[lit-ideas] Are you really that old?
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 12 Aug 2004 19:01:03 -0700
(for erin. from another list -- andreas)
"Hey Dad," one of my kids 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. "Grandma cooked every day and
when Grandpa
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 never 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 AND 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 11, but my grandparents had
one before
that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored
plastic to
cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third
was green, like
grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of
fire trucks
riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to
the front of
the TV to make the picture look larger.
I was 13 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.
We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our family
was my
grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."
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. I
delivered a
newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2
cents. I had
to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents
from my
customers. My favorite customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me
to keep the
change. My 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.
Touching
someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do
that in
movies. I don't know what they did in French movies because French movies were
dirty and we
weren't allowed to see them.
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?
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 tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (BUtterfield 8-6933)
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
SCORING:
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 older than dirt!
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