Dateline Dayton – If you are near my age, here is helpful information I recently encountered that you may pass along to your grandchildren, as I just did…
We can start with the reminder that the first color television sets went on sale 58 years ago today for almost $1200.
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,” he said. “Where did you eat?”
It was a place called “at home,” I explained.
Mom cooked every day. 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. I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Here are 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, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never 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 & Roebuck.
Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. 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 16.
It was, of course, black and white. The station went off the air at midnight, after playing the National Anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at 6 a.m., usually with a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 before I tasted my first pizza. Then it was called “pizza pie.”
When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth. The cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It’s still the best pizza I ever had. I never had a telephone in my room.
The only phone in the house was in the living room. 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. Milk was.
All newspapers were delivered by boys. All boys delivered newspapers. It cost 7 cents a paper, and they got to keep 2 cents. They had to get up at 6 every morning.
On Saturdays, they had to collect the 42 cents from their customers. Their favorite customers were the ones who gave them 50 cents and told them to keep the change. Their 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. 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 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 several months ago), 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. (My daughter still has mine.)
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 on the telephone.
8 Newsreels before the movie.
9. P.F. Flyers.
10. Butch wax.
11. 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 three channels (if you were fortunate).
12. Peashooters.
13. Howdy Doody.
14. 45 RPM records.
15. S&H greenstamps.
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 are 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 are older than dirt.
I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Now pass this along, especially to your really old friends.
Mr. Hennessey may be contacted at pmhenn@sbcglobal.net
