An e-mail I got.

[Shadow]

This is and e-mail I got from my mom yesterday. (July 15, 2006, I put what she got as a rating in the poll) Ironic how it ties with the various threads with people talking about thier age. Thought some of you might like it. Have fun!

Lightning Bugs / Older 'n Dirt!!

"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 (OLive-6933)
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....
=====
"Senility Prayer"...God grant me...
The senility to forget the people I never liked
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do
And the eyesight to tell the difference."
Have a great week!!!!!!