Older than Dirt.
Someone sent this to me today in an email.
Considering the topic of my blog I thought I’d include it here as part of a post for those old enough to remember:
“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.’
‘C’mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was a place called ‘home,” I explained !
‘Mum cooked every day and when Dad 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’d 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 10 pm, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 p.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, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6AM 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 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 of the car.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.
Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about.
Ratings at the bottom.
1. Sweet cigarettes
2. Coffee shops with juke boxes
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4. Party lines on the telephone
5. Newsreels before the movie
6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (There were only 2 channels [if you were fortunate])
7. Peashooters
8. 33 rpm records
9. 45 RPM records
10. Hi-fi’s
11. Metal ice trays with lever
12. Blue flashbulb
13. Cork popguns
14. Wash tub wringers
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 11-14 =You’re older than dirt!
I must be ‘older than dirt’ but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Don’t forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really OLD friends….I just did!!!!!!!!!
(I used a large type face so you could read it easily)”
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Tagged with: Bicycle • Blog • Brother • Credit Card • Dad • Dining Room Table • Email • Epilogue • Fast Food • Golf Course • Levis • Mouths • Movie Stars • National Anthem • Newspapers • Older Than Dirt • Parents • Ra • Seven Days • Television
Filed under: Baby Boomers and Internet Marketing • General Well Being • Internet Marketing • Nostalgia
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Hal Schmidt
Hi Sean,
I scored 9 out of 14 in the quiz, but I’m in the UK so a couple of things have different names if we had them, no idea what a’Wash tub wringers’is.
We only had a black and white TV until I was 12 and it was often in pieces on the floor while my Dad replaced the valves
Thanks
Keith
A wash tub ringer was a detachable handle driven wringing machine which was hooked over and then clamped to the side of a wash tub. It consisted of 2 rollers; the lower one of which was the driven one. The earlier rollers were usually constructed of wood.
They were later replaced by round wringer washing machines which were as suggests a round elevated machine containing an alternating agitator attached to an electric motor enclosed beneath. It had a “wringer” sitting on top of the machine which consisted of 2 adjustable rubber rollers through which the washed clothes where fed before and after rinsing.
The wringer was attached by an axis on the side of bowl which enabled it to be swung in a 360 degree radius. The idea was to wring the old dirty water back into the bowl so it could be reused while the wringer was in it’s “home” position and then turn it around so that it was sitting over what was usually the kitchen sink or laundry tub in which the clothes had been rinsed to either save the water or let it drain.
On the earlier models, the bottom roller was attached to a handle and geared which was used to crank the roller and thus pulling the clothes through the 2 rollers to “wring em’ out”.
Later the rollers were also driven by an electric motor.
They were dangerous contraptions in that it wasn’t uncommon for the lady of the house or the maid to have her hair or loose parts of her clothing caught in the ringer sometimes resulting in severe injury. Hence the expression: “It/he/she looks like it’s been through the ringer”
They were also notorious for breaking buttons, zips and bra stiffeners etc. If you’d left something perishable and of value in a pocket, it usual meant it’s ultimate demise while if you’d left something with sharp edges like a screw for example it would cause damage to the rubber rollers as well as your clothing.
Hey Sean,
That is a moighty foine name you ave there, so it is
Well I scored to 09………ok up to 10……..oh well, but I can’t remember them completely lol!
Will keep in touch
Sean
Thong Dee,
Isn’t this pathetic, I remembered all 14, plus I remembered 78 rpm records! That makes 15 out of 14! What is older than “older than dirt”?
Hal
(told you I would read it)
Thanks Hal.
I knew I could count on you to break the highest score….even if you did have to cheat a little.
Hi Sean,
Well, I’m at least as old as Hal, because I remembered all 14 of them too, as well as a few more that aren’t on the list. Besides 78 rpm records, do you remember those toasters with the sides that folded in with the bread? No pop-ups, those. And actually, the test patterns didn’t usually stay on TV all night. The set went blank after a while, and I’d watch the screen shrink into the little white dot and then that would eventually fade away.
I’m sure there are many more of those fun little bits of trivia. Oh, one more… if you lived in a cold climate, some mornings when you went to the back door to bring in the milk bottles, they would be sporting columns of frozen milk and cream above the lip of the bottle, about 2-3 inches up, with the little cardboard stopper on top!
The good old days? Well, I kinda like today’s conveniences. The only things I miss are the wholly nutritious foods that weren’t the result of the food processing industry today that gives us food with more chemicals in it than a kid’s chemistry set (which used to really be a chemistry set!). Today’s kids would probably blow up a federal building with one.
Thanks for posting this fun list, even though it’s certainly been around the email venue for a while, too!
Roberta
PS – I was devastated last year when I was told I’m not a true Baby Boomer… I’m too old. I was born *during* WWII.
Gee golly gosh Roberta, you don’t look that old.:-)
It must be a difficult personal stigma to have to live with the knowledge that you’re not a baby boomer after all.:-)
I do indeed remember those toasters. You used to cook not only the toast, but also your fingers if you touched the wrong bit when opening the wings and the heady aroma of burnt toast wafted through every neighborhood at breakfast time.
I guess that’s the answer to why modern toasters have a setting that burns the toast so badly it’s impossible to even save a thin crispy bit in the middle when scraped with a knife. It’s so the neighbors will know you’re cooking toast.
I also remember those electric jugs which had a coiled wire element at the bottom which needed to be replaced occasionally. Fancy buying an electrical appliance these days which could actually be repaired?
My Aunt was a little eccentric. She used to boil the breakfast eggs in the jug and then use the water for making tea or coffee.She also had her own chickens. What’s a little chicken poo in your daily heart starter between friends?:-)
Hi Sean
I also remember all 14 + the 78 records and the frozen milk bottles which if you were unlucky sometimes burst the bottle and left the glass lying around but then I am a true baby boomer born in 1947. Another one was the man who came around on his bicycle to sharpen knives, garden shears, lawnmowers etc etc.
Those were the good old days weren’t they??
Richard
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