Memories

We thought we have it bad

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.

Boys delivered all newspapers 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?

LMFAO

I like that one, kookie!!!! To bad I busted a gut laughing with the kid!

This has probably been around before but I found it in my email one day

I rate mybe a 2

How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the firewall.
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 are 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 bottles
5. Coffee shops with tableside jukeboxes
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. Packard's
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!

There are still areas here in the state of Maine where life is still like kookie described....and the majority of items on fireball's list can still be found in local 5 & dimes....

Like I said to decius, it'll be funny when we tell our kids or grandkids how we used to give ourselves carpal tunnel trying to talk to eachother.