If you are from an average working family and grew up in the 30s, 40s and 50s, you will remember some of these.
Run towels through the wringer.
Sip Coca-Cola from the green bottle right out of the ice-filled box in front of the filling station.
Take shoes to the repair shop.
Trim grass with manual shears.
Defrost the refrigerator’s freezer compartment.
Drink from a woodland stream.
Walk to the corner store.
Use an outhouse.
“Patch” sheets.
Pile in the car for a Saturday night movie at the drive-in.
Press an ear to the console radio to listen to Fibber Magee and Mollie.
Make aprons out of flour sacks.
Open a beer can with a church key.
Get a really great surprise out of the Cracker Jack box.
Send off for a secret decoder ring.
Know all the words to all the songs on “Your Hit Parade.”
Wear triple roll socks.
Attach playing cards to bike wheels so they flap against the spokes and make an engine sound.
Hula-hoop.
Prime the pump.
Loose a skate key.
Pluck a chicken.
Step up on the running board.
Hold your nose when administered castor oil.
Win a goldfish at the county fair.
What do YOU hardly do anymore?
© Copyright 2007 Suzzwords
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Thanks for the memory lane trip. I remember a few of those things. Some relatives with farms still had outhouses when I was a kid. A few things I don't or can't do anymore:
ReplyDelete-Ask the gas station attendant to "fill 'er up" (A gas station attendant? What's that??)
-Bake a pie. Grandma made the best, from scratch. It's way too much work for me.
-Keep change around to pay the paper boy when he came to collect. (oh, and there were some cute ones back when I was a teen!)
-Jump up to answer the phone during dinner. (That's what voice mail is for.)
-Take film in for developing and wait a week to see how the pics turned out.
-Lick a stamp.
It'll be fun to read what other folks reminisce about...
Watch news reels at the picture show.
ReplyDeleteBlow on a dandelion pod..he loves me, he loves me not.
Collect dimes for the March Of Dimes when the money went to stop polio.
Go barefoot all summer
Listen to "the Hit Parade" on the radio.
Learn the "Palmer Method" of penmanship
Save the tinfoil from chewing gum for the "War Effort"
Lick Green Stamps for free stuff
and on and on..
I remember about 1/3 of that list Susan.
ReplyDeleteI love what your other commenters have added....here's a few more:
~Play tag and Red Rover at a park nearby...late into the evening.
~Turn the TV channels by hand.
~Use a manual carriage return on a typewriter.....hell, using a typewriter.
~Trading Cards
~Playing hopscotch
And so many more.....
~
Hi Suzz, all of the above and lots more ... spme of them very personal!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletesome of them also.
ReplyDeleteSome more....wearing our cardigan sweaters buttoned up the back, and our black and white oxfords with the laces going down instead of up.
ReplyDeleteI was born in the 60's but while the folks worked I stayed at the grand parents in the UK.
ReplyDeleteGot used to an outside toilet, wooden seat in the cold and rough toilet paper. They had a wringer and one thing I did there that I've not done since is take a bath in an aluminium (or aluminum) bath tub in the kitchen filled with water heated on the stove.
Although my youth took place from the late '70s, through the '80s and into the early '90s, there are eight things on your list that I can still relate to. The results of growing up in a very rural community and then moving to Russia as an adult - which after buying an old summer cottage with no running water gave me an insight into what Michael mentions above - they nonetheless ring true. I must admit, though, that the skate key was to my skateboard...
ReplyDeleteman it's so true.. what has happened to us?
ReplyDelete