The good old days - humor

gkainz

Final Approach
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
8,401
Location
Arvada, CO
Display Name

Display name:
Greg Kainz
There have been a number of these floating around the net, but this one had some new (to me) parts...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Just in case you don't already feel "old"

The good ole days.

Hey Dad," one of 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:

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 AND 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, but my grandparents had one before that. It was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lens taped to the front of the TV to make the picture look larger.

I was 13 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. 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.

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 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
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
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (UNiversity-51366)
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 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 the best part of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!
Especially to all your really OLD friends.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
RotaryWingBob said:
Sheesh -- 24 out of 25. I think it was Butchers Wax, not Butch though...
Really? I remember it as Butch wax, to make the butch or flattop haircut stand up... Brylcreem was the next step up for ducktails, right?

Edit: Google confirms Butch Wax for hair, but also shows a lot of hits for Butcher's Wax for other uses, as well.... I hadn't heard of Butcher's Wax before now.
 
Last edited:
Blackjack chewing gum I don't remember. We had Bazooka gum, with the miniature comic strip wrapper. It was Butch wax where I grew up in Pensacola. And Stingray bicycles that were indestuctible. Ahhh yes, the memories of youth.
 
Oh yeah - Blackjack gum was a favorite of mine - had a very strong licorice taste.

I remember the Bazooka comic strip - hated the gum but loved the smell!

How about Nehi grape or orange pop?

#4 - extra points for chest style soda machines with the lid on top - you maneuvered the bottles around the tracks to the lever that operated when you dropped in your nickle - letting you lift the bottle up and out.
 
Last edited:
gkainz said:
Oh yeah - Blackjack gum was a favorite of mine - had a very strong licorice taste.

I remember the Bazooka comic strip - hated the gum but loved the smell!

How about Nehi grape or orange pop?

Every day walking home from school at Boyette's general store. My parents kept a "tab" there so I could stop and get a cold drink on those hot summer days.

BTW, the last time I was in Pensacola (several years ago) Boyette's general store had become a rather dirty, rundown strip club. sigh. :(
 
24 of 25.
Don't remember blackjack gum
But 2 or 3 days a week I do eat a Moonpie here at my desk. (Really gotta stop that.)
Who remembers Sinclair Gasoline, with Dino the Dinosaur. The station near me had pumps with a little glass dome on it with three balls in it that swirled round and round when the gas flowed thru.
My Grandad had a station for a while, and around back he had a kerosene pump where you hand pumped the product up to a glass vessel on top till you got the quantity desired, then took off the hose and transferred the kerosene to your can. He said he saved it from when they removed it from the front of the station to put in "them 'lectric pumps a while ago".
 
You mean this.....

vealgy.jpg



Lots of Sinclair collectibles on eBay.

http://collectibles.listings.ebay.c...Z2QQfsopZ2QQsacatZ1331QQsocmdZListingItemList
 
It's not too late, they're still making blackjack gum. It comes out once a year with a few other oldies, Clove is the only i remember off hand but rest assured Blackjack is out there now.
 
michael Killacky said:
It's not too late, they're still making blackjack gum. It comes out once a year with a few other oldies, Clove is the only i remember off hand but rest assured Blackjack is out there now.

In Couer d'Alene, ID there is a candy shop that sells all that old time stuff. You can also buy it online
http://www.candydirect.com/gums/Black-Jack-Gum.html
 
smigaldi said:
I had a Sinclair plastic Dinosaur to play with when I was a kid. My dad worked in the auto aftermarket parts biz and god several of them for me. I even later had an Esso (or was it Exxon) Tiger.

I had an ESSO "Tiger Bicycle" complete with a tiger striped seat.
 
I've got one of twenty five.

..How many family's out there still sit down and have dinner together daily? I'm curious.

Up to about five years old, my family did. I remember we always had dinner about the same time...After that some things happend, and it changed to more or less you being on your own. Find food when you are hungry.

I have a feeling quite a few families are probably like that now, which might help explain the increase in obesity...
 
gkainz said:
Really? I remember it as Butch wax, to make the butch or flattop haircut stand up... Brylcreem was the next step up for ducktails, right?

Edit: Google confirms Butch Wax for hair, but also shows a lot of hits for Butcher's Wax for other uses, as well.... I hadn't heard of Butcher's Wax before now.
Oh crap... I remember that stuff now as well -- just not the name!
 
michael Killacky said:
It's not too late, they're still making blackjack gum. It comes out once a year with a few other oldies, Clove is the only i remember off hand but rest assured Blackjack is out there now.

More than 20 of 'em for me.

Blackjack, Clove and another was Beaman's....which is the brand that Chuck Yeager is always asking Jack Ridley for in the movie "The Right Stuff". Every once in awhile Wrigley's manufactures a bunch of the old brands...it usually sits on the shelf at the supermarkets 'cause it would stick to the dentures of the folks that used to chew these brands.

Len
 
jangell said:
I've got one of twenty five.

How many family's out there still sit down and have dinner together daily? I'm curious.

We do, at least every day that I'm not off on some mission to save the railroading industry from itself.
My kids are 8 and 5 and are homeschooled, so I get a chance to see what they learned in "school " that day.:)
 
Being a young, young man, I don't remember any of those things. As far as ya'll know :D
 
gkainz said:
Really? I remember it as Butch wax, to make the butch or flattop haircut stand up... Brylcreem was the next step up for ducktails, right?

Butch wax it is, came is a small wide-mouth glass jar. I used the stuff off and on till high school. Mostly in the summer. Brylcreem for the longer winter 'do.
 
ejensen said:
Butch wax it is, came is a small wide-mouth glass jar. I used the stuff off and on till high school. Mostly in the summer. Brylcreem for the longer winter 'do.
Vitalis less greasy. It is funny how pomade has made a come back, anyone a DapperDan Man?
 
Last edited:
gkainz said:
#4 - extra points for chest style soda machines with the lid on top - you maneuvered the bottles around the tracks to the lever that operated when you dropped in your nickle - letting you lift the bottle up and out.

4 for me. How about when the flavor's were mixed and the cream soda you wanted was at the far end of a row.:)

How about Slo-Pokes. Candy that would last through both movies of the Saturday matinee.
 
We had Butch Wax in a wide mouth jar when I was a kid. The lid was a bristly thing that you were supposed to use as a comb to get that flat top looking good.

I had my hair in a flat top from 1992-1998. I may go back to it this summer. It's nice to have dry haid 30 seconds after a shower. And summer is hotter than the doorhinges on the gates of HE-double hockeysticks down here in Jawja.
 
ejensen said:
What did you miss? I got 25 out of 25 if I can count a used Packard.

Newsreels before movies. As best I recall, they were showing trailers even when I was a kid, not newsreels.

Pretty much everything else I recall. Neighbor where I grew up had a Stude, my grandparents had a party-line... as late as sometime in the '70s.

And we all loved to sniff mimeos fresh off the machine when I was in elementary school....
 
jangell said:
I've got one of twenty five.
You should be ashamed of yourself. ;) Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. :D

jangell said:
..How many family's out there still sit down and have dinner together daily? I'm curious.

We're now scattered to the 8 winds. When we get together, it's always a sit down dinner even if it's just 2 of us. Dinner on the road doesn't mean fast food either except on very rare occasion. On the farm, dinner is a multi hour event with please, thank you, and may we get you anything else before we wash (by hand) the dishes. Then when dinner is over, you leave the table for the sitting room and talk until bedtime. (Kids are eventually allowed to leave the discussion after their bit is said and done to play board games)

jangell said:
I have a feeling quite a few families are probably like that now, which might help explain the increase in obesity...

That's one of my theories too. A sensible amount of real food instead of drugged up fat saturated whatever changes the conditions considerably. Of course having a 3 course meal then work off a 4 course meal the next day doesn't leave much for weight gain. Weight gain was all muscle. Wiry little buggers we were on the farm but a 12 year old could easily toss a 30lb bail of hay an additional 50% of their height over their heads.
 
Last edited:
Sheesh, thanks a LOT, Greg.
I gotta go listen to some of my records now.
(seriously though I wouldn't want to be a youngster now for anything!)
 
PF Flyers didn't register. I assume they are tennis shoes. But then, I got chewed out by my third grade teacher for going to school bare footed. I took a test in Readers Digest one time that guessed your age by what you called things. Is it an ice box, a fridgidaire, a refrigerator. Is it a Victrola, a record player, a hi-fi, or a stereo - etcetera. I was 15 and they told me I was 35. I always thought it reflected the difference between the Missouri ozarks and New York City. I was about 10 when we got electricity. It didn't matter what I called those things anyway. We didn't have most of them.
 
gkainz said:
7. Party lines
When I moved into my house only about 13 years ago I was told by the phone company that I was going to have a party line until they could get more lines established. WHAT?! Although I had heard of party lines I never knew anyone that had one even when I was a kid (although I do remember the letter prefixes). Luckily they were wrong and I actually got a private number. But for a while I would randomly pick up the phone to see if anyone else was talking.

I got 17 of 25. No longing for the "good old days" here. No microwaves. No internet! :eek:
 
15 or so...
This doesnt go back that far....maybe 15 years or so..But does anybody remember Gatorade gum? I used to love that stuff. And of course Pop Rocks. Wonder why they did those in.
 
smigaldi said:
I had a Sinclair plastic Dinosaur to play with when I was a kid. My dad worked in the auto aftermarket parts biz and god several of them for me. I even later had an Esso (or was it Exxon) Tiger.

Got a dino at the World Fair 1964 in NYC. They molded them out of plastic while you watched.
 
Michael said:
15 or so...
This doesnt go back that far....maybe 15 years or so..But does anybody remember Gatorade gum? I used to love that stuff. And of course Pop Rocks. Wonder why they did those in.

Goes back a little more than 15, I hope. But it doesn't go far enough maybe early 60s late 50s depending on where you lived. I am not getting old:no:
 
jangell said:
I've got one of twenty five.

How many family's out there still sit down and have dinner together daily? I'm curious.

Mine still does. Among other things, fast food every day gets expensive.
 
ejensen said:
Got a dino at the World Fair 1964 in NYC. They molded them out of plastic while you watched.

You too, huh?

Mine was green, my brother got orange.

The green one met an untimely death, much like the Wicked Witch of the West.... "Look what you've done! I'm melting, MELTING..."
 
This old bald fat guy was 25/25.
But here is some other things to think about,
I grewup in a house that had a lot of guns, both hand and long, i didnt kill anybody, or hurt myself
From the Time I was 7, I carried a pocket knife everywhere I went, still do.
I never wore a helmet when i rode my bike or rollerskated, no knee or elbow pads either
We drank water out of the hose, shared a bottle of pop with 4 or five of us.
we did many other things, but we never destroyed anything that belonged to others and never needed to be entertained.
We knew all of the local cops and called them SIR, if we ever got in trouble with them or at school, it was nothing compared to what we got when we got home.
In a way, i feel sorry for kids today, sorry for what they are missing and what they are not learning and the experiances they will never have.

I hate the way that this world seems to be going to hades.
 
Try some of these,
Saturday morning serials, chapters one through 15.
Fly paper
Penny loafers,
Lucky strike Green
Flat Tops
Sock Hops
Studebakers
Pepsi please
Goin Steady
White Bucks
Blue Suede shoes
knock knock jokes
Tom Mix
Randolf Scott
Howdy Doody
Buffalo Bob
Princess summer fall winter spring

Just some thoughts
 
Back
Top