I'm as old as dirt...LOL

Ha!  This time it wasn't our solar panels which didn't provide enough power - Escom was down, which meant I've been without internet for the past 2 days. Very frustrating!!!!

But, on to happier things...

I received this email from my oldest friend the other day, and as it is so delightful, I couldn't resist sharing it :)  (I have added some personal comments - they are in blue)

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. ! 'Mum 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.

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, travelled out of the country nor had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school. I (at the age of 6 walked to the station 2.7 kms away to catch a train) had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). 

We didn't have a television in our house when I was a child.  (Springbok Radio provided our nighttime entertainment - with programmes such as "The Creaking Door", "No Place to Hide" with Mark Saxon, "The Men from the Ministry", "The Pip Freedman Show",  "Consider your verdict" , and "Springbok Radio Top 20.  They were actually excellent, and listening to them one was encouraged to use your imagination to visualize the scenes, instead of today where one is viewing what the film producers think you should see.)  Television was only available here in 1976, (but I only saw, and rented, my first one when I was 20). It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem (it only broadcast on one channel for 37.5 hours / week then, with the second channel hitting the airwaves in 1981!   LOL) 

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house 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 and orange juice was. 

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.

Nobody had a gardener - the whole family climbed into the garden work together over the weekend. (I used to come home from school at the age of 8 and do the family's ironing.)

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?

I may be as old as dirt, but I'm not be as old
as these grinders though LOL

MEMORIES: 

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. (Y)
Ignition switches on the dashboard. (Y)
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. (Y)
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner. (Y)
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals. (Y)



Older Than Dirt Quiz : 

Count all the ones that you remember - not the ones you were told about. The ratings are at the bottom. 

1. Candy cigarettes (Y)
2. Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes 
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles (Y)
4. Party lines on the telephone (Y)
5. Newsreels before the movie (Y - and hated them because, in my opinion, they wasted too much movie time LOL)

6. 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]) (Y)
7. Peashooters (Y)
8. Howdy Doody 
9. 45 RPM records (Y - and I've still got some :) )
10. Hi-fi's (Y)
11. Metal ice trays with lever (Y)
12. Blue flashbulb (Y)
13. Cork popguns (Y)
14. Studebakers (Y)
15. Wash tub wringers (Y)

If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older 
If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 11-15 =You're older than dirt! 

My answers are in blue - I scored 13 LOL  I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life