Bring back any memories?

Someone asked 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, 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... 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 am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...

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.

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 lemonade 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 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 levers
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 positively ancient!

Re: Bring back any memories?

Gosh you brought back some memories to me. My first washing machine I bought second hand for £10. I thought it was wonderful it had an electric wringer. It did not heat the water as that bit was broken so I filled it with the kettle and pans. All the shirts twisted up together and I would pull bundles of washing out then fight with it to separate the arms and legs. The washing machine had one rotation only , clockwise. When I got my first ever automatic my children were 4 and 7 , I sat on the floor in front of it for the whole cycle.

Re: Bring back any memories?

NO it says I am positively agent

That has brought back so many memories, you don't realise how things have changed.

Monday was wash day and I remember in the school holidays helping with untangling all the arms and trouser legs before putting them through the mangle and then taking them outside and rinsing them in cold water in a big tub.

Re: Bring back any memories?

Ah ... I can remember the scenes containing 'nooky'.
A butterfly would waft lazily across the screen .. so we knew it was the whole she-bang.

Now .. they do none of that. They sometimes give a warning at the beginning about scenes of a sexual nature .. or more often than not you see the couple walk upstairs . .. * cue commercial break* .. and afterwards they come strolling back down.
And I never know if they've done half the deed or the whole deed!

Re: Bring back any memories?

Don't forget the cars with a starting handle sticking through the front bumper so that you could crank it when the battery went flat (often) and if you did not know the correct technique it broke your thumb when the engine backfired.

Re: Bring back any memories?

Every New Years Eve I remember going out of the house just before midnight with Dad to look for a piece of coal [which he had secreted in his pocket] to bring back and welcome New Year in - no entry without the coal and then to the wonderment of us kids a full table set for dinner - a cold dinner with ham and pickles etc etc - God I do miss those things!

Guy Fawkes Night - collecting scraps for weeks it seemed and then building the big mountain of wood in the middle of the street and it burnt right through the night. The adults just seemed to tolerate it all and we cooked potatoes in the embers and walked home bleary eyed and smoke stained skin!

No supermarkets existed - just corner shops with live in owners, who knew all their regulars by name and orders. the larger stores had money shoots which carried the cash from counters to chief cashier - a wonderment for kids on the lines of Harry Potter!