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Old Age

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wendy
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Wendy

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This was sent to me the other day I thought I would share it here........it does make you think!!



Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite '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, Mum 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'd figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school. 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 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the natio nal anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 p.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone 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. My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.

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?
 
It's alll true Wendy. What an eye opener into the time before fast food. Thanks for posting.
 
Wendy just reading your post jogged my memory on party lines and our old phone number came into my head after 50 odd years "Ashfield 1597". Dek
 
..... but can't most of us remember when "going to see a movie" was "going to the pictures" or even before that "going to the flicks". I take it Wendy's post was received from - who knows when - an American source. What a pity we now say "movie star" and not "film star". Do you recall when we ate fish 'n chips and not pizza, kebab or hot dogs; we said "hello there" and not "hi", and you could go window shopping during the late evening or even at night without the need of metallic roller shutters to protect the articles on view from "smash 'n grabbers"? Things have certainly changed. db84124
 
My mother refused to have a phone in the house until after my father died in 1995 , it could only be bad news if the phone rang. I remember coming home from school in 1952 to find that the children hour was not on the tele (9" first one in the road") just dull music , mom said the King had died
 
now party lines, when there was a spell of dry weather the phone wouldn't work and you ahd to go outside and pour water over the earth spike and the only person you couldn't phone was your neighbour who was your party
 
Ours was Streetly 2989 I found that strange as we lived in Four Oaks.
 
Just a word to say I’m living and not amongst the dead
Though I’m getting more forgetful and mixed up in the head

I’ve got used to my arthritis, to my dentures I’m resigned

I can cope with my bi-focals –but- ye gods- I miss my mind



Sometimes I can’t remember when standing on the stairs

Oh am I going up for something or just came down from there ?

And before the fridge so often my mind is full of doubt

Now did I put some food away or come to take it out ?



If it’s not my turn to write dear I hope you won’t get sore

I think I might have written and don’t want to be a bore

But remember I do love you and wish that you lived near

But now its time to mail this and say goodbye my dear


I’m standing by the mailbox and my face it sure is red

Instead of posting this to you I’ve opened it instead




This was posted some time ago by I dont know who But hope you all like it.
 
Off thread a bit hear but has anyone ever noticed the" Streetley" sign post on the Lichfield Rd. By Canwell Caravans the spelling is wrong , it,s been up there for 20 years to my knowledge. Dek
 
Let's be honest, though, didn't we all take the mickey out of our parents' generation? My old man used to moan on about not having a wireless, let alone a TV; only one car where he lived and that was the doctor's; couldn't afford even fish and chips; wore hand-me-downs; walked God-alone-knows-how-many miles to school in falling snow; got a ha-penny a week pocket-money, etc., etc. We used to laugh at him as much as kids today laugh at me (maybe not quite so loudly, 'cos when I was a kid it was still OK for your dad to whack you one..)

This is beginning to sound like that Monty Python sketch!

Kids today - don't know they're born!!

Big Gee
 
i used to live with my cousin who was the same age as me on school days we had to go to bed at 7-30 when we were 10-11 so we used to listen to our Crystal sets under the bed clothes until we got caught and had them took off us.Dek
 
Yeah Wendy good one. As mentioned by Big G though I think 'fish and chips'...'faggots and peas' might be considered fast food. Can't say I liked Faggots or the mushy peas but now miss a newspaper full of nice fish and chips. We only had snail mail and could not trust our pigeons to find their way home...let alone carry a message. They seemed to prefer to sit on the roof until it was time for supper. Come to think of it, we only had 'The Archers" and 'Dick Barton' and 'Paul Temple on the radio (wireless set). TV is a big time waster though don't you think. No one had a car and at one time the ability to be able to drive one placed a person in a category above ordinary folk.
 
Rupert,

with regard to cars...my old man had a company van (that rhymes...) in 1953 - he was a service engineer for Efco Ltd. It was just an ordinary Ford Thames van, but with one exception the first vehicle in about 6 houses in each direction of ours in The Broadway, Perry Barr. Within days we had neighbours begging lifts to here, there and everywhere. My dad stood it for a while, and then he had to tell people that because it was a company-owned vehicle passengers weren't insured. Not strictly true, but he was fed up with being an unpaid taxi-service. The only other car nearby was owned by William Sims of W H Sims Greengrocers on Witton Road, and no-one dared ask HIM for a lift...

Big Gee
 
Our only bit of up to date kit was a wireless, I was going to type radio but my dad wouldn't have it called radio. No phone or car, although my aunt did have a car which sat in a rented garage, a good walk from the house, throughout the war and came out at week-ends after the war. Dad bought a motor bike in the early '30's and so the story goes sold it when my mom fell off , managed to cling on with her legs and was dragged along until a motorist flagged dad down.
No bedside cupboard with a lamp on top, so as my passion has always been reading I used to open my bedroom door wide and hang out of bed to catch the light from the landing.
Am I glad my children had so much more, I think I am. They know the value of family and love and had very happy childhoods, they are kind and thoughtful and there seems no need to wish away what gave us pleasure to give to them.
 
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hi all
does anyone else think we are slowly losing our cultral identity how many of us oldies like me still walk on our left as we drive and are often pushed out of the way, or when standing in line are pushed in front of, I was bibbed at yesterday because I stopped at a zebra crossing?? and everyone including me now is saying Hi instead of hello, or Guys instead of people. I somehow find it sad.
paul
 
A great thread,all the posters mirror my childhood. No telephone or car but I remember we had a washing machine and TV in the mid 50's. No fridge or freezer but a New World gas cooker and a Burco boiler for the nappies.We lived in the kitchen, the only room that had a fire burning. You froze in winter and boiled in the summer. My dad was keen on the wireless and it rubbed of on me. Cannot live without my radio. I remember I built a crystal radio inside a fountain pen body as they did in prisoner of war camps. It must be correct because the plans were in the Boys Own Paper and it said so.Every dad had boxes of bits,nails, screws whatsits and thingys. With a bit of imagination these supplied your playthings not like a £200 games console today.
My gran kids think I am telling porkies when I take them down memory lane. They cannot imagine a world without instant communication ( I hate phones,mobile or otherwise) a car at their beck and call and a fridge full of food they can raid at their leisure.
But when they grow up they will be more controlled than we were. Scrumping apples will get you a criminal record today. I would prefer the thick ear you got off the copper or sore bum off your dad.CCtv everywhere but it does not stop crime ,just records it so you can watch it later on Sky TV. Would I want to be young today ? To be honest no.
 
Still grinning to myself Wendy at the truth of it all. I remember Mum looking at me severely when she found a few peas under my plate and demanding, 'What's this'. My reply didn't help matters at all. 'Granny always complains about peas getting under her plate, and I have the same problem Mum.' Kind regards, David.
 
I showed someone a picture of myself the other day. It was taken at my infants school for a pageant or something, and myself and others were dressed as red indians with headdress, bow & arrow etc The youngish person ( teacher) concerned was, I think, quite shocked.Apparently this today would be on the same level as doing a black & white minstrel show, and definitely verbotten.
mike
 
Fast food was : a bread and dripping piece! Unfortunately it took a few hours to roast the pork first!
icon7.gif
 
Our first Phone number back in the fifty's waxlow 3565, we had first telly in street 9" screen with a big magnifier in front.
When commercial television came out we had a box on top with a knob on to turn to channel 9 atv. i remember Roy Rogers and Trigger.
 
One of my nieces once asked me what it was like in the olden day's when i was alive,a slip of the tongue admittedly,but we didn't have tv till i was seven,and the last programme was the epilogue,we didn't have a phone until the seventys,but i remember the number of the local call box,and they always had letters first,i think they corresponded to your nearest telephone
exchange,so if it was still like that i guess it would be India 2913, lol
 
Have you noticed that whipersnappers ideas of olden days seem like yesterday to you.. Have you noticed that some folks ideas of old buses still seem modern and if you got on one at the corner you possibly would not think anything about it. Do you still regard the double deck tramcar of yore as a perfectly viable alternate form of transport and not something from Victorian times.
If all or most of the above rings a bell then you are heading towards 80. Of course I don't notice any of these things...I'm just off to the casino.....not.

I suppose that if replicators and transporters are possible...you know Earl Grey Hot...and do come into being then we might be from olden days...don't hold your breath.

I don't know about you guys but I seem to be experiencing a foreshortening of time since being on here...Trafalgar and Custers last stand do not seem to be long ago at all. Anyone else notice this phenomina?
 
Our first phone number was Woodgate (Woo) 3686 - funny how we can remember these numbers but not more recent ones.
Sheri
 
Rupert said:
I don't know about you guys but I seem to be experiencing a foreshortening of time since being on here...Trafalgar and Custers last stand do not seem to be long ago at all. Anyone else notice this phenomina?
Click to expand...

I was asked by some young chaps if I would join their pub quiz team. When I asked why me they said they were not very good on History questions and reckoned I had been alive long enough to have seen most of it. That was twenty years ago when I was forty. I am finding things that I purchased not that long ago ( to me that is ) are hard to source things like memory media.Some one was shocked at the size of a smart media card from my Fuji fp6800Z ( cost almost a grand about 10yrs ago)
It is still a great camera. One wonders what the young chap would have thought if I had shown him a roll of 120 film ?
Is not this fore shortening of time something to do with the Theory of Relativity. Some of us must be travelling at the speed of light I reckon.
 
Arkrite
Imagine what he would have thought if you had shown him a plate camera. When i was young i remember press photographers still used them (Graflex was it ?)
Mike
 
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