How old are you?

[Jeriatric]

Darn - I'm older than dirt !! :yikes:

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. 'Come on, 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,& 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.
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.
My parents never drove me to school. 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 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, 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 never had a telephone in my room. The only phone 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. He had to get up at 5AM every morning.
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:
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.
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 !!
If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age, &
If you remembered 11-15 = You're older than dirt !!! THAT'S ME !!! :roflblack:

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life. nojoke

[Bob Denman]

After reading this, and realizing how much of it I also grew up around; I'm depressed! http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_19_5.gif
(all of them!)

[bullant12]

Age is something that has one direction... I intend to slow it down!:doorag:

[Bob Denman]

:agree:
Growing old may be required of us all...
But NOT growing up! :roflblack:

[granpa in Cincy]

When that milk was delivered in the winter, it froze as it sat on the porch and it pushed the paper cap up and the cream came out the top. If you beat your sisters to get the milk, you got the ICE CREAM. nojoke :clap:

[Chupaca]

remember all of them. Grew up with them and could add more. Having grown up in a third world country those things lasted much longer.. Fun times, miss them and they never depress me..!! :thumbup: always makes me feel safe and secure knowing if they pull the plug tomorrow..we will survive..:ohyea:

[currin20fan]

I'm a military brat. Father retired in 1970, the year I graduated high school. Do I remember them? Oh yes I do. Kids today wouldn't believe it. Don't be depressed Bob D......be proud of it. How we were raised molded our future. I don't know your all of you but I didn't turn out so bad and neither did my brother. :dontknow:

[OldCowboy]

I remember all of them. Plus the ignition switch on the dash that didn't start the car. That was the function of the starter button next to the ignition switch. On some pickup trucks, it was a foot operated switch on the floor.

I was a freshman in college before I saw my first McDonalds.

[Bob Denman]

How many times were you told to "Stop running with scissors in the house; you'll poke your eye out!"
Somehow; most of us STILL have our binocular vision! :D
Remember being told to go outside and play?
What the heck ever happened to that? :dontknow:

[bruiser]

Yep. Me too. And I could add more. One thing with bottle caps back then, they had a cork insert. We would pry out that insert and put the cap on the outside of our shirt and push the cork insert in from the backside. That was a sheriffs badge to us.

[rayeade]

I remember all of that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

[Cruzr Joe]

Back then Kids knew what a johnny pump was ,,,,,, do you

Cruzr Joe

[ARtraveler]

I too, remember all of the above. Times were so much more innocent then. :(

[effgjamis]

WHY ????? are you all posting all of that stuff above ??? I had forgotten all of those things, and now I feel OLD. Thanks alot....

[PrairieSpyder]

remember all of them. Grew up with them and could add more. Having grown up in a third world country those things lasted much longer.. Fun times, miss them and they never depress me..!! :thumbup: always makes me feel safe and secure knowing if they pull the plug tomorrow..we will survive..:ohyea:

:agree: Younger people think it's a hardship to go without their playstation. I told my nieces and nephew that when their dad and I were kids we were told to to outside and play. Except for our bikes we didn't have many toys. We'd find a broom-stick and find all kinds of things to pretend with it.

Recently, my brother was giving them a lesson about using their imagination to build something out of some scrap lumber. A couple weeks later, they told him they wanted to do that 'magation' thing again, but wanted help!

[AbNormy]

Guy at Apple Cover in last week in MV said doctors told him he had a disease started with an a and he couldn't remember said he was 88 riding an RT like mine!

From Deep in the Hart of Texas!

[MidLifeCrisis]

remember all of them. Grew up with them and could add more. Having grown up in a third world country those things lasted much longer.. Fun times, miss them and they never depress me..!! :thumbup: always makes me feel safe and secure knowing if they pull the plug tomorrow..we will survive..:ohyea:

I second that, but then again, I grew up in a third world country too. To add a few. we played with sling shots, blew things up, hot-wired stuff we were forbidden to ride. played on open roads, ate from street vendors and all those things everyone is protected against today. Those were the days:yes:

[mcaccamise]

Ya know i kind of missed those days almost as much as riding my Moms ironing board with a lawn mower motor on it.

[shelbydave]

How many times were you told to "Stop running with scissors in the house; you'll poke your eye out!"
Somehow; most of us STILL have our binocular vision! :D
Remember being told to go outside and play?
What the heck ever happened to that? :dontknow:

Ate breakfast, went outside. Sometimes we didn't see the inside until supper time.

A couple months ago, I got my grandson off the bus, and he was out on the back patio playing. where I work in the Den, I could keep an eye on him just fine, or so I thought... He comes in, and tells me there are a couple girls that want to talk to me. So I go outside, and there are 2 women, barely 24, they claim to be from the county, and told me that he couldn't be outside without adult supervision... I was like... :hun::shocked: . I explained that I can see him from my office, but they didn't want to listen. So I told X to go inside... He asked why, and I said that the mean ladies didn't want him out here....

[shelbydave]

When was the last time you saw a full service gas station?

Rotary dial phone attached to the wall, and a handset with a 16" cord.

Skeleton key door locks

My wife was a telephone operator for a while, and had to plug the little plugs into the jacks to connect people...

[boborgera]

Back then Kids knew what a johnny pump was ,,,,,, do you

Cruzr Joe


Growing up in Brooklyn yes i do, The fire hydrant [johnny pump] was our first base playing stickball...

[Pennyrick]

Good thread Jerbear!

Brought back several memories.

I addition to the milk man and bread man deliveries (our carts were pulled by horses) we also had home delivery for ice... the ice man brought in big blocks with huge tongs to put in our icebox. We also had coal delivery. The coal truck pulled up beside the house and dumped coal down the shute to the coal bin.

My worst job was emptying the ashes from the furnace and carting the cans with the ashes to the curb for pick up.

[pro10is]

I guess I didn't think of myself as "old" until I read this, but this brings back so many great memories.

What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?
McDonalds was kinda new but my father knew of a no-name lookalike that sold 5 burgers for a dollar. With four kids this was too hard to pass up. I loved that place but now just wonder if it was real beef. It was right near the Hostess day old shop so I also would get my sugar fix of Suzy-Q's!

My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).
I -loved- riding my bike to school, it was a true freedom. One of my favorite memories and maybe why I love motorcycles so much.

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, 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.
Yes, all true. And there were only three stations CBS, ABC, and NBC, and NBC was fuzzy until they put up a tower in town and broadcast on "UHS" channel 30 which was soo high tech. It was my job to keep the TV working, every month I pulled out all the tubes and brought them to the local store where they had a vacuum tube tester. If any were bad I replaced them. My friend's grandparents got the first color TV in the neighborhood and all the kids would meet there on Wednesdays at 7pm to watch the first color transmissions of Lost in Space. It was mind blowing to see it in color!

I never had a telephone in my room.
I did, when I was a teenager. I made it myself from old parts and I ran my own wires from the outside feed. This was "illegal" at the time and my friends were fascinated that I had my own phone in my room in the basement. They had to use their one phone which was always in the kitchen for some reason.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.
True and true. But we always got pizza from a local tavern (there was no such thing as Pizza Hut or Dominos). Never have I tasted a better pizza since and I never expect to again.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5AM every morning.
Seven days a week for me. Those damn Sunday papers were the worst. I remember trying to carry them all on my 20" bike in the snow at 5am. All for about two bucks a week profit and only if everyone paid you on time which was rare.

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.
True until the 007 movies came out. We were watching one with my friend's dad at the drive in and we saw a boobie! We talked about it for weeks and my friend's dad got in trouble with his wife for taking us to see it. He swore he had no idea that was going to happen. Gotta love Bond.

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Always thought they were much better on the floor. I have no idea why they moved them to this day.

Ignition switches on the dashboard.
1965 Ford Mustang.

Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
We just used clothes pins.

Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
My father had a new fangled electric one but it was huge and I kept getting shocks as well as burned.

Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.
That was required learning in high school driver's ed.

And what about 78 and 45 RPM records? 33 RPM was high tech for the day. And the 8 track car player was the MP3 of my teenage years. I bought a rare 8 track recorder from Radio Shack (still have it). I made a small fortune selling bootleg 8 track tapes to my friends. I also made a small fortune selling groovy light boxes that you hooked to your speaker wires and would flash with the music. My friend had a great reel to reel tape recorder that could actually record music without much hiss. Loved watching the reels go round and round.

But the best memory of all is that every night you ate dinner at the table with your family. No TV, no computers, no Xbox, no iPads, no smart phones, and it was great.

[PrairieSpyder]

When was the last time you saw a full service gas station?

Rotary dial phone attached to the wall, and a handset with a 16" cord.

My wife was a telephone operator for a while, and had to plug the little plugs into the jacks to connect people...

We still have 1 full-service station in my town.

I WAS a telephone operator using a twin-cord-board. My town didn't have direct-distance-dialing (1+) yet, and all long-distance calls had to go through an operator. I worked 20 hours/week at it while I was in high school.

[MidLifeCrisis]

We still have 1 full-service station in my town.

I WAS a telephone operator using a twin-cord-board. My town didn't have direct-distance-dialing (1+) yet, and all long-distance calls had to go through an operator. I worked 20 hours/week at it while I was in high school.
We had to drive down town to the phone company to make any international calls! We'd usually have to wait an hour or more to get our number, then head to a wooden booth to be connected. At the time, the population of the city was 6 million an only 1/3 had phones (we didn't and shared a public phone with about 300 others). Needless to say, we didn't make international calls unless we absolutely had to, or any others for that matter.

It was usually faster just to drop by and see if someone was home than to try to call them or send a carrier pigeon.nojoke

[Daisyjoe]

But the best memory of all is that every night you ate dinner at the table with your family. No TV, no computers, no Xbox, no iPads, no smart phones, and it was great.

You're right pro10is---That is a great memory. Everyone sitting together talking about their day. Sometimes laughing, sometimes serious but we were together as a family. :2thumbs:

[Bob Denman]

Oh... You can't be that old... ;)

[Yfactor]

I may be getting older but I refuse to grow up!
:ohyea::ohyea:
Besides I remember all of the above mentioned. :roflblack::roflblack:

[Bob Denman]

Amen! :2thumbs:

[Oldmanzues]

A couple of the older people in town. A ESSEX sedan with wooden wheels, Model T ford with three pedals on floor for brakes, gear changing.
If you did not have money for a new battery, there was always the hand crank.
Three of the most powerful motorcycles in the world Whizzer, Cushman and the HD Hummer.
Long story/short version. I bought my bike to deliever papers. Payments were $.85 a week to the local hardware store, also a paper customer.
I am not sure my kids believe these facts, little own my Grandkids. Greatgrand kids can't talk yet.
My body is getting old, but I refuse to grow up.
Have fun
Oldmanzues

[RubyRed]

Im in my early 30s and I love reading these stories. My son wouldnt believe most of these things. Keep them coming!

It brings back my memories of all of the neighborhood kids playing outside all the time, no matter what the weather was like. Now with my son, I can hardly get him outside due to the xbox.

Although he did say when I get a spyder, we will never be home. :roflblack::ohyea:

[SpyderDon]

I remember all the above, I guess that makes me old too... Hell the town where I attended HS still doesn't have a fast food restaurant, if you want a burger you go to the local bar. We never had milk delivered, we had to milk the cows, canned all our own vegetables and beef. Didn't own a freezer but the local butcher shop, it was also the slaughter house, rented them, didn't have a toilet in the house until I was 7, never had a phone in the farm house, how in the hell did we survive? The list could go on, do I miss it, some but not all, be honest, life is much simpler now then it was then.

[spydercowboy]

Ignition switch on dash? Youngsters! A key turned things on but the starter switch was next to the gas pedal. You needed finesse to hit the gas and starter switch just right to fire things up. And have you all forgot about gas wars and gas as cheap as 5 cents. Now those were the days. We also had bread delivered to the door. And green red and blue film to put on the black and white TV when we finally got a TV. Poor people had poor ways back then.

[Bob Denman]

My first "Car", was a Willys MB... I learned to do that delicate dance on the brakes, clutch, gas pedal, AND starter!
I think that I might have needed a few more feet on more than one occassion though! :D

[spydercowboy]

Glad I'm not the only "old fart" here.:roflblack:

[NovaSpyder]

Thanks for the thread Jerbear. I have great memories, we didn't have a lot but we had the whole outdoors. I can relate to most of those things. We lived in the country so I didn't know what a Johnnie pump was. We had a Dodge pickup with "three on the tree" and the linkage gave out somewhere so we cut a hole in the floor and welded two pices of steel to the transmission, one for R and 1, ther othe for 2 and 3, fun.
The milk truck came once a week but with 6 kids and we were milk pigs we usually ran out, then they came out with milk in bags, my mother loved this, now she could freeze the milk! We would steal a bag once in a while if we were a day in the woods. And although there are physical issues with age, it is a mindset as well. I was visiting my mother the other day, She lives in a seniors apartment, and when I drop by on the Spyder it is the buzz of conversation. So she just turned 90 and never really liked me having bikes for the last 40 years. HOWEVER for her birthday she wants to go for a ride on the Spyder! So we will do that at our family gathering in July. On her 80th She went for a ride to the beach on my ATV. Not sure what i'll do for the 100th!