Lake In The Woods

Life in a small rural town..

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Old Folks Humor

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 'at home,'' I explained! 'Mom 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 figured his system could have handled it :
 
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.               

In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & 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 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a..m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.               

I was 12 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. 

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 -- my friends delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning.   On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His 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. 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 :
  
I found a 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. 
  
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 table side jukeboxes 

6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
 
7. Party lines on the telephone
 
8 Newsreels before the movie
 
9. P.F. Flyer's
 
10. Butch wax
 
11.. 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 3 channels...
[if you were fortunate] )
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. Packards
 
21. Roller skate keys
 
22.
 Cork popguns 
23. Drive-ins
 
24. Studebakers
 
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 old!

  
I might be old but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

  
This was in an email sent to me from my Dad from a friend of his. I had to share as we all need a good laugh now days. Stay Safe, Vigilant, and Warm.
 .






Posted by Rob at 5:35 PM

10 comments:

Vicki said...

I remember it all. Therefore, I am as old as dirt, or at least that's what I tell the grands when they ask.

We had no email or facebook or internet because we didn't have computers.
We had no texting or apps because our phones were connected to the wall by a wire.
We actually talked to one another - in person. It is called "conversation."
We played outside, summer and winter.
We had no video games. Instead, we read books.
We walked several blocks to the playground by ourselves and nobody called child protection services.
Play dates consisted of yelling over the back fence, "Can Johnny come out and play?"
If we really messed up, our parents reminded us not to do it again with the palm of their hand applied to the seat of our pants, swiftly and hard.
When we took a test in school, there were no second chances. To pass a test meant we had to study for it. Failure was shameful.

And even though we were so "deprived" in our childhoods, without today's gadgets and gizmos, we actually for the most part, grew into responsible adults. Which is more than I can say for many today.

January 19, 2016 at 7:46 PM
Jim said...

All of the above could have been my life.

January 19, 2016 at 8:37 PM
Rev. Paul said...

Yep, all of the above. I remember every last one of those things, and have used most of them.

I'm not old; just ... experienced. :)

January 20, 2016 at 9:57 AM
Rob said...

So many of us are or have become "EXPERIENCED" I have a Phd in hard knocks lol

Vicki thanks for the add on's

January 20, 2016 at 11:46 AM
Anonymous said...

I remember all of them and all the fun we had. Brenda of Tn

January 21, 2016 at 12:50 PM
Anonymous said...

I remember them all as well. I owned two Studebakers at the same time. We took swimming lessons at the city pool that cost a dime. We rode our bikes to the pool and never had to lock them. We drank cherry cokes at the local drive-in. We had chocolate sodas at the Rexall for a dime. Wowee whistles were a nickel. Remember Winner suckers? Super bubble was a penny. We rode our bikes everywhere; and I mean everywhere. We delivered newspapers. Dad took us when it was raining, otherwise we were on our own. We patched our own flat tires with Camel patch kits. We wore our winter coats to school in the frosty mornings, and carried them home after school. We brought our lunch to school and bought milk for a nickel. Every day, lunch was in a different teacher's classroom. The good ol' days.

January 22, 2016 at 11:04 AM
Dixon Webb said...

You've a great memory. I'm happy to say everything you wrote came back to me immediately. Unfortunately I have forgotten what I had for breakfast.

March 13, 2016 at 12:50 PM
Knucklehead said...

Never experienced 1, 10, or 20 (well, nobody had Packards - they were around but rare). The rest are vividly remembered.

March 14, 2016 at 3:05 PM
Peteforester said...

I got nineteen of 'em, if you don't count the Packards and Studebakers, which I was too young to drive, but were still on the road in force (I still don't remember if those Studes were coming or going!). Much more common in my day, for some reason, were Ramblers, which were just plain ugly, whether they were coming, going, or ...not going.

I WORKED at the local drive-in, as well as the "walk-in." There was one moie a week at each, other than the occasional double feature.

The Sears parking lot really WAS empty on Sunday.

Suffice it to say; "political correctness" hadn't crept into our lives yet. It was actually discouraged. There was a word for those who felt it was necessary. I believe the word was "sissy."

Battery-operated toys were "cool" only if you could afford to replace the batteries, which were invariably "not included." Needless to say, I had almost no battery-operated toys, aside from, perhaps, one of those "space-age" transistor radios. GI Joe didn't use batteries, and could withstand, among other things, a cherry bomb strapped to his chest (he invariably survived, naked, but otherwise unscathed). Now THAT was a toy! Unlike baseballs, footballs, frisbees, and the like, a boy only needed one GI Joe to get through childhood.

BB guns, pellet guns, and slingshots were the weapons of youth. Rare was the time when they were used on a human "opponent," other than the occasional battle employing slingshots to launch green cherry tomatoes. Rarer still was the incidence of any holder of one of these weapons growing up to become a maniacal killer; and no, no one ever "shot his eye out."

I could go on and on. My fully grown boys look at me as if I was deprived as a child. I can't help lamenting over how much they missed! I've had a good life, and I thank God for that!

April 1, 2016 at 3:52 PM
hobo said...

Well, like I need to know that I'm just plain 'OLD'! haha

Hope you and the family have been well, and that the weather is being kind to you. Just thinking of you all. Take care!

~hobo

April 11, 2016 at 11:40 AM

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