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Wednesday, Oct. 01, 2003 - 10:45 a.m.
Older than 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 kitchen >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 some city folks 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. >My sister 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 7, 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. Pizzas were not delivered to our home, but milk and >bread were. We even had the Raleigh man bring kitchen wares if mom 'needed' >them. The doctor came to our house 4 weeks after my hernia operation to say >that I could now go outside and ride my sister's bike, but to be careful. I >rode it for 2 days straight. > >I never had a telephone in my room. The first phone I remember had a crank >and we didn't answer it if it had a single ring, or 2 short rings, or a >long and a short ring. We only answered if it had 2 long rings. I remember >the day when that crank wall phone was replaced by one with a dial. It >still was the only phone in the house, in the dining room, and it still 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. > >Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. 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. > >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? > >Last week I went to an auction and they held up 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 a lady beside me had no idea. She >thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. >I knew it as a bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to >"sprinkle" clothes because they didn't have steam irons or permanent press >clothes. > >Man, I am old.
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