Thought you ALL might enjoy this- for us "older" folk it certainly does
ring true-for you younger folk, "can you believe it?"
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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 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. In their later years they 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. 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 11, 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.
We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our
family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in
the living room and it 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. I delivered a
newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which I got to
keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning. On Saturday, I had
to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite customers were
the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the change. My least
favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on
collection day.
They didn't French kiss in the movies. I don't know what they did in
French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see
them.
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?
-Nory
NORYS LAWS:
1. Just because you have found the problem, doesn't mean you've found the
ONLY problem.
2. Just because it's new doesn't mean it works right.
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