MEMORY LANE

'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

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, never  wore Levis,  never set foot on a golf course, never 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  9.

 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 21 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.



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, 7 days a week. It cost 7 cents  a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get  up at6AM  every morning.

 On  Saturday, I had to collect the 49 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. 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 Colabottle.  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 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  green stamps

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 wringer


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