecting very small amounts of money on a weekly basis.
Country roads, where a 20-30 mile trip took most of the day, with some flat tires fixed along the way, those balloon tires , reinflated with a tire pump by hand. Roads made impassible after a rain w/mud, ankle deep. No road mainteance then.
Airplanes , that sounded like airplanes. Steam engines, on the rail roads .
One room school houses, w/storm cellars, & the old out houses.
Radios were not in every home, 20 years before TV came along.
Older than dirt, but what a ride it has been.
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Subject: FW: Thought you might enjoy this....AND I AM OLDER THAN DIRT!















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!

'My mom cooked every day and when my 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 19.

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 6:00 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.

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?

All of them.

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; 10 people on a line in the country; 4 people on a line in town.
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 (food & movies out-doors)
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.