Bring back any memories?
Someone asked me the other day, 'What was your favourite '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 lad 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, car, or wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school ( no car ). 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 pm. 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 at6AM every morning. (Not true, I took over my bro's PR in 1957...)
Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost 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?
Headlight dip-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 lineson 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. 45/78 RPM records
10. Hi-fi's
11. Metal ice trays with levers
12. Blue camera flashbulbs
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 positively ancient!
I must be 'positively ancient' 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!!!!!!!!!
(PS. I used a large type face so you could read it easily)
Yes Roger I must be really ancient because I remember the lot. do you remember the old cloths wringer with the wooden rollers now that is ancient my Mum had one
ReplyDeleteButch
Yep I can remember a copper boiler in a shed in the garden where all of the washing was done. Also I can remember our first washing machine....the water being heated by gas and the agitator being driven by electric motor. When it was first used I can remember the kitchen being filled with soap suds as dear old mum over did it with a new product (washing powder)
ReplyDeleteAnd remember the "scrubbing board" in the scullery:Even at Herford we had "wash boilers in the celler,you took the hot coke out of the heating boiler and put it under the wash boiler"!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe CO often wakes up saying "I had a nightmare again".Ask her what it was,says she "we were changing quarters again"!!!!!!
How easy life is today.
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Don
I remember it all very well and with happy memories. I believe that we had the best of times, Roger. Thanks for posting this feature, I will have nostalgic thoughts for the rest of the day. I realise, of course, that our mothers had quite a hard life in many respects and certainly it is good that women today have a somewhat easier time running the house but its sad that society has lost so much that was good from the time of our youth.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not too early, a restful, peaceful and happy Christmas season to all our members.
Colin.
That is terrible I can actually remember all 14 and I'm definitely not old but I can also remember being sent to the corner shop to buy one egg sometimes it was two if the money stretched that far,or sometimes it was two ounces of butter not four, also lemonade crytsals for Robinson's lemon barley water, there was also a very small very black and probably, very unhealthy by today's standards sweet shop called Blackies we passed on the way to school where you could buy such delights as gob stoppers and aniseed balls to name a couple for one Old big shiny penny if you were lucky enough to persuade your granny that you really loved her.
ReplyDeleteHey Roger you must have been very modern, my mum used to heat the washing up in a big iron boiler and I used to have to stoke the fire up and make sure it didnt go out, never heard of a washing machine then Butch
ReplyDeleteI remember the milkman with a horse and cart and with milk-churns on the back. I used to take a pint sized jug out to him to fill with a ladle from one of the churns. Afterwards my mother got me to run down the road with a bucket and spade to collect all the horse droppings for the garden. ... and that's how I came to be in the Cavalry - because I loved the job so much !!
ReplyDeleteYes, happy Christmas everyone.
Bagwash,washing left outside for collection on monday,came back wed iron dry.milk delivered by dairyman on horse and cart and ladled into whatever container you left on your window sill.and finally when I joined up in 1958 our house was still on gas,no electric at all.Im a sparky by trade (retired) and it amuses me when my mother told me that in 1959 she had the house wired to go modern for £40.The last rewire i did before I retired set the owner back £2000. Ah happy days
ReplyDeleteCoggy,fancy keeping you hand in and re-wire our bungalow ?will not charge you for tea coffeee or jam butties..Oh yes I also remember all of them + plus coal,cinder picking.
ReplyDeleteGrumps
Thanks for all those memories, we have just had a wonderful entertaining half hour. Does anyone remember the the dolly tub and ponch, and seeing Mum still washing at turned lunchtime with a wet pinafore on. Have wonderful peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year.
ReplyDeleteAnd going into the shop for "broken biscuits"for a PENNY!!!!!!
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Don
Sorry grumps,I don't have the energy now,albeit the jam butties were tempting.In my hey day I could 1st fix a two bed bungalow in half a day,Then half a day second fix.Now it would take me a week to do one
ReplyDeleteAh well - we all slow down somewhat in our old age - but I bet Coggy even if it took you a week it would be a job job well done.
ReplyDelete"Thanks for the memory"
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Don
Coggy,had to give it try pal..
ReplyDeleteTook the dog out this evening,for her nightly stroll.first time I have been through the door since Sat.,afternoon.
ReplyDeleteWicked chest infection sore throat shivering ETC,had to takle to my bed Monday and yesterday was the first I got up for a couple of hours,today loads better got about 1100Hrs,still rough but got to get over it by Wednesday,,as it is our Branches Christmas bash,only trouble now is that Rose to be comeing down with it,never rains but it pours.
Bloody freezing outside with the pooch.
T T F N.
TAKE not TAKLE.Should have checked first.
ReplyDeleteOh by the way I have loads of ELECTRONIC CARDS out by JAQUIE LAWSON,please open if you are one of theb lucky ones.it is a SUPER SAFE SITE .
I also remember all those times, Theres lots more to recall must find the time to write them down, There is one memory sticks in my mind can any of you remember the accumalator shop were you took them to be charge and connect them to the back of the family radio,
ReplyDeleteAh yes - that bloody accumalator for the radio I certainly remember,always went flat when Hancocks half hour was on,and after half an hours carrying it weighed a ton!
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Don
I can remember when I was a lad I used to go and get the milk from the old farmer my dad worked for, while I was there I used to watch my dad milking the cows by hand, he would turn the teat of the cow in my direction and squirt the milk into my face and he never missed, the old farmers misses used to come out and if she saw us hanging around she would F and Blind, until one day my old man got so fed up with it he went to the farmer and told him if he did not shut the old bag up he would go home and he could milk his own cows, well the farmer went storming into the house and got all the cinders out of the grate and threw them across the floor and told her to clean the F ing mess up and leave his workman alone, and from that day until he finished working there not another word was said. there were many more instances before this time but it would take me ages to put it down, but she was a real old tyrant and she could swear worse that any man it did not matter who it was she was having a go at, I have even known her to talk to the police like it, but I do not know how she got away with it.but they just walked away.
ReplyDeleteJohn Atkins
Now cows and milking time bring back WW2 memories to me.On the farm in East Grindstead we employed quite a few Land Army girls,and at milking time I used to wander into the cowsheds for a chat with those girls.And they used to turn the udder my way and give me a drop of unpasteurized milk - come to think about it those girls helped quite a bit in my education.Thats when womens lib really got under way!!!!!
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Don