"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 o n 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&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.