As somebody once said, you really know your a dinosaur when young attractive women start to call you "sir".
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As somebody once said, you really know your a dinosaur when young attractive women start to call you "sir".
At 51 years young my kids, nephews and niece have yet to call me a dinosaur, but they do tell me I am as old as dirt. :lol:
I remember my first phone number, JUNO38185.
I must be really old. I remember walking to the town well to get water. The pump (as in hand pump) was kept warm during the winter months. Everyone carried the household water in a wood bucket. That way it wouldn't freeze solid in the winter. It does get cold in North Dakota.
Everyone in town had an outhouse, no plumbing for anyone. Remember those North Dakota winters? Sometimes that trip to the outhouse was downright miserable. Thank goodness for Sears and Monkey Wards catalogues. Tipping over an outhouse was a favorite "trick" on Holloween.
We raised our own veggies and had a chicken yard, as did everyone else in town. Kids showed up in class with single shot .22 rifles and .410 shotguns as early as the first grade. Afterschool activities were hunting for the family table.
School attendance dropped during planting time, harvest time and during deer, duck and goose seasons.
TV had 3 channels and we got all of them sometimes. Folks who didn't have TV would visit the neighbors for the Ed Sullivan Show and Lawrence Welk. After TV there was usually coffee and some kind of food. During the TV programs, kids were sent off to play. The TV had a small round screen and huge cabinet. I had the measles and got to watch Eisenhower get elected. I remember Science Fiction Theater, The Shadow, Fibber McGee and Molly, and The Lone Ranger on radio.
Nobody locked their doors, every kid was watched over by every adult. There was no way we could get away with anything.
Kids clothes and shoes were bought with "growing room" in them. We didn't have our jeans with cuffs to be cool. When we grew into them we could roll down the cuff.
REE
In 9 days (February 9th), I will be observing my 61st Birthday (actually my 61st Anniversary of my Birth), and I will start living my 62nd year of existence on the Planet "Earth", located in the "Milky Way Galaxy"! In the whole scheme of things important, the events that happen on this small planet, seem so insignificant to the events of the Universe. The time and fortunes that are spent on war and hatred, could have been better spent for the advancement of humanity, and to better understand our place and purpose in life!
Where did the time go to, it just seems like yesterday I was a youngster, without a care in the world. Now here I am is my so-called "Golden Years", attempting to finding a way to fill my remaining days, with a purpose!
It is mind-boggling, times and events that I have live through, and some that I participated in....
I grew-up in a time when there was no electronic calculators, portable radios, internet, digital anything. I was just a child when my father fought in the "Korean War", after he was in"World War II' before I was born. I became aware of the fearing the unknown, living through the "Cold War", "McCarthyism" which destroyed many innocent citizens "Constitutional Right", "Cuba Missiles Crisis" trying to go to sleep not knowing if there would be a tomorrow. The Assassination of President Kennedy, Civil Rights Marches and the hatred of some against U.S. Citizens that were of a different color. The Assassination of Martin Luther King, the Assassination of Biddy Kennedy, President Nixon resigning from office over "Water Gate", Project Apollo and the 1st man on the Moon. The rescue of "Apollo 13. President Gerald Ford taking Office (never being elected, and his Attempted Assassination! The end of the "Cold War", and the beginning of "Terror Attacks", the Attemptd Assassination of President Regan! Desert Shield Storm, the attempted Assassination of President George H. W. Bush, September 11th, 2001, Iraqi Freedom, Afghanistan, Laban, Al Quida...the list is endless of the failures to better the future for those who will inherit what we leave them. Every generation, throughout time, believes the next generation is going to the Dogs!
Our planet is becoming more violent, radical groups are coming out of the wood work, to destroy everything that generations have fought and given their lives, to make this world better for humankind, so all can live in peace!
I just pray that humans will begin to start becoming humane toward each other, and begin the process of turn things around, learning from the mistakes of past generations. I hope that future generations do not suffer because of our generation's mistakes, and only be left with "Inheriting the Wind"! ~Parnelli
Al Campbell also felt that things had changed, when he wrote the article Changing Times in June of 2002. Al Campbell was 5-years my junior in age, but I always felt he was my Senior!
KB,
Not that we were wealthy. Far from it. We lived in a converted chicken coop. My Dad thought the TV was something that would help with knowing something of the world besides a very small town in North Dakota. Ours, humble as it was, was the place folks gathered to watch Ed and Lawrence.
REE
I don't mean to play one-upmanship here but I remember the telephone in my grandmother's house. It was a large wooden box that hung on the wall. The receiver was trumpet shaped and attached to cord that was not coiled. The mouthpiece was attached to the wooden box and could be tilted up or down for tall or short people. On the right side of the wooden box was a crank handle. You would put the receiver to your ear and crank the handle a time or two to get the operator's attention. When she answered (the operator was always a she) you would speak into the mouthpiece on the wooden box and say something like, "hi Thelma, I need to talk to Bill." Then she would ring Bill's number and connect you to him. BTW, my grandmother's phone # was only 3 digits.
When I was a kid we had a regular rotary phone but it was a party line, and all local Bellows Falls Vermont numbers were only 4 numbers.
And of the half dozen operators or so, one was my god mother.
I couldn't get away with much in that town :)
I was before plastic. Try to imagine your world without plastic. Anyone remember the smell of burnt bakelite?
My first job was in the Coast guard as a radio operator, we used CW not RT. CW is morse code RT is voice. Most distress traffic was in morse code because cw would punch thru all the static that voice sometimes could not.
I do not miss single pane windows, in winter you could freeze a glass of water on the window ledge inside of the house.
We had an outhouse about 150 feet from the back door. There was one cold water tap out in the taphouse and no bath or shower facilities. In the 1960 we actually got indoor plumbing. My mom cooked on a wood stove with a water tank on the side for hot water. That stove heated its corner of the house and that's all. We had huge eider down comforters on our beds that sometimes had frost on them in the morning. Us 3 kids bathed in a large cast iron tub that looked exactly like a cannibal stew pot. It's real purpose was for boiling up the slop for the hogs, but once a week all three of us would clamber in and get a bath.
For a fridge we had a dugout which was exactly that, a hole dug in the ground covered with logs and about 2 feet of sod. In winter we'd hitch the horse up and drag large blocks of ice down into the dugout. Covered with straw they would last well thru summer and into winter when we'd replace them with new ones. They would only lose about 1/2 their bulk per season. Most of the stuff we ate we grew or shot ourselves and preserved it during the long hot summers in that cold dugout. No need for air conditioning either every house had a veranda that circled the house. there was always shade somewhere. On hot nights the entire family slept outside on the lawn. No namby pamby garden either. Ours was 5 acres of hoe crops and 1 acre of raspberry and strawberries.
We didn't have a phone till the year I finally left home. We would borrow the neighbours in an emergency.
I fed the sheep, pigs, goat, cows and chickens before I went to school then again when I got home. Our family never did have a car, My Granddad had one but he lived a mile or so away. We had a tractor only. Mom said we got electricity in our house the day I was born.
My Grandad remembered there not being any radio, I remember when there was no TV.
I do remember Bennet buggies. lol
Ron I forgot about taking the 22's to school. I had a single shot cooey 22. My friend had the cooey with the tube magazine. I always wanted one. but I still shot more game than he did. I think because I had to be more careful placing my shots. We shot the 22 shorts because they were 12cents a box cheaper than the LRs . Our house wasn't a converted coop but the 2x4 lumber for it came from a Nearby Turkey farm that was being torn down so my dad traded for 10 boxes of apples and 5 boxes of peaches.
We went across the street on Sunday night to watch Ed Sullivan, my Mom always made snacks for everyone.
In the Queen Charlotte's my phone number was 12. You phoned the operator asked for the Queen Charlotte Islands exchange, when Agnes Mather came on the line you asked for 12. If you were not home Agnes would tell the person where you were. She always seemed to know.
She was telephone operator, postmaster, and storekeeper for the only store/bank in town.
How could you not vote for Eisenhower with a slogan like...... I like Ike. I remember being glued to the radio for the elections which took all night and most of the next day to count instead of the instant electronic counting of today.
Ps the radio I was glued to was a little red rocket Crystal set that I kept hidden under the covers so my mom wouldn't make me put it away.