I Am Older Than Dirt

My friend Joy Laschober sent me this and I thought it worth sharing. It goes along with some things that hit me hard this Christmas and I will share more soon.  In the mean time, I wanted to share this with you.

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. !

'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 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.  

• 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  19. (for me it was 7) 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, 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, six 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.

Older Than Dirt Quiz  :
Count  all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told  about
Ratings  at the bottom.

1. Candy  cigarettes

2. Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes

3. Home  milk delivery in glass bottles

4. Party lines  on  the telephone

5. Newsreels  before the movie  

6. 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])

7.  Peashooters  

8. Howdy Doody

9. 45 RPM records  

10. Hi-fi's

11. Metal ice trays with lever

12. Blue flashbulb

13. Cork  popguns

14. Studebakers

15.  Wash  tub wringers

If you  remembered 0-3 = You're still young

If you remembered 3-6 = You  are getting older

If you remembered 7-10  = Don't tell your  age,

If you remembered 11-15 =You're older than  dirt!  

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life. And I have come to realize this Christmas that they will make me better prepared for what the future holds.