I double dog dare you(off Topic)

[Fred_M]

Only in the winter Mikey. That was the good time of the year. In the summer we had to endure the snake bites and being chased by the bears and wolves. And the ticks too, in the summer they would suck so much blood out that you had to eat rusty railroad spikes to replace the iron. Such was sleeping in the weeds. One night we got home late and accidently slept in mashed down nettles. That was the day we lost Grandpa. Last we seen of him he was wollering in the mud with some gators singing a Wilson Pickett song. Some guys in white suits came and hawled him off. I didn't know gators could sing before that. I want you you you, I want you you you... Fred

 

[fifer]

Anyway I love it. It all made since back then

I'm now scared as it still makes sense!!!!

Mike

:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :sleeping: :sleeping: ops: ops: :thumb: :thumb: :curse: :curse:

 

[DougF]

Most of you are pretty young from those memories. When I was young our family night consisted of sitting around the radio after Dad closed the (corner grocery) store, open seven days a week, and drinking hot chocolate while we listened to Bing Crosby.

The phone number was four digits, ours was 7197.

My grandmother, in northern Michigan, had a real neat phone system. You picked up the phone and, if no one was on the line, the operator would ask you what number you wanted and then connect you or tell you that the line was busy.

My grandmother also cooked with wood from the pile in the back yard (It almost always had neat "Daddy Long Leg" spiders on it) and put up a sign in the window telling the iceman how much she needed for the Icebox. We got eggs from the coup in the back yard and occasionally had fresh chicken. Keep in mind that she lived in what is now a very expensive resort community. If I owned what was the family area up there I could sell it and retire. Shays own railroad ran through the gully behind the house that my Dad was raised in.

We used to get mail delivered twice a day. If a letter was mailed in town in the morning it would be delivered that afternoon. My grandmother had to go downtown to the post office to get her mail.

Our vacations consisted of trips to my grandmothers. Dad would close the store at 9 P.M. on Saturday and we would get some sleep and leave for the north at about 2 A.M. After a six and a half hour drive, no freeways in those days, we would arrive. Monday afternoon we would make the trip back to southern Michigan. This would only happen on summer holiday weekends when the holiday fell on Monday. Only Labor Day was a sure trip each year as the others could fall in the middle of the week. Memorial Day and the Fourth of July weren't always on a Monday back then. These trips were made with Mom, Dad, my other Grandma, and us four kids. No big vans for us. We didn't even have a station wagon. Seems people have to have a SUV to drive across town nowadays.

I remember when they came out with "Homoginized" milk and my father had to stock both it and regular, which had the cream on top. When you bought margerine it had a capsule inside that you had to break and mix in the color because the dairy industry objected to it looking to much like butter if the color was added by the manufacturer.

So much for the memories. Things sure have changed. I wonder what my grandmother would think of todays world. She was fascinated with what was happening up to her death. She was born the year the electric light was invented and watched men walk on the moon.

Hope I haven't been to wordy here, you guys just tripped some old memories.

Doug

 

[Pitchwife]

Sounds like all you folks had it pretty easy. When I was growing up we didn't go to the corner store for bread and milk and eggs. We went out to the barn to milk the cows, the henhouse to collect the eggs and the bread was what mom made.
The first three years of school I went to a one room schoolhouse where one teacher taught all eight grades. There were only 8 kids in school and two of them were in the same grade so each year one grade was skipped. The fourth year we were consolidated to a BIG school, two rooms, two teachers and 32 students.
Our nearest neighbors were two miles away so I learned early on to be my own playmate. Jigsaw puzzles were the hot entertainment, even if they were ones we had put together a dozen or more times before. We not only didn't have TV until I was about 5, we didn't have radio either. When we finally did get a TV (and we were very progressive, we had the first one in the area) we had to put up a 50' tower to get 3 stations from the next state. I remember staring for hours at a test pattern, waiting for something to come on and not wanting to miss it. And like DougF out phone number was 4 digits long.
Mail was delivered once a day and we had to drive 2 miles to get it and the special days were when we got a package from "The Wish Book".
McDonalds weren't even heard of and the real treat was when we drove 30 miles to the nearest town to do any "real" shopping and went to the Tastee-Freeze.
Ah yes, those were the days.

 

[Woodie]

You know, there is an entire generation now, that have never heard a telephone ring.

A proper one, with a bell in it. **DING_A_LING ........... DING_A_LING.........."

And the first time you saw Barbara Eden's jeannie outfit in a colour episode and went..... WOW... is that what colour it is!!

 

[fifer]

Based on this thread , I thought you guys might like to hear this.
My partner has been telling me he had a slot car set in his garage he would give me if he ever found it (this started about 4 years ago) well last week he found it and today he brought it to me .It is a Tomy (aruora) AFX set with about 48' of track pack 2 controlers lap counter and 2 magna-traction Indy cars . I set it up tonight and cleaned the track with a LL track cleaner and lubed the cars and off she went . I had forgoten what a challange that could be and how much fun , the smell of the ozone from the cars and controlers , the sound and the speed. I spent mega bucks on slot cars as a kid back in the 60's. At one time I had every issue of Car Model Magazine.
After checking Ebay , Oh to have a mint Cox 1/24 Chapparal 2E $$$$$$$$
Oh Well as we have all said , Those were the days.
And they talk about todays video games being interactive??? I got hit by many a flying slotcar.
Mike

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

 

[Woodie]

Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable.

Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah?

Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah.

Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine?

MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.

GC: A cup a' COLD tea.

EI: Without milk or sugar.

TG: OR tea!

MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.

EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.

GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.

TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness."

EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.

GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!

MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.

EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.

GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!

TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

MP: Cardboard box?

TG: Aye.

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people of today how good they've got it... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

--------------- Courtesy Monty Python.

 

[rcwatkins]

I'm different.
I don't remember the last time I wrote a letter
It used to be that people in my town took a 20 mile journey only 4 times a year. Espically since I go at least once a week.
I know now that the most popular person in school is NOT me


What am I SAYING here?!?!?
If you wanna see excellence on morality (for the most part) come to the-gauge. If you wanna see life, go to Atlas.
Hey, my phone has a bell, a logo that is!

 

[Fred_M]

For Woodie, What, you 'ad a dad? Ours ran away when we we born and joined the leagon 'e did. Volenteered the fist day to lead a one man frountal assult 'e did. Just to get away from us, what. Many a day I wish I had a lump of cold poison to ease the pain on the 12 inch round open sore on me bum.

 

[Belmarvalley]

I grew up in the generation Chris initially posted for. Thanks for the walk down memory lane, because I just hit one of those "milestone" birthdays and I had almost forgotten what I grew up with as a kid. Wow, the world has changed a lot since then.

Just to add something, I also remember when cans were made of tin. I can’t imagine playing “Kick the Can” these days with an Aluminum can. It would get crushed early in the first round.

 

[sumpter250]

I remember the two letter phone exchange, ours was AM4 (Amityville...draw your own conclusions, but it was before there was a horror).
I've said before....the reason I can do reasonable scenery is because I saw the prototype being built.
It was nice when fire was invented

 

[Tyson Rayles]

Pete you had fire when you were a kid??????? Boy you rich people like to rub it in!

 

[N Gauger]

I remember the two letter phone exchange, ours was AM4 (Amityville...draw your own conclusions, but it was before there was a horror).
I've said before....the reason I can do reasonable scenery is because I saw the prototype being built.
It was nice when fire was invented

ROFL Pete!! You trying to tell us - You're "older than dirt" again???

 

[Goattee]

In 1950 or so our home phone number was 946-6686. My Dad’s radiator shop number was 948-7585. Our house address was 1214 Dempster and Dad’s shop was at 474 E. Trigg Ave. Now that being said how can I remember details like that 60 years later when I can’t remember any of my kids phone numbers or addresses?

Up until the mid to late fifties the phones at all my uncles and aunts who lived in north west Tennessee had crank phones with the huge wooden box (I have one on the wall now). To use it you cranked the handle and waited for the operator to answer, then said “Hello Central would you connect me with 3223, Thank You”. I the person was on your line and you knew their ring you would turn the crank that many times.

 

[sumpter250]

Pete you had fire when you were a kid??????? Boy you rich people like to rub it in!

Tyson......when you're hot, you're hot!

You trying to tell us - You're "older than dirt" again???

Technically......there's new dirt being made constantly, so we're all "older than dirt"......in my case, the dirt was there before me.......it just hadn't been made into scenery yet!

 

[spitfire]

Is this the one you meant Chris?

For all of you who remember back in the day!!

People over 35 should be dead.

Here's why ............

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or even maybe the early 70's probably shouldn't have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, ... and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

(Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)

As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle.

Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.

After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!!

Unthinkable!

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.

We had friends!

We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt.

We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

They were accidents.

No one was to blame but us.

Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen,we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.

Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade.

Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own.

Consequences were expected.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of.

They actually sided with the law.

Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever.

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

And you're one of them!

Congratulations!

Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers lives, for our own good !!!!!

People under 30 are WIMPS!

 

[spitfire]

Also, on the topic of phone numbers and as a mental excercise, I tried to remember all the old Toronto exchanges. Ours was Belmont, so our number was BE1-2300. You could tell what part of the city a person was in by their phone no. in those days. Downtown businesses were all EMpire or UNiversity. There was also RUssel, WAlnut, ROgers, LEnnox, OXford, HUdson and CHerry. I'm sure there are others I've forgetten!!

If you're modelling the 50s, and you have phone no's anywhere such as signs, billboards, taxi's, windows and awnings, remember that they used to begin with 2 letters.

Val

 

[TR-Flyer]

A lot of these things are still true, in a way:

Eeny Meeny is still used to make many corporate decisions.

Money issues are still "handled" by monopolies.

It's unbelievable that sychronized swimming IS an olympic sport.

There's STILL nobody prettier than Mom, doesn't matter whether it's my wife or my mother.

Ice Cream is DEFINITELY a food group. In fact, it may be the prefect food. (I'm still involved in researching this)