posted 04-21-2004 12:34 PM         

>I don't know about the rest of you but I do remember way too much of this!
>
>
> "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 on a gas burner.
>

Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about! Ratings at the bottom.

posted 04-21-2004 02:10 PM         

I also remember my aunt visiting from Pa. buying my first cowboy boots, we walked 10 blocks to the store to get them as we had no car to use.

I also remember another aunt in SF pressing my pants (that I had wetted,,, ) with one of those iron machines that clamped down on the clothes?

Remember putting baseball cards on my spokes of my bike.

At any rate, I felt secure back then, even though we had much less than now.

posted 04-21-2004 03:26 PM         

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Current mods: Mopar dual exhaust & front mudflaps; MacMotorsports Air Intake;
Real Rod Air Patrol; Graphics by Balistek Designs; ($8) Chrome grille; Chrome
tire valve-stem covers; Painted rear bumper lettering; Prowler Pro Gears; Synthetic
Oil; Raybestos Ceramic Brake Pads; TGF Door Panel Inserts & Headrest Covers;
SheepskinExpress Sheepskin Seatcovers; Grille Light; Pinstriping by Bo Boring;
Painted Valve Cover; Window Tinting; Windshield Visor Banner; Front Bumper
Removal / Relocation of Front Turn Signal Lights; Real Rod Transmission Cooler
Cover, Sill and Carper Covers, Aero Front Covers and Roadster Rear Pan, rear
bumpers removed; rear mudflaps; painted calipers; Prowler Products by Gary
Drilled Rotors, front and rear; Painted tach; Jay's Aluminum Billet Center Caps
w/shimmers, Chrome Lugnuts and Chrome Radio Bezel Shimmer; Dash Rings;
Windshield Wiper Arm Removal; Fender Trim; Speaker Replacement; Painted
Plenum; Painted Radiator Crossmember; Painted Rear Mudflaps; Air Patrol
graphics.

More 'Pumpkin' photos . . . . . More cars and other stuff

New pictures in Personal Scrapbook (02/23/03)

"I may have to grow older, but I do not have to grow up!"