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I got this from a friend

Bighit15Bighit155,000+ posts
This is dated, but great.

I got this from a friend

'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. '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 s****r practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of s****rr. 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................
"Don't sweat the small stuff." "I am responsible for the effort -- not the outcome. "
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RJMRJMHSBaseballWeb member since 2007
I remember the first McDonald's in town. The marketing pitch was "change back from your dollar." Two people could have a burger, fries and soda for under $1. Now it's change back from your twenty for two.

Finding a penny meant your friend and you could each have a mint julip candy. I remember when a neighbor got a color TV. We were invited over to to watch "The Wonderful World of Disney" on Sunday night. We were the first family on our block to have two cars. Remember when it was a big deal "The Wizard of OZ" would be on TV once a year in the fall? We collected baseball cards because it was fun, not for money. Don Mossi's (one of the ugliest men to ever play baseball) card ended up on the spokes of my bike as a noisemaker.

What was exciting? Getting a pack of baseball cards at the corner store (remember those?) and finding a Mantle, Mays or Koufax in the pack.

Someday are kids will be our age lamenting, "Remember when you had to drive the car? These kids just get in and program the coordinates!"
Last edited by RJM
KrakatoaKrakatoa1,000+ posts
I remember at Halloween we'd go to the Cider Mill which had a little store attached and we'd get what was called a "Grab Bag" for five cents. It was a paper lunch sack, basically, and inside you'd find all sorts of candies......it was a bigtime score if your bag had edible wax lips or a wax harmonica, or....joy of joys....Nickle Nips!!

I loved my grab bags, but I had to wash the car before I'd get my nickle.
trojan-skippertrojan-skipper1,000+ posts
Gas was 24 cents a gallon when I was a young lad. A great price because I could ride my bike while pulling the mower with a rope, fill up a glass gallon jug (A&W Rootbeer no less) with 24 cents of regular and get a penny back; I could buy 3 pieces of Double Bubble for that and off I'd go to mow a couple more lawns. Most paid 2 bucks, I did one huge one that I think I got 5 bucks for... I was in heaven.
KrakatoaKrakatoa1,000+ posts
For those of you who'd love to see your old favorite candies again (great gift!!), check this place out:

http://www.oldtimecandy.com/decade-all.htm

Here's what you get in their four-pounds "60's Collection" --

Candy list for a typical 4 lb. 60s assortment... 100 Grand Bar, Atomic Fire Balls, Bazooka Bubble Gum, BB Bats, Beemans gum, Big Hunk, Bit-O-Honey, Black Jack gum, Black Taffy, Boston Baked Beans, Bubble Gum Cigars, Candy Buttons, Candy Cigarettes, Candy Necklace, Caramel Squares, Carmel Creams, Charleston Chews, Charms, Cherry Mash, Chick-o-Sticks, Chiclets, Chuckles, Chunky, Dots, French Chew (Bonomo's Turkish Taffy replacement), Hot Dog Gum, Indian Brand Pumpkin Seeds, Jaw Breakers, Jelly Nougats, Jujubes, Jujyfruits, Junior Mints, Kits, Lemonheads, Long Boys, Necco Wafers, Nestle Crunch, Nik-L-Nips (wax syrup bottles), Now & Laters, Pay Day, Peanut Butter Bars, Peppermint stick, Planter's Peanut Bar, Red Hots, Root Beer Barrels, Saf-T-Pops, Sixlets, Sky Bar, Slap Stix, Smarties, Sour Fruit Balls, Sugar Baby, Sugar Daddy, Swedish Fish, Sweet & Sour Pops, Tootsie Pops, Tootsie Roll, Walnettos, Wax Lips, Whoppers, Zagnut.

Ahhhhh, the tastebuds are craving hard!!
Last edited by Krakatoa
CM Coach May1,000+ posts
We used to walk along the roadside and pick up soda bottles. We would get 2 cents a bottle and the country store would pay you on the spot for them. We would then take the money and buy penny candy and a pepsi.

We also mowed lawns. We would get five bucks for a normal sized yard. Most of the summer though was spent in the tobacco fields putting up the crop. We got paid 2 dollars an hour. We made 16.00 dollars a day. We paid Mrs Robertson a dollar a day for breakfast and lunch that she made for us. So we would end up with 90.00 for a weeks work. Now that was a pocket full of jack. Our money would go towards our school clothes for the coming year. We got to keep some of it for lunch money.

You started out as a hander. The hander would take the leaf off the table and hand it to the stringer. The stringer would use twine to tie it to the tobacco stick. The hangers would take the sticks full of leaf and hoist them in the barn. When you made it bigtime you got to prime tobacco. In other words you got to pick the tobacco from the stalk and throw it in the sled pulled by the tractor. No one drove the tractor but the big boss "Grand Pa." I still remember spending hours each afternoon pulling the sticky tobacco gum off my fingers. And it wasnt very long before you were in the bed getting ready for the next morning.
BlueDogBlueDog1,000+ posts
Drive-in movie theaters.....Hanging the sound boxes on the car's window....

Nobody you knew had a dog that was registered....

Catching fireflies after dark and putting 'em in a jar....

Seeing Ben Cartwright's blue chair for the first time watching "Bonanza" on a RCA color T.V....
And, the NBC peacock....

Friday night fights on television...

45 R.P.M. records
Last edited by BlueDog
Baseball BuzzBaseball Buzz100+ posts
Coach May, I read your post and was transported back in time. My dad was the preacher in the small town and everybody knew he didn't make any real money so one of the farmers in the community would always offer to let me work the summer putting in tobacco so I'd have money for new school clothes when September came. I actually liked it, even getting up at the crack of dawn. Only thing I didn't like was the cold, wet tobacco leaves in the morning. Sometimes the teenage boys would get to drive the tractor and bring the tobacco from the field to us women and girls who were putting it on the sticks - always a highlight for us girls to see one of the guys instead of one of the old men! Also, we always took a break mid-morning and mid-afternoon and somebody would go to the store for nabs or peanuts and pepsi - that's when I learned to pour the small bag of peanuts in the pepsi, what a great snack. I was always a hander and never got to wrap. The guys would have to come back to the barn and help us get it hoisted up on the racks at the end of the day. We never got paid until the markets opened and the farmer started taking tobacco to sell. My favorite part was stripping and sheeting the tobacco - all that golden leaf wrapped in big burlap blankets and piled on the truck. I can still smell it. And when we finally got paid we'd make the trip to Rocky Mount to go to Tarrytown Mall to buy our school clothes. Any money leftover always went to my parents - I don't remember objecting to that or even questioning it. It was just the way you did it.

Then I moved away, went to college, got married, had kids and had forgotten all about those summers. I remember coming back home and finding out just how much growing tobacco had changed - my dad said we used to treat the tobacco with such respect and now they treat it like they're mad at it.
Last edited by Baseball Buzz
KrakatoaKrakatoa1,000+ posts
Coach May, your tale reminded me of one summer when I was probably 11 or 12.....Camel Cigarettes had some special thing where if you sent in something like 20 empty packs, you'd get back a whole mess of fishing lures. I scoured the roadsides around my house, parking lots, anywhere I thought I could find empty Camel boxes....and after about six weeks I had the empty Camel packs I needed.......the fishing lure set arrived a few weeks later and I still have all of them today!
CoachB25CoachB25Honorary "Old TImer"
When I think back to my childhood, I think of many things posted in the original post. No, we didn't have anything. Yet, we had it all. I spent some time living in a shed that was 10 feet by 20. Really, 7 of us lived there. No electricity, no water, no (insert anything). How in the world did we make it? My Dad tried to buy an old rocky top that was a persimmon orchard. I had to pull roots all day as we tried to get the land ready to plant corn. Still, we had each other and we were a family. I remember the working men ate first, the mothers second and the kids were given an old cold tater and had to wait. Remember Little Jimmy Dickens wrote a song along those lines. I lived it. Remember what it was like when canning time came around? Remember the smells? Remember the food? Nothing like that now. Grandma would tell us how she didn't do well with this or that batch and yet, I've never eaten such good food since. Remember getting a cold glass of milk and some cornbread. Crumble up the cornbread and you were in heaven. We had a "cold celler." Not many of them around any more. We had a Allis Chalmer's Tractor that was a crank start. I remember my dad getting wacked once when he didn't turn the cylinder over. Coach May told about tobacco. Well, we'd pick tobacco worms and sneak them onto the bus. Then, the girls and naturally, city boys would jump out of their seats. I was a little naughty. I remember seeing kids with toys. To this day, I want to go buy myself some of those plastic cowboys and indians. Our toys were home made. I can make a hickory whistle as good as any whistle that has ever been made. I remember my Uncle Pete coming in and saying, "Boy, bet I can rock you." That meant he was going to hit me. If I didn't cry, he was taking me hunting or fishing. Every time I hear the Craig Morgan song Almost Home, I think of Uncle Pete when Morgan sings the line, "bobbers blowing in the wind." Well, I could go on and on. I've had a wonderful life.
coach2709coach270910,000+ posts
I used to have to chop wood for the wood burning stove so our house would have heat. I remember my dad and I packing up the chainsaw and axe in his old beat up truck and heading to places in the hills that I never thought a truck could ever get. Then he would saw down a tree and cut it into smaller parts. Then I took over with the axe and splitting it. We would load down the truck to where the body was almost on the ground. Somehow he always got back out of the hills with that load. Then we would stack the wood under the porch until we needed. The funny part of the story is central air and heat were very common at this time. Dad said he would never get one because he liked cutting down trees. He bought one of those electric wood cutters when I was a junior or senior in high school because he thought it was the coolest thing ever. Of course he never used it.

I started playing football and we didn't have a shower - only a bathtub. Mom would not let me take a bath because I was so dirty from games / practice. So dad built a shower in the basement on the other side of the stove. It got to where I never took a bath but always showered. Crazy part of the story is you had to go outside to get to the basement. So here I am in high school and getting ready for school by going outside with my clothes, going down the steps and into the basement to take a shower. Many days the steps were covered in snow and I never thought there was anything wrong with it at all.

I remember riding in the back of trucks standing up in the bed after little league practice when our coaches would take us home. Here we are on mountain roads of WV and myself and two others are standing up with our hands on top of the cab driving down the road. Never thought twice about it.

I can remember 8 tracks and players, the old style push button preset radio station buttons in cars and only having 3 channels on TV. Two things I will never forget - 1) dad and I were outside doing some kind of work and coming inside. We sat down to watch TV and next thing you know there were other channels. I don't know who was more excited - me or him. 2) Dad brought this box home one day and I had no idea what was in it. He opened it up and it was a VCR. The first movie we watched on it was Wildcats with Goldie Hawn about her coaching that high school football team.

Bighit - thank you very much for starting this thread and everyone else for telling their stories. It got me thinking about the "good old days" and everything my dad and I did. At the time I hated all that stuff but it really helped me become a man and a winner. My dad has been gone for over 10 years and it was great to just sit here and think about all that stuff again.

Sorry if I hijacked the thread.
OD Or Dad10+ posts
Back in Penna. we called fireflies lightning bugs and we developed bat speed by smacking them when they lit up (little boys are cruel sometimes). Our pick-up baseball games are some of my fondest memories. We could never field two teams, so we had our own rules for open/closed fields, automatic outs, balls/strikes, etc. The pitcher was often the first baseman, too. Of course we all used the same heavy wooden bat that had at least two nails in the handle and wrapped with black electrical tape; we left our glove in the field for the other guy to use. The baseballs were ripped at the seams and covered with black tape, too. Christmas was when one of the neighborhood kids that had a summer birthday, would get a new baseball - it sure traveled further! We'd hit at least a few foul balls into the thick, thorny berry patch. That new white ball was so much easier to find.

We all played Midget League (which was the country version of L.L). At the end of our season, we got to go see the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. Who remembers: Johnny Callison, Tony Taylor, Cookie Rojas, Bobby Wine, Richie Allen, Bill White, Clay Dalrymple (sp?), and Jim Bunting? You probably have their baseball cards in your shoebox up in the attic, because they were never in the packs we bought at Flynn's corner store in Westwood, PA.
Bighit15Bighit155,000+ posts
quote:
I attended M.C. Escher Elementary School and had to walk uphill to get to school AND to get back home again. It was weird...... Wink

I tell that same story to my kids.

I also remind them that growing up, I was the remote control. My children hear these stories as I am telling them how easy they have it now. In reality, the kids today have so many other different pressures that we did not have in a simpler time.

Thanks for the stories. Great reading.
CPLZCPLZ1,000+ posts
My Dad asked me at the beginning of the summer in 8th grade if I was going to play football in HS. I said yes, and he said "I've got a job for you then". I rode my bike 7 miles each way to town each day and spent a morning stocking the coolers and shelves in a night club. Hauling cases of liquor and beer up and down stairs. Then when I got home, I had to chop wood for an hour a day. I may not have been the strongest kid on the team, but I had the best callouses.
F fsmjunior100+ posts
I am fairly young (38) but realize I am one of the last to grow up in an almost entirely "self sufficient" home. On our farm we grew our own vegatables, potatoes, chickens (eggs), beef, pork. There were times my mom could really go grocery shopping for sugar and flour and nothing else.

About the time I was 10 I had my own trapline on our farm that made me a good amount of money every fall and spring. I did this through High School along with my farm chores.

Only 20 to 25 years ago, but so much HAS changed.
FungoFungoHighly Regarded and Beloved Old Timer
When I left West Virginia in 1963 this is the actual phone we used. Today it hangs on a door in my basement. Belleville, WVA was one of the last places in the US to have the hand crank phones and a private phone service. A lady that lived over the hill that answered ALL incoming calls and then would ring every phone a series of "long" and/or "short" rings. Each household would answer their "unique" ring. You had to listen to the phone ring all day and listen for your particular ring. I think we were 3 longs and 2 shorts. If we wanted to call anyone other than those people that lived up and down our "crick" from our house, we would have to call the lady ----- (hers was 1 long ring) and ask her to call a particular number. When Bell Telephone came in and installed their system the old crank phones became useless.

Last edited by Fungo
fillsfanfillsfan1,000+ posts
We all played Midget League (which was the country version of L.L). At the end of our season, we got to go see the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. Who remembers: Johnny Callison, Tony Taylor, Cookie Rojas, Bobby Wine, Richie Allen, Bill White, Clay Dalrymple (sp?), and Jim Bunting? You probably have their baseball cards in your shoebox up in the attic, because they were never in the packs we bought at Flynn's corner store in Westwood, PA.

OR Dad,
I spent many a Sunday afternoon listening and watching my 1960's Phillies lose game after game. This included some Sunday doubleheaders. Remember them.
Even got picked up by Tony Taylor (my favorite) while hitchhiking. Remember that. A definite no-no nowadays for our kids.
D deldad500+ posts
Frugal-characterized by or reflecting economy in the use of resources. (Webster's)

This is a term that our parents and grandparents lived by and that should reenter our vocabulary. My father, a man who always said, "everything has more than one use," realized that the TV would stay warm even when it was turned off. He then took an old fish aquarium put it on top of the TV and raised peepees (baby chicks). We wound up watching the chicks alot more than the TV.

Summer jobs. Baling hay and digging fence post holes. I still love the smell of fresh cut hay.
CM Coach May1,000+ posts
I grew up in Durham which was at the time a Mill and Tobacco city. The Mills produced cloth for clothes , bed sheets , socks etc. The Tobacco Industry was American Tobacco Co , Liggett Meyers , Lucky Strike etc. The Mills were Golden Belt and Burlington Industries and a couple more. The companies owned the houses surrounding the Mills and the Tobacco Wharehouses. They had their own grocery stores and stores. Credit was you lived in their houses and shopped at their stores. Everything from your milk delivered to your light bill , fire wood etc was provided by the company you worked for. When you got your check it was what was left over from all your deductions. My father showed me a pay stub from 1953 where he brought home a whopping 18.50 for the month after all his deductions. That is what the family lived on for the month.

Many of the Mill houses are still around and visible from Dukes campus. Many of the old tobacco wharehouses have been renovated and turned into upscale apartments around the downtown area. In fact right behind the Durham Bulls Athletic Park where the Rays Triple A team play is the old American Tobacco Complex. They have renovated it and there are shops , places to eat etc there. If you ever get the chance to go to the Durham Bulls Park (The ACC tourney will be held there this year) by all means go and check it out.
SA S. Abrams100+ posts
Raised in Gainesville,Fl as a kid. No AC..just an cider block house. Biggest thing to hit our block was when a neighbor got a window unit AC; we all hauled butt over there to just lay on the linoleum floor. Funny thing is I don't remember as a kid being hot or miserable. Played LL in wool uniforms and stirrups with no elastic in the Fla. spring and early summer. Collected bottles along the road for the deposit while dodging sandspurs in our bare feet. 25 cents got me a comic book, Coke and a couple baseball cards ( sorry, but I thought the gum sucked even then; still chewed it anyway).

S&H Greenstamps were something we kids begged, borrowed or stole to get...my first baseball glove came courtesy of those stamps. Best place for us kids to eat was a Royal Castle where a couple kids could eat hamburgers all night for $1. Made spending extra money selling cokes at Florida Field during the Fall...still have a Steve Spurrier chinstrap from his Heisman year.

One car family so we walked everywhere until Dad got home...then we walked some more. Remember playing Ironwood CC at 6 am on Sundays before church in my Hush Puppy golf shoes with plastic bags over my feet as we swept the dew.

Every spring my Dad would grab all the boys on the block and we'd head off to Spring Training (yes, all the parents let us skip school)for a week. He had played ball with alot of the coaches in the Army and in college so we got to go into the clubhouses before/after the games. Only bad thing was we couldn't brag too much back at school.

I know we never had alot of money but I don't remember going without anything we needed.
KrakatoaKrakatoa1,000+ posts
I thought I was being all original and clever, until BigHit shattered that dream cry.......... Wink

Coach May, I bet somewhere around that area, long-hidden in a tobacco tin or buried in a jar in someone's back yard, is a perfcet T-206 Honus Wagner 'tobacco card'........easily worth mid six figures........

When we'd visit my grandparents old farmouse and barn in Pennsylvania, my brother and I would sometimes spend hours looking in every nook and cranny of that place. Of course we never did find any old cards, but we did find out that Grandpa drank an awful lot of Iron City beer )and Schmidts, too, I believe, and had a massive pile of cans hidden in the brush out back of the barn Eek
Last edited by Krakatoa
OD Or Dad10+ posts
Speaking of old cards. At the arcade at Hershey Park, the walls were lined with machines that held 3 x 5 sized cards that were black and white. Some machines were all baseball players, while some machines had movie stars. Anyone familiar with them? I have never seen them anywhere else, but I have a box full of them. My luck, they probably have no value, much like the cards I cut off the old post cereal boxes...
TPMTPMHSBaseballweb Member since 2003
I got this from a friend yesterday too. Wink

Thanks Bighit, after I read it I thought about writing to you that you should post this, and then saw that you already did. GMTA! Big Grin

Good stories, great memories. I was amused at Beezer's reply about S&H green stamps. Not only do I remember them, but when I was first married that is how my husband and I bought a lot of "stuff" for our first place...LOL!
Last edited by TPM
B ballboy610+ posts
quote:
2

I remember growing up without air conditioning and sitting on the front porch every night listening to the Detroit Tigers with my dad and brothers. There were only 3 or 4 tv channels. I grew up in Leamington Ontario. Our thing was picking tomatoes and cucumbers. 10 cents a bushel. Hoeing weeds in the bean fields. Hard work but great memories. Thanks for taking me back.
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