posted 09-28-2004 10:47 AM         

"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 c!ard 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 Iron! . 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.
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&H Green Stamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packard
21. Roller s! skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebaker
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.

posted 09-28-2004 04:13 PM         

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CJ - The One and Only
1999 Black - PPROWLR 2002 Deep Candy Red - CJPROWLN

posted 09-28-2004 07:03 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by jimscool:
i had a big old schwinn that i rode from dawn till dusk.. except when i was playing baseball... we used to ride up to the drive in and sneak over the fence to watch the shows... there wern't any malls then... just red hot candies and that great old orange crush...funny i can't remember what i did last week but remember the good old days growin up in St Clair Shores...13 mile and jefferson

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Darn.,I grew up down the road from you 7mile rd and Gratiot. East side, Denby high. We even had White Castle hambugers on sale for a Nickel with a coupon.

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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 Carpet 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; Aluminum engine compartment support bars; PlasmaGlow 7-color LED
Underbody Kit; Dash Designs Dash Mat; Airbrushed Rear Trim Panel and Painted
Headlight Caps.

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!"

posted 09-28-2004 07:18 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by jimscool:
i went to lake shore high...gratiot ! what a road for cruisin, we used to go up and down all night in my friends 65 stang... you must have lived handy to the go cart track ! what a great time to grow up ! we used to ride our bikes to metropolitan beach every weekend.

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posted 09-28-2004 07:59 PM         

quote:

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Originally posted by jimscool:
i can't believe we swam in that water !! brown, with dead clams floating in it ... but it was all we had ... i havent been back since 1972... my buddy says the lake is clean now.. those were the days when the hot rods at school were the 55 chevy's with the a$$ ends jacked up.. i remember being in grade 8 when the tigers won the world series and grade 4 when jfk went down.

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posted 09-28-2004 11:53 PM         

We had a milkman that delivered our milk, potato chips and ice cream!! We even had a milk shute. We had a party line for a while and when it changed over, our phone number was PRescott 12231!

Belle Isle was the place to go. We used to ice skate on the canals there in the winter. Bob-lo was always a school trip.

do you remember that army surplus store out your way ?? it had everything including a tank !! i used to beg my dad to take me all the time.... the big deal when i was young was when the opened the Macomb Mall....(spelling?)...we got the orange julius and the big soft pretzles....