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 6am. 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
15. 78 rpm records
16. bus conducters

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 11-16 = You’re positively ancient!

Recommend0 recommendationsPublished in Childhood & Memories

Related Articles

Responses

  1. Oh dear, I’m ancient too, 🙁 I remembered 14 of those, just not news reels before the main event, and ice cube trays with levers. My first job was delivering milk, though.

    Great, blog, Chrisie xx

  2. I am ancient to. Brought back memories. No central heating and taking a lead shelf out of the coal fire wrapped in an old blanket to bed to warm it before we got in and passed it on to thenext one going to bed. Irons that plugged into the ceiling light fixture. I even remember the hiss of the old gas lighting before electric was installed but gas lights stayed in caravans. Clothing passed down the family and chips in newspapers. Getting thrown off the bus for trying to eat or drink on them. Taking back the empty bottles for 1p – recycling before it became PC.

  3. Wow,that was like going down memory lane.remember it all.Do you remember the little black money box man with one hand that took a penny and when the lever was pulled his hand went up to his mouth and he swallowed the penny. Or the wee toy ukelelee that was made of metal and had a winding handle to play it.the faster you wound it the faster it played,so you had to wind at just the right speed.mine played “how much is that doggy in the window”. I loved to go to the shop for mum and get the bread.a half loaf was best as it had a nice raised bit where it was broken from the full loaf,that by the time I got home was nicely levelled and mum wouldn’t know I had eaten some.”yeah right”