What's your "long ago" story?

Long ago we didn't own a car. My mother didn't drive and Daddy was overseas and then they were divorced. We walked everywhere. If it was REALLY hot Mom would walk us to town and we would browse in the stores to get cooled off.

There were no public restrooms in the stores. We went over to the courthouse. We didn't buy drinks. We drank out of public water fountains.

When I was 8 years old I was taking care of my two younger sisters while my mother slept after working all night. I would take both of them and walk to the grocery store while Mom slept. I cooked complete meals and I washed laundry and hung it on the line by standing on an overturned bucket.

Every Sunday Papaw came and got us and I ran wild with my cousin, aunt and uncle. I rode horses bareback, jumped out of the hayloft, climbed trees, played under bridges and a hundred other things mothers today would cringe about.

I was a telephone operator when there were places that needed two operators to place a call. One (me) would call an operator in the small town, who would then call anyone who had a phone close to the person being called. The phone owner would then run to the right house and bring the required person back with them. All calls were "person to person" meaning the phone company only charged when the actual person was successfully reached.

You mean windwings? My '95 F-150 has them.

Ok- how's this for irony?
My parents got their first TV when we were living in Japan. It was a huge floor console with a little round CRT.
The Japanese children were so totally facinated by this device that when it was on they would crowd around the door and windows to see it. Five or six deep. They'd never seen anything like it.
I used to watch Samuri serial shows and sumo.

We did that too! I distinctly remember cutting the carboard star wrapped in foil.

Yup... I came from a frugal family and we did the same thing. My grandpa and my dad would also wrap gifts with the funny pages.

We had one of those phones when I was very young in Wisconsin. Later after we moved to Ohio we had a rotary phone with a party line. If you held the button half way up you could hear the people talking but they couldn't hear you. It's the way I found out my best friend had been killed in a car accident. I didn't listen in much after that.

Nomad

wolf flower...me and my grandson still make a tinfoil star for our tree every year, and last year we made the red white and green paper chains........we even cut out cows and star shapes out of old tin foil type roasting pans to hang on the tree....i hope he remembers doing that with me when he gets older.....old ideas never die...i like the old simpler things...lol

samm

(Nancy's hubby) My roots are in the hills of south eastern Ohio by the Ohio river. I have vivid memories of my grandmother and all her children joining together and having a huge garden. Graanted this was in the fourties and the war was raging. Everyone would take turns weeding, etc. When harvest time came all the families would join in and pick together. Next was the canning. All the wives, Including my mother, would join grandma in the kitchen and have a marathon canning session. The house would smell of what ever was being canned at that particular time. The finished product would be placed on the dining room floor in five seperate groups. One for each person to take home. All of us kids would be out in the yard playing. This would go on for days..

__________________
Bob and Nancy Dickey
Laughing Stock Boer Goats
"Seriously Great Bloodlines"
and the meat goes on....
Near Seattle

I remember when all Phones were Black and so was most Cars.

When we would pick Corn the Rows the Wagon whet over would knock the Stalks Down,which were called the Down Rows which me and my Brother got to pick.

big rockpile

__________________
I love being married.Its so great to find that one person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.



If I need a Shelter
If I need a Friend
I go to the Rock!

My mother saved the paper from the shower she had when I was to be born. My drawers were lined with it growing up and when I was expecting our 2nd child she wrapped the gifts she gave in the paper, it was precious.

...and whatever happened to having the dimmer switch in the floorboard? I've always hated having it on the turn signal! Even though it's been years, I still try to dim with my left foot about half the time.

As for the side windows (what we called them), I liked that you could direct the airflow into the vehicle with them.

Digging a new hole every year and dragging the outhouse over it, then we would fill the old hole and grandma would plant purple iris in it. Folks always commented on the "beautiful stands of iris" along her back fence.

Bringing water to the pitcher pump to prime it so we could get more water...

We called them koozy windows. My first car had them, an '84 VW Rabbit. I loved them too. And as a smoker, I found them perfect for getting the smoke out of the car without as you say getting blown to bits. (I quit long ago)

My brother sister and I used to torment each other with whatever bug we did a screaming for. My brother couldn't stand for a daddy long legs to be close to him, so I always kept one spotted and ready for revenge. He knew I'd always do a loud scream for an old horny tobacco worm. And our little sister would cry if we put a June bug on her.

It wasn't all good memories... LOL!



:happy0035:

__________________
There are endless combinations of truth.

I remember:

driving cars without any power anything and the AC was rolling down the windows

riding bikes or using the pogo stick didn't require helmets, knee/elbow pads and yet we survived

when toys or objects didn't require all the warning labels

when people didn't need phones to their ears 24/7
I find it hard to believe that there are so many important people in the world that need constant contact.

when most people left their doors unlocked

how great we thought Atari was when we finally got one

how nice it was to talk on the phone without someone having call waiting

when you could call a business and a real person would answer and you didn't have to press any numbers but the phone number

How about toys made of metal and they didn't make any noises and we played with our entire childhood?

We used to use a hoe to make roads for our cars and trucks (blocks of wood and rocks).

No school sports for girls.
Hard soled shoes for babies - instruments of torture, if you ask me ( for both mom and baby).
Leisure suits (I wonder why those haven't cycled back into style?
Taking a bath only on Sat night - whether you needed it or not
Pincurls made with bobbie pins

It was nice without call waiting, but I also remember caling over and over and over, trying to get in touch with someone who liked to talk for hours

Riding on the top of the wheelwell in the truckbed to my grandmother's house, which took over an hour and hating to try combing out my hair afterwards. If it was braided, the top part still tangled horribly...

Party lines and black and white tv. Milking the family cow and churning butter. Having to walk to a paved road to catch the bus because the dirt roads were impassable...

I remember four guys in the neighborhood that sung in church,went to the tv station and we could see them on that old B&W tv.They were movie stars after that.

I remember one time as a kid watching Whitney the Hobo show.They showed cartoons and Whitney the Hobo went around joking with the kids on his set at the TV station.The kids were there because one had a birthday,and his friends could have the party on TV.

Like I said I was watching the show,and between cartoons old Whitney was making his usual rounds with the mike letting the kids talk.Well there was about four boys in one group laughing up a storm.

Old Whitney just had to make his way to the boys,shoved the mike at one of thems mouth.Then Asked what in the world was so funny?Between laughs the little boy spoke up and said "Leroy He Fatted" They had to shut the show down.Everybody was laughing so hard,well cept fer Old Whitney.

That was the funniest thing I ever witnessed.The show was soon taken off the air.Don't know if Whitney quit or what happened.

I found this picture of him,but not the set.

Back to the post.
I still remember the smell of my first mail order baseball glove after half a century.

Also,I could hardly wait for those "Fender Skirts"to arrive,that would fit my 1964 black ford Galaxy 500 and drive the girls wild from wanting to ride in my machine.

It is very hot and humid here, so we finally got a window AC unit. I used to be so hot in my bedroom that I would go out to the living room and sleep on the couch under the AC. If one of my siblings didn't beat me too it.

We didn't get push button phones around here until the '80's.
Everyone's exchange is 834- so you only tell people the last 4 digits.

Playing hide and seek after 9:00 pm with the other kids. Families were much larger so there were lots of them to play with.

Making flower chains during the long summer days to see how far we could make them.

Stereos that stacked the records to you didn't have to change them every time you played a whole record. So modern!!

We used to go to the drive in diner. Waitress would come out, take your order. Everyone stayed in the car. They'd bring out your food. Some places had a little window basket. You'd roll your window half way down and you had a place to put your burger or fries or milkshake. (Some places the waitresses were on roller skates, but our local place wasn't one of them.)

We'd go to the drive in movies. The kids were dressed in pajamas, so when we'd fall asleep,dad could carry us up to bed and we'd be already prepped. Speakers in your car windows... Saw many movies at Drive Ins.

__________________
"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow the fields of those who don't."-Thomas Jefferson