Older then Dirt ...Quiz. | SouthernPaddler.com

Older then Dirt ...Quiz.

oldsparkey

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2003
10,479
123
Central , Florida
www.southernpaddler.com
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, 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 & 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

It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, 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 was 17 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 Iever had.

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 -- my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 5 AM every morning.

On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His 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. 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. 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 & Teaberry also (my favs)
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 on the telephone
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels [if you were fortunate] )
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 might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

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

tx river rat

Well-Known Member
Feb 23, 2007
3,043
2
Waco Tx
Chuck
What comes after older than dirt,I remembered all of them.
here is a few more
Dragging your feet so the goat heads stuck in the end of your toes not the bottom of your feet.
Waiting for the fan to come across if you were lucky enough to have one.
Sitting on top the ice cream freezer while someone else turned the crank
shaking a quart jar full of skimed off cream to make butter
a kid of 7 grabbing his bb gun and pocket knife going to the woods and staying till dark and the only thing you had to worry about was being late for supper
a pre airconditioner tha rolled up in top of the car window and sprayed everyone
Everbody gathering around to listen to the grand ole opry or lousiania hay ride on the radio every sat night
Thats enough.
Ron
 

oldsparkey

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2003
10,479
123
Central , Florida
www.southernpaddler.com
"O" Yes... The best ice cream came out of that bucket with the hand crank on it. I still have and use one of the osculating fans on the back porch. :lol: There was nothing more relaxing then sitting or laying on the floor and listing to the radio , just shut your eyes and visualize everything as it was being described...... Only the Shadow Knows. Then the Rock an Roll you could always locate on the radio. The music was always better with an Orange Crush to drink or a RC Cola and Moon Pie. :D

Life has progressed but not in the simple enjoyment you could receive from it , I guess we can't go back , just forward.

Chuck. ( Older then the oldest dirt)
 

Kayak Jack

Well-Known Member
Aug 26, 2003
13,976
171
86
Okemos / East Lansing Michigan
I remembered them all. Plus:
The Lone Ranger - with the original Brace Beamer, broadcast from the golden towers of the Fisher Building
Tom Mix, and his horse Tony
Gabby Hayes
The Cisco Kid
Gene Autry and the son's of the Pioneers
Roy Rogers and Trigger
Captain Midnight
Terry and the Pirates
Jack Armstrong - the all American boy
Sky King
Tennessee Jed
Little Orley
Let's Pretend
Big John and Sparky
Baby Snooks with Fanny Brice (remember the movie "Funny Girl"?)
Duffy's Tavern
It Pays to be Ignorant
Corliss Archer
Luigi, the little immigrant
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy
Amos and Andy
Red Skelton
Burns and Allen
Fibber McGee and Molly
Red Ryder and Little Beaver
Super Man
Bat Man
Straight Arrow
Our Miss Brooks
 

jdupre'

Well-Known Member
Sep 9, 2007
2,327
40
South Louisiana
I remember most of em. Also,

You couldn't eat a quarter's worth of candy, cookies and soda in one sitting .

Hot dogs - 5 for $1.00.

Watermelons - 4 for $1.00.

Butcher would give mama soup bones for free. Cost as much as steak nowadays.

Ordered all our clothes from Sears & Roebuck.

Used to wear "tenny shoes" everywhere and still call em that.

Still remember going outside to turn the antenna " towards the big oak tree".

Remember when only people within sight of a bayou would get crawfish.
 

leeh

Well-Known Member
Jul 24, 2009
67
0
I recall most of that.

Also, horney toads. There were thousands of them in Central Texas in the 50s. Tobacco spitters they were, too. You could flip them over and rub their bellies and they went right to sleep, or let you think they did.

I remember "Borden's Bid N Buy," i believe it was called. It was a show on the (only) local TV station where you could go down and bid on toys, using the cut-off tops of those waxed and folded milk cartons. All the kids sat in a little grandstand with their paper sacks of carton tops. If you only had one sackful, you were fighting a losing battle and could win zip.
 

oldsparkey

Well-Known Member
Aug 25, 2003
10,479
123
Central , Florida
www.southernpaddler.com
OK...

Here is one ......

When the soda pops in class bottles had the caps you need a church key to take off the top of the soda , there was a cork under that cap. If you took the cap off real easy like ( not to bend it ) then you could get that cork out of the back of it. Take the cap and push it against your shirt and on the backside of the shirt put that thin piece of cork back in the cap. Then the cap was fasten to your shirt.
Yep , in the dark ages it did not take much to amuse us. :lol:

Chuck.
 

leeh

Well-Known Member
Jul 24, 2009
67
0
I don't recall a doodle bug song, but I spent hours and hours messing with those cone-shaped holes. Knocking in a few grains of sand and watching the doodle bug kick em back out. My gramma had an old wooden garage with a dirt floor, and it looked like a minature war zone with all those DB holes. Also, along bout that time (1955 or 56, I'm guessin), a slick salesman sold her the first bomb shelter in central Texas (this was in Brownwood). They dug up her front yard and build this concrete room right in the hole. Had a big heavy door, a couple cots inside and a crank that you turned to draw outside air in through a charcoal filter. We played in there a lot, although we weren't supposed to open it.

We've still got scorpions and blister bugs to this day. I've read that DDT killed off the horney toads. Don't know much about that. My older brother thought he was Mr Science for awhile. He took a horney toad, put him to sleep with a little chloroform or something, then slit his belly open and inserted a dime. Sewed him back up and let him loose. I thought it was a wierd thing to do back then, and still do. If left up to me, I'd got a couple them Black Cow suckers with that dime instead.
 

mike

Well-Known Member
Jun 29, 2009
694
9
TEXAS!
When I was a kid out in West Texas there was a guy came around every Thursday in the summertime. He drove a truck kinda like the ice cream trucks kids love to buy ice cream off of.

Anyhow, this guy was a horned toad buyer. I'd catch all I could during the week and he'd buy 'em on Thursdays. If I remember right, the small ones brought a penny and I'd get a nickle for the really big ones. I thought he was crazy paying good money for them - it seemed like there were thousands of them just waiting to be caught. They got shipped up North somewhere and sold in pet stores.

This was back in the 1950s. Sure hope I didn't help contribute to their demise. :(

Mike
 

bearridge

Well-Known Member
Mar 9, 2005
3,092
4
way down yonder
Speakin' of ole stuff, Dan Seals died frum cancer a while back. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/stltod ... =125485210 I am listenin' ta "Everything that Glitters is not Gold". He used ta be half of England Dan 'n John Ford Coley, then he set out by hizownself. Reminds me of that high 'n lonesome picker who played with Pure Prairie League when I met him here....Vince Gill.

Here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUXCaXSTmns

Oh.....Dan's brother wuz Jimmy who played some decent songs with a fella named Croft. When he died him 'n hiz brother wuz recordin' some songs.

So Wannabe San, how iz yer jaw? Keep yer Yin 'n Yang outta the ditch. [chuckle]
 

leeh

Well-Known Member
Jul 24, 2009
67
0
Had one more brief recall from the olden days: Paregoric. Also known as "camphorated tincture of opium". I think it, in the 50s, must have been The Worn-Out Parent's Best Friend.

Now, I didn't grow up to become much of an addict or anything. But I DO have some fond and fuzzy memories of paregoric.