Slow Food

Got this one in the mail from my uncle Bob!

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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 Home,'' I explained. !

'Mom 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.

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, 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. 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 12. It was, of course, black and white, and 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 about 6 a..m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, "Today in Agriculture" featuring local people.

I was 21 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.

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, 7 days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 6AM every morning.

On Saturday, I had to collect the 49 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. 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?

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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 Colabottle. 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 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 3 channels... [if you were fortunate])

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 wringer


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 some of the best parts of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!!

Especially to all your really OLD friends

I thought for a minute there that we must have lived in the same house. We definately were raised in the same generation where folks still believed in quality, honesty, integrity and respect. Most of thesen are pretty much gone now days. I'm with you on this one, these are some of my greatest memories too and I sure do miss those days. Thanks for the memories!

Yep, that's like looking in my rear view mirror. I also burnt my self on my first taste of pizza pie. Dang cheese stuck to the roof of my mouth and I had to dig it out with my finger. The skin finally grew back.

I remember every thing on that list except the pant leg clips. Our milk was delivered on Saturday nights so the milk man could watch the fights with us.

Great post, thanks to you and Uncle Bob.

If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!
I'm at 17 ......

Pizza, I don't remember where it was but I do know I went to Shakey's and Shotgun Sam's in Dallas a lot back then.

Oh, what a great way to start the day. I hit 25 out of 25. I just turned 60 and I keep getting reminded every day about "the old days". I've quit going to antique stores because I keep seeing the toys I played with as a kid for sale as "antiques". That's pretty depressing. If I had held onto some of my old toys, baseball cards, and BB guns from back then, I'd probably have more retirement funds than I have in my IRA.

only 3


I'm still young

older than dirt here, I remember all 25 ...

Older than dirt, but I grew up on my grandparents farm.

You know your old when your kids toys are antiques and reall old when the grandkids toys make the list....... :>)

Dang. I guess I AM old. I remember my senior year in high school I was sitting in a McDonalds for my first time. The golden arches had a sign under it that said, 'over 1 million sold'. That was long ago.

I remember 15 very distinctly, and a few others that I'm not sure if I actually remember them or was exposed to them after their time had passed, but folks still used them. I'm between "don't tell your age" and "early stages of Alzheimer's" I guess.

For instance, in High School record shops still sold 45's, but by senior year a few of my friends already had CD players in their cars, but were still playing 45's and 33's at home, along with cassette tapes and 8-tracks, even a few 78's were still around.

23 years old i got 5

I'm in the same boat!!!

I had a Muntz (?) 4 track player in my '69 Road Runner mounted on the floor hump. I think that car had vent windows too.

That RC bottle with the sprinkler cap, did not know it was for ironing... that's what starch was for; We used the bottle to sprinkle the bed sheets a few minutes before bed, allowing the fans to blow on them, so they wouldn't be 100 degrees like everything else in the house.

24 of 25. My pants just got caught in the chain now and them. It would leave an oily place on the lower part of the leg. Really po'd Mom. I remember a tamale guy on a horse pulled wagon selling tamales. At night he had a lantern on the wagon. Same with the junk man. Black guys would walk down the street with a basket of tomatoes balanced on his head selling them. He would hollar, "Get your fresh tomatoes'. Truck farmers would drive down the street real slow with the back full of produce. People would come to your door selling fresh ladies peas carried in a pillow case. Night traffic road construction used smudge pots to warn drivers. Busses were electrical and connected to over head electrc lines. Our church met on Sundays in Graceland til Elvis moved in. We recited the Pledge of Allegiance, said the Lords Prayer, and then began our classes in school each day. Interesting times.

I don't feel older than dirt but I scored well into it! Those things transport us old guys back a few years don't they

I remember all of those things being done but not all for us. I'm 72 and lived on a 160 acre farm. It was 20 miles to Muleshoe and 15 to Farwell. Got mail and shopped in Muleshoe but went to school in Farwell.

These from my rear view mirror:

Milk came from the cow.

Had a big garden and vegetables in the winter came from jars that were canned. Had some fruit trees and those were also canned.

Pork and beef came from our butchering.

Not sure what year we got electricity. TV came when I was about 12 yoa. We had a really high antenna and got 2 or 3 channels from Lubbock. Before that we all sat around and listened to the radio at night.

We didn't start out with indoor plumbing but had an out house.

Water came from the windmill. When electricity came to rural areas, thanks to Senator LBJ, we pumped water into the house but didn't get rid of the windmill. Blizzards or high winds could take out a power line. The pump was wrapped in toe sacks or old blankets to keep it from freezing.

Heat in the winter was butane. No fire places due to no trees.

When harvest time came in the Fall we skipped school. It was expected.

School buses sometimes got stuck in mud. When that happened, an older boy walked to the nearest farm house for a tractor and chains. Older boys got out and pushed to help the tractor.

Not everybody who played football had cleats and every boy played football. Some had tennis shoes, now called sneakers. Others had work boots and a couple of guys had cowboy boots. Local merchants took up a collection to provide cleats for the kids whose parents couldn't afford them. This shamed their parents.

Nearest Doctor was in Clovis New Mexico. His last name was Dabbs and was called Doc Dabbs. Unless something was serious everybody just "toughed it out".

Farwell was the first racially integrated school in Texas. The black school burned down and there was no $ to rebuild. There were no problems. The boys were integrated onto the football team but had to be taught that it was OK to hit a white boy.

Everybody went to Church on Sunday.

Hunting was jack rabbits and at somewhere around 4 or 5 a boy could head out the door with a single shot 22. 22 shorts were 20 cents per box and we didn't want to waste them. Don't remember when I shot my first long or long rifle "shell". A used single shot 22 was about $5.00. A used octagon barrel pump 22 was about $25.00. I recall having a couple of them and wish I still had them.

Got a new straw hat every Spring and it was worn out by Fall.

Money was hard to come by but we certainly never felt poor. There were no credit cards or encoded checks.

If a man got caught telling a lie, the word got around. If you insulted a man you could expect a poke in the nose. A man who wouldn't fight when insulted lost respect. A neighbor had been accused by a woman of being the father of her unborn child. When he denied it and refused to marry her he got sent to Huntsville for 18 months. She later recanted and he never forgot who his friends were.

If a man died, the Wife and Kids went to live with relatives. If she didn't have any, she had to find a new husband in a hurry. Divorces were unusual and a divorced woman was called a "grass widow".

Dogs were expected to live under the house, not in it. During really nasty weather, they got brought in and put down in the cellar. I expect the cats must have figured out how to survive but don't recall a cat being pampered. Both were fed table scraps but the cats got excess milk from the cow.

There's probably more and I haven't thought of this stuff in years.. How about from others who were raised rural?

GREAT POST!!!

I grew up in a small town between Houston and San Antonio. We lived far enough away from school that we could ride the bus, but on days I had baseball practice after school, I would walk home about 3 miles. Of course, by then my dad and brother and sisters had already eaten supper (Mom was gone by then) so I had to pull the plate out of the fridge and heat up the leftovers on the stove (and now my kids complain that the microwave is too slow.):)
One of the great jobs to have during the summer was hauling hay. A group of about 6 of us would go out to the field, and throw bales of hay that seemed to weigh as much as we did onto a flatbed truck and trailer, and then up into the hayloft for storage. All for about 2 or 3 cents a bale.
When I was about 10, my mom hit a deer with her car on the way home from work one evening, and he bounced onto the roof of the station wagon, slid to the back, and ended up hanging off the luggage rack on the back of the car by his antlers. She was almost home, so she drove into the driveway with the horn blaring. My dad ran out into the driveway and as soon as he figured out that Mom was OK, he looked at me and said, "Go get my knife". We strung the deer up in the oak tree in the back yard and Dad dressed him out right there.
When I was 6 and my brother was 8, we used to go to my grandparent's farm and scooped up tote sacks full of dried cow and sheep manure off the floor of the barn. We would bag it up in paper bags from the grocery store and haul it around the neighborhood in our old red wagon and sell it to the neighbor ladies for fertilizer. I figured out later that we were entre-manures.
We were watching TV one night and a mouse climbed in through the hole in the floor that the antenna wire ran through. My dad picked up my trusty old Red Ryder BB Gun and shot the mouse right there. Mom freaked out, but my brother and I thought it was the best shooting we'd ever seen.