Older Than Dirt

**wheelinround** · 16th December 2007, 07:27 AM

OLDER THAN DIRT

"Hey Dad," someone's kid 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," he was informed. "All the food was slow."

"Come on, seriously. Where did you eat?"

"It was a place called 'at home,'" it was 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 the father was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so Dad didn't tell him the part about how he had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things he would have told him about his childhood if he 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. In their later years they had something called a store card. The card was good only at Farmers (now Myers).

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 18, and my grandparents never had one. It was, of course, black and white.

I was 20 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. Never had a phone in the house, until I built my own house. We fought with my mother to get a phone after Dad died. she used to use the phone box on the corner.. in all weathers. When growing up, there was no dial on the phone, you asked the switchboard operator for the number you wanted. The exchange joined the connections with cables.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. I never delivered a newspaper.

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 tomato sauce 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, coz I remember that.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

How many do you remember?
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about . Ratings at the bottom.

1. Choo Choo bars
2. Drive in movies
3. Passenger aircraft with propellers
4. Soft drink machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or milk bars with tableside juke boxes
6 . Home milk delivery in glass bottles with foil stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. Packard's
10. Blue flashbulb
11. Telephone numbers with 2 letters and 4 numbers
12. Peashooters
13. Wash tub wringer
14. 78 RPM records
15. Metal ice trays with lever
16. Not wearing seat belts
17. Cracker night
18. Using hand signals for cars without turn signals
19. Bread delivered by horse and cart
20. Head lights dimmer switches on the floor
21. Ignition switches on the dashboard
22. Heaters mounted on the inside of the wall
23. Real ice boxes
24. Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards
25. Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner

26. Kerosene lamps to light your living room because you didn't have electricity yet

27 Checkout ladies who punched in prices of groceries on the cash register

28 Savings account passbooks

29. Ladies wearing hats, gloves, stockings and high heels to church even on hot days

30. Computers that were the size of rooms and were only located somewhere overseas

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 15-20 = Better sign up for that pension,

If you remembered 21-30 = You're older than dirt!

I might 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 really OLD friends

**DavidG** · 16th December 2007, 08:48 AM

Hate that list. Remember the lot.
I am older than dirt.

Oh! I used to love the Choo Choo bars.

**artme** · 16th December 2007, 08:59 AM

1.The grocer's assistant walking around town with a docket book in hand and a pencil behind his ear. He took the weekly gricery order.
2.The groceries being delivered in a wooden box.
3. An ice chest before we had a fridge.
4. The iceman coming with his fearsome looking tongs.
5. Ramblers.
6. Push lawnmowers.
7. Snorting, hissing steam trains.
8. The butcher riding around on his horse to take weekly meat orders.
9. Aboriginals not having the vote or being allowed to drink in hotels without a special permit card.
10. The cane at school. I had a very intimate knowledge of it.
11. Polio epidemics.
12. Blue Hills.
13. Tank water only.
14. The celebrations for the queen's coronation.
15. The queen's first trip to australia.
16. Bob Menzies, Arthur Caldwell, Doc Evert,Black Jack McEwen.Vince Gair, Archbishop Mannix
17. Ray Lindwall, Keith Miller,Wally Grout all playing for Australia.
18. The first Boeing 707 to come to Australia.
19. The Graeme Thorne kidnapping.
20. President Kennedey's assasination.
21. Lieca _first dog in space.
22. Sputnik.
23. The Kontiki expidition.
24. Hillary and Sherpa Tensing climbing Mt. Everest.
25. Yuri Gargarin.
26. The four minute mile.
27. Perry Como, Mario Lanza, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Garry Cooper.
28. The crackling Radio at night as we tried to listen to the cricket, Yes What, the Goon Show, Around the Horne.Larry Kent, Dragnet.
29. The Emmaville panther.
30. Dunlop Volleys as the only tennis shoe.
31. Alex olmedo, Frank Sedgeman, Harry hopman, Alf Chave, Johnny Moyes.
32. Rising fast, Red Craze, Sailors Guide.
33. Solo
34.The advent of paint Rollers.

Is that enough?

I am older that dirt but I have a better memory.

**Skew ChiDAMN!!** · 16th December 2007, 09:02 AM

???

You can't buy Choochoo Bars anymore?

Flashbulbs aren't still blue?
Still using levered ice trays...
...and peashooters.

Cars have turn signals? Can't say I've noticed anyone using 'em!

Maybe I oughtta get out more...

**wheelinround** · 16th December 2007, 09:58 AM

Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

???

You can't buy Choochoo Bars anymore?

Flashbulbs aren't still blue?
Still using levered ice trays...
...and peashooters.

Cars have turn signals? Can't say I've noticed anyone using 'em!

Maybe I oughtta get out more...

Yes you can still buy choochoo bars skew

People use hand signals not always nice ones skew

Skew is going to leave the confines of the shed

don't do it Skew

**munruben** · 16th December 2007, 10:27 AM

I remember when fries were chips. and chips were crisps.

**Barry_White** · 16th December 2007, 10:49 AM

I must be older than dirt also.

What about.

The milkman delivering milk with a horse and cart putting the milk in your billy can after taking it out of a tap on the back of the cart into a measuring can.

The clothes prop man coming around on his horse and cart yelling out "Clothes Props"

The Rabbitoh Man delivering fresh rabbits in his horse and cart yelling "Rabbitoh".

When milk went sour after three days.

The rent man coming around with his rent roll to collect the rent every week.

Leyland Double Decker Buses.

When it cost two pennys to make a local phone call at a public telephone box.

Making trunk calls in an "A" "B" telephone box.

Not even big computers existed.

Air raid shelters in all the public parks and schools.

**Pusser** · 16th December 2007, 11:33 AM

I liked the movies. 6d bought entrance and a choo choo bar. And the bar was much bigger and chewier than the new plastic ones. Redskins were better too.

What about the outside dunny man.

And I scored older than dirt but I am not that old so it must have depended on where you lived.

rrich · 16th December 2007, 05:28 PM

I don't remember ChooChoo bars or Cracker Night.

My earliest memory is V-J day. At the time I didn't know what was going on but I do remember the particular events of the day.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York...

Our milkman didn't have a horse but other brands were delivered with a horse drawn cart.

Slowly, the number of people getting ice delivered dwindled from four or five down to one and finally in the mid 1950s no one got ice delivered any more. The last family that had ice delivered also had a 1924 Packard. Every saturday the husband would get the packard out of the garage for washing and polishing. On sunday, husband and wife would go out for a drive. Also the people next door had a Packard, but a much later model.

We lived in my grandmother's house. This house still had the gas lights (Not used in my lifetime) but we used electric lights. The house was called a "Row" house. Now the style of house is called town home or attached home.

Newspapers... Yes I delivered an AFTERNOON paper. I collected every week. I made friendships that lasted for years after I stopped delivering papers. The evening news on the telly killed the evening papers and today the Internet is killing the newspapes that are left.

I almost cried when the street cars (trolly) were changed out for buses. (Damn GM!) Public transportation for a nickle ($0.05) and a transfer from subway to bus was two cents extra.

My parents never owned an automobile until I was almost 16. My grandmother owned a car that my father drove for 6 years before that.

I installed seat belts in my first car. About a month later I installed seat belts in my parents first car.

There was a joke going around in the mid 1950s. One would hold up their right hand, four fingers close together (almost like a milatary salute) except the top part of the middle finger would be folded inward towards the palm and hidden from view. Then the person would say, "I got a Skill saw for Christmas." The Skill saw was one of the first portable or circular saws available at an affordable price.

I rode my bicycle almost everywhere. Even as a teenager. I typically would wear out a set of tires a year. Delivering newspapers helped pay for the repairs and maintenance on the bicycle. A great lesson on the need to maintain motor vehicles later in life.

Even today, I still LISTEN to the radio. I laugh at a commercial on the radio while SWMBO sitting next to me in the car never heard it. Alistair Cooke once asked a small girl if she liked television better than radio. She responded that the pictures were better on Radio. Even today, I can relate to that! 'What evil lurks in the hearts of men? The SHADOW knows.'

Everyone said Please and Thank You.

I am not older than dirt, I AM DIRT!

**AlexS** · 16th December 2007, 06:14 PM

Yep, I'm older than dirt.

I remember:

Carbide lights, before we had electricity,

Long wooden surfboards

Menzies was the new Prime Minister (must have been the 2nd time around)

Joe Cahill was premier

ALL the women wore one-piece swimming costumes (and no, they weren't topless!)

Pony rides on Manly beach

A truck coming round to blow out the gas pipes when they were clogged up

Watching B&W television in the shop windows

The coke man delivering, back when coke was black, and neither a powder nor a liquid.

**jow104** · 16th December 2007, 06:43 PM

We had air raid sirens going every night, and the next morning we used to go out looking for schrapnel or sometimes we got a tail fin later years.

**jow104** · 16th December 2007, 06:45 PM

Originally Posted by jow104

We had air raid sirens going every night, and the next morning we used to go out looking for schrapnel or sometimes we got a tail fin later years.

And we stacked the corn sheaves by hand when we went visiting relatives at harvest time..

**Grumpy John** · 16th December 2007, 07:10 PM

I remember my parents:
having a briquette hot water service
pay TV (not foxtel or optus)
a gas operated fridge
washing my mouth out with soap when I swore (only happened once)

**Gra** · 16th December 2007, 07:10 PM

Hmmm....

I still have 78RPM records..
Hand signals, yeah still use them, but nobody knows what i'm doing (Yes I drive a car without indicators)
No seatbelts, yup see above

How about before the floor mounted dimmer switch, that button was the starter.
Non syncro gearboxs.
removable rims, not not wheels, but just the tyre and rim..

I always find it worrying, when I go to an antique shop and find stuff for sale that im still using exactly the same item

rrich · 17th December 2007, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by artme

24. Hillary and Sherpa Tensing climbing Mt. Everest.

I believe that it was Tenzing Norgay that climbed Mt. Everest with Sir Edmund Hillary. (I've seen Tenzing spelled Tensing also but the majority seem to be with the "z".)

And yes, I do remember the event. In Brooklyn's public schools it was a rather significant event. The teachers made a very big deal out of it.

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