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Dec 21, 2017
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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!
'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, & 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.

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.

My parents never drove me to school. 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 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people ...

I never had a telephone in my room. Our only phone 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 & so was bread.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5 AM every morning .

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. Don't blame me if they bust their gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES:
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.
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. Candy cigarettes
2. Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4. Party lines on the telephones
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 3 channels! If you had a TV!)
7. Pea-shooters
8. Howdy Doody
9. 45 RPM records
10. 78 rpm records
11. Hi-fi records 33 1/3 rpm
12. Metal ice trays with lever
13. Blue flashbulb
14. Cork popguns
15. Studebakers
16. 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 11-16 = You're older than dirt! THAT'S ME!
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
 
We also had a milk door,
An out house,
A chamber pot under every bed,
A pantry with a cupboard door hinged on the bottom that contained a 25 gallon bin of flour
Carrying water from the well,
Putting enough water in the cast iron tub to bath in on Saturdays.... and then being third in line to use the same water....
House heated by a wood stove in the kitchen and a grate in the ceiling to carry some heat to our beds upstairs, (you notice I said beds... there were no walls up there until much later in life...)
That same stove had a water reservoir on the right side. That was our only source of hot water;
Stealing a piece of rising bread dough from mom and frying it right on the top of that stove..(she would holler and chase us out of the kitchen but always had a big grin while she was swinging the broom....)
Harnessing up Doll and the single bottom plow as a kid.... Damn... I could never plow a straight line...lol...
Trying late Saturday nights to tune the am radio in to the Wheeling West Virginia Country Jamboree show...
Snaring wild rabbits, putting a sign out and selling them for my spending money. $ 1.00 for a pair,
Dinosaur hunting in the fall so we had meat for the winter....

Ok....maybe that last one was an exaggeration but it won't be many years and no one will be old enough to remember any of those things anyway. They will only read about them in disbelief. There is already a generation out there that doesn't believe mobile phones weighed 6 pounds and came in a bag....

OK.... I'm old too... I think I'll go watch some All in the Family re-runs.... :laughbig:
 
Damn I am old. :Biggrin:

Our house had a small opening with a door on it so the milkman could leave the bottles. If you were really agile you could get in the house through it when you forgot your key, not me.

Very good Paul.:thumbs:

Like mine?

142BC7C6-2802-4F99-A1DA-1BD31BCDD3D6.jpeg
 
Do you know why there was a quick demise of the "Milk Chutes" (that's what we called it) ?
It was very easy access to unlock the back door by THIEVES ...

- buying "lady fingers" at the corner store
- plastic cap bombs (rockets that you put a round cap into and threw in the air)
- household credit at the corner store was a IOU note taped on the wall behind the counter
- Woodwards
- going to the record section at the department store to check the arranged weekly top 100 hits and be able to buy the 45rpm on-the-spot
- fixing a match cover on your bike frame with a clothes peg to make the "motor sound"
- modifying your 3-speed mustang bike with a taller sissy-bar
- collecting hockey cards from the gas station with every fill
- all youth hockey was community based and ... OUTDOORS ... and the "zamboni" was your parents ... breaks between periods was for thawing your feet.
- playing "war" with a piece of wood carved to look like a gun
- GI Joe
- TV with rabbit ears
- You could fix almost anything and make a Career of it.
- A doctor visit AT HOME
- Flying a Kite without being told to go and do it ...
- Saturday night was the only night for ... HOCKEY NIGHT in CANADA
- Being able to play in-the-middle of the Street ... (CaaaaaaaaaaaR)
- the Drive-in Movie intermissions with the animated cartoon hot dog jumping into the bun (some Drive-ins had a playground under the big screen with swings)
- A&W car-hops (was my Sister's first job)
- a new license plate every year
- pea shooters
- an Ambulance was merely a Station Wagon with lights and a siren ... the difference between the other one that was for Funerals.
- You had to find something other than Shopping on a Sunday (like Church and Picnics)
- WalMart was Sears
- Christmas displays at the Department Store Windows
- Finding hours with a Etch-A-Sketch Fun (until you sneeze)
- Rubber-band powered flying Airplanes
- Discipline other than the dreaded Belt was Going to Bed Early (later found to be helpful for building Brain Cells that might have helped in the first place) :Biggrin:

... maybe not for everyone, but for me was Mom creating her new weekly version of "Tuna Surprise" for dinner and having to eat it without a single complaint. :Wideyed:

... I gotta stop ... but don't want to ... GREAT DEMENTIA TEST here :thumbs:
 
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Do you know why there was a quick demise of the "Milk Chutes" (that's what we called it) ?
It was very easy access to unlock the back door by THIEVES .
- modifying your 3-speed mustang bike with a taller sissy-bar :thumbs:

Ours has been nailed and glued shut for quite a few years by the looks of it.

Lol on the CCM Mustang bikes. I had a green one but never quite modified it to this level.

5AF21B75-7470-4792-AC7F-22C690E9B15F.jpeg
 
Still have a small scar on my right ankle from that goofy centre stand too. I remember Dad and me going to a “Sportagon” to buy the normal leaning kick stand shortly after. I used my Calgary herald $$ for that purchase.
 
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I delivered "the Journal" "the Neighborhood Mirror" and "Flyers" for mine ...
I later grew and have kept the mustache to camouflage my damage from a brake-lever through the lip fall :Arghh: ...
Scolded for almost losing two front teeth however Dad had me learning to try, try again when first failing.
Mom wanted it gone ... but had to compromise by agreeing to Pedal Pushers for two-weeks in order to keep my Bike (argh :mad: )

- so I guess I should add to the list above ... annual visits to the Hospital
 
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Was the “pedal pushers” program run from Safety city in Lakeview? Do remember that place Spence? By Glenmore Park and the Sandy beach entrance. I believe it’s still in operation.

I’ll have to drive over there and get some pics of that for the board. That was pretty cool as a kid.
 
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Old as dirt, hmmm , no , just experienced more life than others. We had a 2 room house on the farm , no power in the early 50's , water came from the well....like where else ? yeah party line phone ours was 11R15 ...for those who don't know what that means is that our ring on the party line # 11 was 1 long and 5 short rings . . you guys had a bike, wow , I never learned to skate as had no money for stuff like that , I loved to play baseball my uncles bought me a glove when I was in grade 8 , I used that same glove right up to when I played old timers provincial baseball and I still have it . the outhouse and a old News Paper is all I'll say , My neighbor still lives in a log house plastered with clay, no running water but has power . Some of the stuff posted up top I still do or use . If you walked in my shop today, a ice cold little glass bottle of Coke out of the 1950 Vendo 39 Coke machine still costs 10 cents. I could ramble on 4ever here but ...................
 
Hey Rruuff Day, do you remember the pail with drinking water and if no one got up at night to put wood in the stove, in the morning the dipper would be frozen in the ice. .:)..
 
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Hey Rruuff Day, do you remember the pail with drinking water and if no one got up at night to put wood in the stove, in the morning the dipper would be frozen in the ice. .:)..



I grew up in Nova Scotia Michael. Back then we had lots of snow but not cold like out here. It got cold but seldom cold enough to freeze the pail in the kitchen overnight. Those old cast iron cook stoves held heat for a while too. Not the same upstairs though. Some frosty mornings it took a lot to climb out from under the covers.
 
anyone remember shaking a 2 quart jar of cow's milk untill it made into butter ? , I hated that as it was hard work took a long time. Our fridge was a cellar in the ice house , a old log building with a dirt cellar that had ice blocks cut from the lake in the winter , ice lasted good part of the summer.
 
You forgot the outhouse, we didn't have a flush toilet until I we moved to the city in the early 60's.
I finished high school in 1965 and went off to GM Oshawa for a tool and die apprenticeship. We still had an outhouse at the far end of the wood shed. A little chilly and breezy in the winter. The house was heated with wood from the bush at the back end of the farm. Lots of wood to be split to fill the wood shed each fall. The odd kid had a bike but not many. Most of us walked to school, a mile and a half each way for us and some neighbours walked at least two miles. We only got a ride if it was raining. Johnny Kidd was the township grader operator and I got the odd ride on the grader going to school. Quite the thrill for a little kid. Things have changed a lot. Kids look at us in disbelief when we tell them how it was.
 
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