Older Than Dirt

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

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

Oh! I used to love the Choo Choo bars. :U

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?:D:D

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

???

You can't buy Choochoo Bars anymore? :oo:
Flashbulbs aren't still blue?
Still using levered ice trays...
...and peashooters. :U
Cars have turn signals? Can't say I've noticed anyone using 'em! :roll:

Maybe I oughtta get out more...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Skew ChiDAMN!!

???

You can't buy Choochoo Bars anymore? :oo:
Flashbulbs aren't still blue?
Still using levered ice trays...
...and peashooters. :U
Cars have turn signals? Can't say I've noticed anyone using 'em! :roll:

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 :oo: :no: don't do it Skew

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Quote:

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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.

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

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)

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:~

Quote:

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Originally Posted by artme

24. Hillary and Sherpa Tensing climbing Mt. Everest.

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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.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rrich

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.

---

Tenzing was a sherpa.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gra

How about before the floor mounted dimmer switch

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And why did we ever get rid of them

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barry_White

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

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Not the rent man but the lay away man fron dickens and carie
The Baker who delivered on a horse and cart where you used Store Tokens for a loaf or 1/2 loaf and got into trouble if you came in with the small half
The Store , on the Newcastle Coalfields, where you could book things up by just quoting your number , you couldn't use anyone elses number cause the girl on the checkout knew your family,
Getting tuppence returne on a bottle , for which you could get a pkt of juicy fruit chewing gum

yep older than dirt.

IIRC, at the time, all the reports referred to him simply as sherpa Tensing. More recently, his full name is used. Tensing or Tenzing, it's just an anglicisation of his Nepalese name anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashore

And why did we ever get rid of them

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They became the dimmer switch. Also people found it easier to just turn a key, instead of turn a key, then press a button. The poms held onto that whole process longer as usual, and it looks like its comming back again..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gra

They became the dimmer switch. Also people found it easier to just turn a key, instead of turn a key, then press a button. The poms held onto that whole process longer as usual, and it looks like its comming back again..

---

Purchased a new one myself last week here in pommey land and it now combines a push on at any position plus the wind knob if you want to adjust the dimmer position.

Silly me, I jumped to the conclusion you were referring to a wall dimmer switch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gra

They became the dimmer switch. Also people found it easier to just turn a key, instead of turn a key, then press a button. The poms held onto that whole process longer as usual, and it looks like its comming back again..

---

No Gra i wasnt talking about the starter but the dimmer being in the floor, didnt express my self too well I guess, I liked the dimmer on the floor and would be happy to have one now, :2tsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ashore

No Gra i wasnt talking about the starter but the dimmer being in the floor, didnt express my self too well I guess, I liked the dimmer on the floor and would be happy to have one now, :2tsup:

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I preferred the starter. Confuses the hell out of anyone who doesn't know these things:2tsup:

nothing stopping you fitting one. Just get a new switch from a parts store and hook it into the wiring:2tsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AlexS

IIRC, at the time, all the reports referred to him simply as sherpa Tensing. More recently, his full name is used. Tensing or Tenzing, it's just an anglicisation of his Nepalese name anyway.

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And performed one of the most amazing feats or mountaineering of the time with Hillary!

Thanks, I wasn't aware of the anglicisation of his name.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Barry_White

I must be older than dirt also.

What about.

Leyland Double Decker Buses.

Still around know as Historical Vehicles Barry o


Air raid shelters in all the public schools.
Known as Teachers Staff rooms these days

---

o

What about Cobbers?

On the way home from school (yes, we used to walk) we used to visit the local store. If we wanted lollies, they had a large glass counter with all sorts of sweets inside, they came in bulk and for threepence you could just about make yourself sick. Once selected, your lollies would be handed over in a brown paper bag. Cobbers were my favorite. They were a hard caramel toffee with chocolate outside. Haven't seen them for years.

Arnotts biscuits came in large tins about a foot cube. It was normal to buy them in bags from the shop. Of course, they always had broken biscuits. When we got sick of lollies, we'd buy 3d worth of broken biscuits. More than you could eat.

The milko used his voice and whistle to control the horse when he was doing his rounds. That way he could get the horse moving while he was busy putting milk bottles in people's crates. Remember them? They were heavy wire affairs with a handle that made it easy to carry 6 pints in and out the house. Anyway, we learnt the milko's whistle and had fun getting the horse moving when he was supposed to be stopped.

At school, we had these little 1/3 pint milk bottles delivered free for the kids. Someone's job every morning was to be milk monitor and go down and collect the milk for class. They had foil caps too. If you were good, you could get the foil cap off without damaging it, and fly it around by flicking it by the rim between your first and second fingers.

I think I must be old as dirt too :)

woodbe.

Licking the cream off the lids of milk
Milk monitors and other kids throwing up when it had gone off from being in a hot truck or to long in the sun.

Cobbers some stores still have them 20c would by you maybe 2

At age 15 I did a 3 day stint with one of the last horse n cart drawn milk runs in Lakemba back in the late 60's put the milk bottle in to those wire crates to quick on a cold frosty morning and would end up with a broken bottle. Blo*7 Cats would scare the life out of you sleeping in shadows stand on their tails and wake the whole street up.

I must be old, attended a counry school in Victoria during the 2nd world war .We had trenches dug about 50 yards from the building ,randomily the air siren would go off,everyone ran like hell to get into a trench ,packed in like sardines. On the wall inside there were silhouettes of all know aircraft ,so we could identify any plane flying over our school. Bike tubes were no existant then, Dad stuffed the tyres with straw for a 5 mile ride to school. If you didn't ride your bike to school, it was a 3 mile run across the paddocks. Now days Mum drives the kids 500 metres in the Landcruiser.
older than dirt nine fingers.

[quote=Ashore;646399]And why did we ever get rid of them



Because as I found out with my first car, if you have your foot on the clutch you can't dip the headlights.

Come to think of it ... I think I must be as old
as dirt as this thread has brought back some memories.
* Fish and chips were wrapped in newspapers and had
a delightful smell from the newsprint.
* We saved our clean newspapers and sold them to the
fish and chip proprietor for wrappings.
* We looked forward to reading the Truth, Argus and
of course the Sporting Globe newspapers.
* Food ration coupons were valuable and I received a
two shilling tip for finding our next door neighbour's
butter coupons near her home.
* Remember the "Bottle 'oh" as he called along the street
to buy empty beer bottles etc.
* Tram conductors who followed you down the tram
for a fare.
* Wooden tennis racquets with cat gut strings.
* Radio and T.V. licences.
* Listening on the radio to Jimmy Carruthers' fights.
* Having a hot iron wrapped in a towel to keep our
toes warm in bed.
* Our delight in getting a "Tilley's Lantern" to replace our
outmoded candles in the kitchen.
* Cranking the car with a handle to get the motor going.

..... and many others if I really tried to remember them.

Allan

__________________________________________

One good turn requires a quality piece of wood.

Having a quiet drink last night and mentioning this thread I remembered the petrol pumps you hand pumped , last one I remember was at the petrol station at the top end of Leuar's main street , you set the leaver to a quart , a gallon or two gallons hand pumped the petrol to the top chamber then run it via the hose to the car :doh:

what about inkwells and firing ink soaked pellets of blotting paper with your 12 inch wooden ruler (which often resulted in a passing aquaintance with a big leather strap)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pusser

what about inkwells and firing ink soaked pellets of blotting paper with your 12 inch wooden ruler

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:roll: Twasn't me. I would never fire one at the board when the teacher was writing on it .........






Wern't the blue fingers a bit of a giveaway :doh:

And what about dipping the girls pig tails that sits in front of you in the ink well.

Similar to woodbe although I'm a bit younger, what about being able to buy a lolly at the local deli for 1 cent and for 10c being able to buy a heap of lollies from a row of shelves (take your choice) and have the deli worker reach into the lolly boxes with BARE HANDS to dump them into a paper bag?

Heres some us girls might remember.
dress nets on ladies bikes.
Non sexy suspenders for winter school stockings.
sanitary belts:B
different pay rates for women workers.
make up and jewellery prohibited at work.
the boss always being male
separate playgrounds for boys and girls
having compulsory cooking and sewing lessons in second form.
(boys had woodwork and metalwork):no:
all girls leaving the class for their mothercaft lesson second form.
Having to get parents permission for the pill (age 18)
having to clean your brothers bedroom
boys throwing dead cats at packs of girl cyclists.
eldest son inhereting the lot.
Male teacher being able to cane girls (and boys)
but for some reason we coped it on the back of legs not hand:~
hair ribbons, alice bands.
senior mistress giving instructions in " keeping ourselves nice"
sexually active girls refered to as sluts.
"fault" devorce laws
having to get husands permission for abortion, regardless of the reason.
Ruler test for skirt length at school.
Sex sepparated sport and not being taught cricket or football or soccer.

Im glad for my daughter:U

Astrid

Hi all, this must be the exercising the grey matter thread. Sadly I can remember 98% of it all.
I believe it is good to stop and smell the roses once again. It is a good read for the over the hill
like myself members. LOL. enjoy your New Year where ever you are.


Regards Mike