Really - How Old Are You? (Funny)

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Bill Hamilton

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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, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, 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 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.



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 bicycle
 
I'm 24 of 25, the gas soldering irons got me.



Maybe were different at my home, but we still eat every supper together and almost every breakfast. We do eat out, but most meals are at home. As I'm on midnight shift, I miss 3 out of 7 breakfasts. My 16 year old son has to ask before using the phone. That includes his cell phone, whiich is for emergancies only. He also must ask to watch tv, get on the computer, play video games, etc. He bought his own tv, game system and surround sound for his room once he started working. I'll also say this, he had better ALWAYS say yes and no sir or mame. Even my 26 year old son that lives on his own, in his own home to this day uses sir and mame, pays his own way and has a strong work ethic. I couldn't any prouder of my boys.



My youngest works at Domino's. Our friend owns it, but when he was hired the manager interviewed him. Get this, he asked me not to call our friend, the owner, he said that he wants to get the job on his own merit. This summer he's going to also work for the General Contractor that built our house. When we built, I did a bunch of the work myself. Zane was there with me every day, working his butt off. The GC took notice of how hard he worked and how polite he is. He (the GC) came to me a few weeks ago and asked if Zane could work for him this summer. I told him to ask Zane and the rest is history. Zane told me and his mom that as he graduates in two years, he wants to make as much money as he can before going to collage. He doesn't know it, but I'm looking for a car for him.



Sorry to ramble on, I'm just proud of my boys. I can't believe how some have got away from the things that we were all taught as kids.
 
Steve - Sounds like you have good kids. You and your wife should be very proud.



PS - I still get BlackJack gum at Christmas 'cause it was always my favorite along with Beemans Pepsin Gum and Teaberry (remember the Teaberry Shuffle Song).



How 'bout gettin' $.02 back for deposit on soda bottles. Would walk miles along the highway picking up bottles to get some money!
 
I recall 20 of the 25, but if you count in Beeman's and Teaberry (plus the shuffle), I guess that makes it 22/25. :blink:
 
Solid 25 for 25 for me. I actually remember when they invented dirt...it was a major upgrade over the old stuff. :rolleyes:



My mother had a Studebaker....a 57 President. It had fresh air vents on the side of the fenders and when you popped them out, you could see the road going by. Cool stuff.



My mom was an S&H Green Stamp junkie. Other brands too...Top Value, Gold Bond, and Blue Chip. My mom thought of stamps as another type of monetary system. That was how you got the little luxuries in life. I remember getting a 6 transistor radio from "The Stamp Store" one time.



Harpo
 
Harpo

My brother and I got our first new baseball gloves with S&H Green stamps. I used to lay in bed at night listening to music on a crystal radio(remember them). The farmer next store had a Studebaker pickup truck. We had a outhouse, and one electric light in our house which Dad hooked into to provide lights to the rest. Ran the wires on the ceilings and walls. Hows that for following Code? In the Kitchen. Kept a water bucket next to the stove at night in the winter to have unfrozen water to prime the pump in the morning.

We did have a propane stove but heat was a drip fuel oil heater. How that for old?

fatrap
 
Come to think about it, my momma got me a first base glove, bat and baseball from S&H Green Stamps.
 
I remember the irons that you would put on the wood cook stove to get hot you would usually have 4 irons and as 1would get cool you would put it back on and use another hot one the fuel irons were too hi-tech and unfortunatly I remember all of the things



JD
 
Memories, we always collected top value stamps instead of S&H . I remember when Mountain Dew first came out and my first 10- 2- Dr. Pepper -4 . Trading cards and cloth-pins in my bike spokes.. ........those were the days. B&W TV .





Mark:rolleyes:
 
Here what my first "Ride" looked like.
9n.jpg




fatrap
 
I got a 30:) doctor actually came to the house,Milk Man came to the house..popcycles came on a bicycle... phone had 4 numbers and all were black..no TV No elec..out house.....
 
Fatrap I wish I had a 9-N to get some mowing done around here.



Donnie
 
25/25 for me too and though I love my computer, color tv with remote, and all of my other modern conveniences, I sure miss those days and truly loved them.

Sears, Wards and Western Auto were little store front businesses. You couldn't buy anything there but you did look at the catalogs on the counter and ordered what you wanted, or needed.

We weren't quite sure what soccer was but we knew you couldn't use your hands so when the P.E. Teacher said we were going to play soccer, we all booed.

I had a bicycle that I put together from parts. As where I grew up was very hilly, and the roads were oyster shell, I rarely used it. In 1959 the county took over our roads and paved them and for Christmas that year my Dad bought me what was called an English Racer. It had the narrow tires and little seat and on the handle bar was a three speed selector. One was for getting up hills, two was for most everything else and three was for flat surfaces and going like the wind. That year was an extremely cold winter but I was out riding that bike as much as I could. I didn't realize for years that my Dad must have really gone into debt getting that for me.

I sure remember the TV stuff. We didn't have one until I was about ten years old. Black and White of course. We did try one of those screens that was supposed to make it bigger. One of my friends who was rich, or so we thought, had a color TV but it seemed to me that everything looked green all the time. My Dad only had one day off in those days, like a lot of men. He really liked Gunsmoke, Paladin (Have Gun, Will Travel, and Bonanza. One of his deepest wishes was to see Bonanza in color, and he never got to. That saddens me greatly.

I delivered newspapers but really don't remember what I got paid. I can still remember though a couple of people who never did pay me to this day. I also sold and delivered TV-Guides. I bet you all don't remember that! I think that's when TV's had stations 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13 so the guide wasn't very thick. Not long after that the UHF channels were added. Not many people could get those channels. There is a restaurant very close to me called Mikes Crab House. Ask Steve Rizza about it, we went there. Anyway he had a long pier with gas pumps and a little shack at the end of it. Mike hired me, at 13, to sell the gas and oil, sell crab bait and rent nets etc., sell fishing lures, worms, grass shrimp, and minnows and do everything. I worked my first week, like 60 hours, and Mike said I was doing a great job and handed me a $20. bill for that weeks salary. Geeeez, I was crushed. Now, before anyone says I should have gotten it straight what my salary was going to be before starting work, a thirteen year old in those days would never have asked. He was just happy he had a job.

My Dad was furious. He took me into Annapolis to the only store we really had for such things, G.C. Murphy's. He bought me some crab nets, string, motor oil, a 15' seine net so I could get my own bait, and anything else I needed with the understanding that all of this was a loan and he expected to be paid back. I took all of MY stuff to the shack and from then on I would sell/rent Mike's stuff and then sell/rent my stuff. At the end of that next week Mike have me another $20. bill. That was ok because I made almost $200. on my own and paid my Dad back that very first week. I felt bad at first and thought I was cheating Mike but when I did the numbers Mike was still making more than he ever did before. By the end of that summer I thought I was rich. I managed to save almost $1500. I still have the passbook that I started at the time. Of course I had to pay 10% to the household like everyone else in the family did when they earned money. I loved that summer. It was fun working on the water and mostly, I didn't have to cut tobacco. Good grief what a horrible job. In later years when I was 18 I also had a milk route for Green Spring Dairy. I had to get up like 2
 
I have the original bill from the hospital from when I was born 4 day stay it came to a whooping $154.24



Mark
 
Hey Vetrenarians weren't cheap back then... :unsure:
 
Wow, lol, alot of memories being dug up here for me, anyone remember the bulb on the floor of the car to squirt the windshield fluid? Had that on my first car, (mid 70's)a '64 Dodge with a 225 straight 6 that I couldn't destroy no matter how hard I tried... the tranny? It was a good old "3 on the tree"...... and who could forget that custom mounted 8 track under the dash?



I remember returning bottles to the local store, (mid to late 60's) turning right around and buying the baseball cards with the old stick of gum in 'em......



Well I better end it here for now, because I could go on and on as the memories come back.



Bill, thanks for opening up alot of great memories for me...... egMike
 
Hey egMike, I have about every Topps Baseball card since 1959. I have them mounted in books and other in boxes. Every time I get out one of the books to look at some of the cars I swear you can still smell the gum that was in the packs.



Uncle Billy
 
Yeah, that was some addicting stuff, the gum, I think the first year I started collecting was maybe 1969 or so? What breaks my heart is the cards we used to put in the spokes...... some good ones got destroyed, lol.



Through both of my sons I've stayed in touch with the card collecting, and seen them enjoying it too.



I do prefer the old prices though!



On occasion we'll stumble across an old pack or two here and there with a what, 35 year old stick of gum in it? hehe....





 

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