O/T Older the Dirt

[TundraWolf]

"OLDER THAN DIRT"

A trip down memory lane a friend sent me, American/Canadian based, but one many Brits can identify with I am sure:

We're older than dirt!!

Someone 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,'

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, & 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.


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 fo

[Robus]

I'm 52, still an adolescent really.

Of the things you mention, I remember 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, and 14.

That makes me "Don't tell your age &..."

Oops.

[TundraWolf]

Adding some of my own memories after reading my initial post:

It was a sign of growing up when you got your first pair of long pants;

Neither of my parents ever owned a passport.

An elderly man told me recently that as a 19 year old he traveled by bus from Vancouver, Canada, down through the States and into Mexico, a 3,500+ mile round trip. His only proof of who he was, was a handwritten, signed note from his mother...it worked at every border crossing!!

I was the first, and still am the only, member of my family with a driver's license (neither my parent's had one, nor did/does my sister;

We lived in a big city but rarely strayed more than four streets from the house (everything we wanted was there);

We had two television channels, one English and one French, the French one had religious homilies from a Catholic priest every night at six. When I was 12 we finally got a second English channel, their first show (1961) was a Bing Crosby movie.

Until the early sixties a work week w

[Woking88]

Some really good memory stirrers in there, Tundra. Many of those memories reminded me of the days when there were very few cars on the road and local policemen could be seen on a regular basis. The one thing I don't miss is the outside toilets where several large spiders would be trying to read the 'Beano' over your shoulder as you sat on the throne!

[WOODLANDSWOLF]

The only ones I don't remember are those that were not relevant to the UK culture at the time, howdy doody, metal ice trays [?] etc.

I also remember the guy on the bicycle who used to come round and turn off the gas street lights with a long wooden pole with a brass lever on the end.

Also the "nocker upper" who also came on his bike with a similar pole and provided an early call service by rapping on the bedroom window at a prearranged time to get you out of bed. Could have been the same guy who turned the gas lights off!!

I remember the first car on the street. It was a small green Ford with a black soft top. It was owned by my friends Dad who was some kind of contractor.

The first TV on the street was owned by my Auntie who bought it to watch the Queen's coronation [1955?]. I remember she put it in the back yard and invited a lot of the neighbors round to watch the ceremony. I can remember squinting, with everyone else, at the tiny black and white screen and trying to figure out

[TundraWolf]

Woody, I remember that my house was built in 1914, a solid brick one to repel the winter's cold. Each room had a radiator that was controlled by a thermostat in the hallway, downstairs; we turned it down at night and up in the morning. The oil man would deliver heating oil in his truck, at the time (early 50s) only one of our neighbours still used coal.

The older boys, aged twelve and up would, on icy days, grab onto the back bumper of the city bus and with their feet planted firmly on the icy street would be dragged a long city block at speeds of about 30 mph. If caught, the result was a lift home in a police car and an embarrassing three-way conversation.

None of those old houses had a driveway or garage. The bus stopped at the corner, a ten second walk from my house, still seemed long on a snowy winter's day!

There was a Catholic college about a 15 minute walk from our house, Loyola College. My father remembered in the early 50s how when he passed by the college in the streetcar

[WOODLANDSWOLF]

[quote="TundraWolf"]Woody, I remember that my house was built in 1914, a solid brick one to repel the winter's cold. Each room had a radiator that was controlled by a thermostat in the hallway, downstairs; we turned it down at night and up in the morning. The oil man would deliver heating oil in his truck, at the time (early 50s) only one of our neighbours still used coal.

The older boys, aged twelve and up would, on icy days, grab onto the back bumper of the city bus and with their feet planted firmly on the icy street would be dragged a long city block at speeds of about 30 mph. If caught, the result was a lift home in a police car and an embarrassing three-way conversation.

None of those old houses had a driveway or garage. The bus stopped at the corner, a ten second walk from my house, still seemed long on a snowy winter's day!

There was a Catholic college about a 15 minute walk from our house, Loyola College. My father remembered in the early 50s how

[Acido]

Hey guys, Im not that old (allegedly!!) so I dont know what on earth Tundra the mungrel is talking about

[TundraWolf]

Tunds, radiators in the fifties? We didn't have glass windows in the fifties ! X-D

You must have been rich, Woody, we couldn't even afford walls, we could afford only a roof...we built it first and built/put up, the walls a few years later!

I remember when Christmas cards cost 2 cents to mail, by the early 60s the cost had jumped to 8 cents, to save money my mother immediately cut her Christmas card mailing list by half (perhaps we weren't as well off as we thought we were).

Saturday nights was the Jackie Gleason Show followed by Montreal Canadiens' hockey! I was too young to stay up till the end of the game so my mother would write the final score on a piece of paper and tape it to my door for when I woke up the next morning.

I remember Sunday night being "The Ed Sullivan Show" followed by "Bonanza!"

I can't remember the night, but our whole family weekly watched "The Tony Hancock Show," I still think Sid Jame

[Robus]

Sunday night for us was Disney followed by the weekly mystery/crime show. There were several that rotated: Colombo, McCloud, Macmillan and Wife. We were fond of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom with Marlin Perkins, the Rockford Files.