Yesteryear versus 2009

 

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 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, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 20 pounds, and only had one speed, [slow) but it was always Shanks pony for me.
We didn't have a television in our house nobody in Scotland had one!.

I never had a telephone in my room nor in our home not even a party line. I was 21 before I used a phone.
Pizzas were not delivered to our home. (what were they?) But milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and most boys  tried to deliver newspapers like seven days a week. That meant getting up at 6AM every morning hail rain or shine.
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 recently) 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 not even electric!. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?  

• Car 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 signals.

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. (only 2 or 3  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. Glassed scrubbing boards  
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.