You older than dirt??

[BIG DOG]

OLDER THAN DIRT
LightningBugs / Older 'n Dirt!!


"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. "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.




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. 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 (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S& H greenstamps
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 older than dirt!

I m ight be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your reallyOLD friends...

[Jim_Lusk]

Yep, older than dirt here......

[Dartsport]

I'm only 44 , and I am older than dirt.....

[sunsetdart]

yep....remember them all..............57 here going on 25

[IL.DART340- 4SP]

Only remember 12 = Don't tell your age,WTH  I thought that rule was for woman only. I am old enough too remember that one. 

[11secs]

Older Than Dirt and then some

[PinkE]

I don't remember ANY of those....

[jackie]

missed 1.. was blackjack chewing gum ,like licorice?

[qkcuda]

I remember all of them, and Sue, I guess it's true the memory is the first thing to go.

[NYrr496]

My grandmothers had a lot of that stuff layin' around, so even though I'm 41, I've seen a  lot of that stuff firsthand and I guess I qualify for older than dirt.

[BBLM23]

Yes, but just barely...

[Dart for forty]

It was easier for me to count the ones I don't remember.....gees I am old,, but still young at heart.

[dangerdawg]

aaahhhhhh, ..........................................................................yup that's me.

[TAPOUT]

I'm only 33 and I am good for 13 of them. Maybe I was just lucky. I also counted the fact that my dad had a Studebaker when I was little. You should also throw up a Hudson on that list.

[GTS225]

Well, I'm borderline O-T-D........but I do remember dirt being pretty darn clean when I was a kid. 

Roger

[yellowabody]

Older than dirt 

[moparwedden]

  I Know Too Many For My Age, 44 This Year. I Can Even Remember When You Put Your Money In The Pop Machine And Opened Up The Lid To See A Cooler Full Of Coke Sitting In A Pool Of Ice Cold Water. Man Those Were The Days. No Mailboxes Had To Go To The Store To Pick Up Our Mail Siting In The Slot. You Could Have Taken Any Ones Mail Back Then. The Store Had A Little Deli And Meat Shop At The Back. Old Wood Plank Floors. Sawdust On The Floor. Those Were The Days.

[motorhead]

i see we misssed a couple , the outdoor shitter, the  kitchen cook  stove was wood fired and the milk truck came and picked up milk cans at the farm and you were out there early enogh to put them there and help load them , and the tractor still had steel wheels , ahh the fond memories , Grandmas kitchen baking with the wood fired cook stove , you can never replace that smell,

[MVRCorp]

I don't remember ANY of those....

PinkE's lieing!     

[A13Dart]

Yep, O-T-D club member here.  Good times though.

[MVRCorp]

I got a perfect score!
Is that good? Well at least I don't have alzheimer's....................................................yet.

[Gmax6]

Yep, we are both older than dirt.  Thanks for the memories.

[GT_convert.]

OK, here goes!!!!!!!
When I delivered newspapers (75-90) 6 days a week; I had a buddy that helped me out some times.
At the end of the route was a Lenorad gas station with a Coke machine...5 cents for 6 oz. .THEN,
the price doubled and you got 8oz. This was in western MI.,lots of snow for 5 months a year. I pulled my paper bag on a sled or over the handlebars of a heavy,(like lbs.!!) Schwinn 'springer' ballon-tire, single speed
SPECIAL.  I made $13.00 a week if I was lucky!
My 1st job out of high school I made $2.37 and a half cent per hour on the graveyard shift at the Renton,
WA. Boeing plant...and I never had so much money!!!!$$$$$



And a cheesebuger ,shake and fries at McDs' was $.45   

Builds Character!!!!!

[440Ken]

I did all of them too. Delivered newspapers...seven days a week....Sundays were a bitch! I also worked on Saturdays morning with a milk man....home delivery...glass bottles with cardboard/paper lids. I also set up pins in a bowling alley for a little while. By the time I was 16 (1955) I had enough money to pay cash for my first car.....a 1949 Olds Rocket 88.

I guess I'm part of the older then dirt crowd.

[DART VADER]

I'm going to be 40 in July. I remember helping my friends with thier paper routes to make $6-$7 a week. I would buy comicbooks and parts for my bicycle. Then if I had money left over I would go to the arcade to play Pac-Man.

My first cars had 8-track players. Now my son'd friends PARENTS don't even know what 8-tracks are. Still got the factory AM 8-track player in my Satellite conv. AND it works great. All 12 watts of it. 

We would ride our bikes like 10 miles just to go to the beach.
My dad loved Paul Harvey.

I am in the middle of restoring an old 1924 Victrola phonograph. I also have a working 1927 model and my son can't believe that it plays without electricity. He asks "Where's the plug?" 

Does "Older than dirt" ally to me?

[Mopar Tom]

I remember now why I only delivered those morning papers for a year . I was gonna make sure my kid wasn't gonna have to do it and if I can tear him away from the TV or cell phone or computer or playstation long enough,,I'll remind him 
I thought I was winnin cause I could remember all of them,,,,I guess it is winnin if ya get old,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Mopar Tom 

[dart4406]

I Suffer from CRS...Can't Remember Shit!

[JohnDirt]

well, I'm not otd, but I've been told MANY times about most of all of that. We've got a couple record players in the basement, and boxes of records, not enough room in the living room for them any more.
I remember helping my friends with their paper route when I was younger, but they were making a lot more money. I wish I could have experienced some of that stuff.

[MVRCorp]

Still got the factory AM 8-track player in my Satellite conv. AND it works great. All 12 watts of it. 

Hey Dartvader
Was that a unit from Sears?