do you remember

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:

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.

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

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.

I remember our first microwave. Oh and how about actually haveing to get up and turn the channel on the tv!

I remember getting our first color tv. I also remember my first car didn’t have power steering.

When new tv channels came on the air for the first time….

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getting up to change the channel on the TV

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You had more then 1 channel?

I remember…..never mind, I forgot

I miss the “ding-ding” hose when you drove into the gas station

Respecting your elders.

What a “churchkey” is and what is was for. Every so often you still need one.

How about the brick roads? I’m only 35 but we still have them in Eau Claire, WI the town I grew up in. I sure use to like pop rocks too

How about service stations that sold gasoline. The attendent would come too your car and ask how much gas and ask if we needed the oil or tire pressure checked, or they just checked the oil anyway, usually this was the case. They always had an air hose on each island and if they didn’t check the tire pressure without asking first they would then ask and fill up each tire and check it with a pressure gauge while the pump was putting gas in your car. They didn’t even complain when you had them check the spare tire in the trunk. If you stopped into a station and they didn’t ask to do these things you kind of raised an eyebrow and though about the station down the street because they too did all these things. Now they have convience stores that takes 20 minutes to pump in enough air to fill a tire and have a marginal supply of good oil. I remember going into the filling stations as they were called then and seen about 5 diffrent brand names of oil and all of these would be in diffrent weights. 10 weight was for cold months and not on the shelf until there was a chill in the air. Remember 12 cent a gallon gas? you could fill a standard 16 gallon tank for around $2, yep thats right. I was a kid then but can remember 18 cent gas in high school and all of it was a higher octane then what they sell now for easy starts and better milage. Regular old gas was 98%, ethyl or premium gas as its now called was 99% octane and airplane fuel for prop engines was 100% too 105% octane. I remember 59 cent 6 packs of beer of any kind, premium beer was about 2 to 5 cents higher a 6 pack, they didn’t have 12 packs and you opened them with a churchkey, no poptops then. You could go out all weekend, that was friday, saturday and sunday and date your girl on $20 bucks and that included the beer and what it cost for entry at the drivein movie theater plus something to eat at the drivein restaurants each night. $20 bucks went along ways back in the mid to late 60’s, boy does time fly!

Oh yea now I remember,,,,umm, aahhh, hummmm, never mind

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and if I didn’t like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it”

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I remember it took a long time to like liver

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getting up to change the channel on the TV

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You had more then 1 channel?

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We had two! NBC and CBS, who hoo! Now there are so many channels with nothing good to watch.

I miss my ‘ol EGG RADIO! Ever have or seen one?

I worked at one of those ‘service stations’ that did it all. A ringer washer on the ‘island’ where we kept the chamois to do windows, have the air hose to check the tires, checked the oil….And 20$ was hard to earn. It had better last all weekend.

I think my kids have it to easy!

I once ask my grandmother just 5 months before she pasted away, to tell me about the ‘good ‘ol days’. She said, and I quote, “These are the good old days!” She said people never worked so hard for so little. I’ve felt blessed every day since then.

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I once ask my grandmother just 5 months before she pasted away, to tell me about the ‘good ‘ol days’. She said, and I quote, “These are the good old days!” She said people never worked so hard for so little. I’ve felt blessed every day since then.

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That is awesome, thanks for posting it!