and the older women in my family say

we are going to miss this.

I guess it is true though.  My oldest is 6.  We butted heads this morning.  She did not want to get dressed.  She wanted to wear a nice dress to play outside in and oh we went round and round.  I won though.  I did have dh's help on this one.  You don't play in $40 dresses.  LOL. But despite all this, I think about the day she will leave my home to go on a new adventure and I almost start to cry.   

• Anyone who never has to raise their voice to get (sm) - their kids to listen?
  • I raised mine and 3 nieces as one family sm - CoolCucumber
    • Wow!! You should feel very good about that!! That is a wonderful accomplishment! nm - Carolina
  • i refuse... - ditto
    • When "discussing" here, we try to keep "you" out - of discussion, as "you did" "you made me&
      • huh? - ???
        • Here is what we do and it has really helped us to - have discussions instead of yelling matches. nm
          • When my brother was in therapy, he used that technique. - sm
          • i agree... - same here
  • I made concious effort to stop yelling & pointed that - out to kids. They listen better now,things are bet
  • My husband yells at me for yelling at them. - Texas girl
    • My husband told me I sound like a you know what when I yell. . sm - Sleepy
      • I believe I'll try that. - Texas girl
    • Me too. No cooperation today. - MTmom
      • Wow - I'm sorry!!! Mine day improved some (sm) - OP
        • Glad your day turned out well...and that was - MTmom
          • I've done this 12 yrs and I've had to take breaks sm - OP
            • Dear OP: Thanks so much for your kind words. - momMT
              • I totally agree...no one can understand this job but us MT Moms... - Ohio-KS-MTMom
        • "My" day, not mine day - yes I am a transcriptionist....lol nm - OP
      • and the older women in my family say - Texas girl
        • My kids are grown, and I do NOT miss it! - LOL
          • same feeling here - jlynn
        • I know I will miss them terribly when they grow up - but sm - OP
  • Oh, believe me, I am with you. My sympathies. - MTmom

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than the 2 posters below me.

I remember when gas was $.25 a gallon when I got my driver's license and first car.

The first car my dad had was a LaSalle with running boards. After that, he bought all Hudsons and then Ramblers. He never owned a Chevy.

My first car was a ི Chevy, green and White, that my dad paid $12 for (cost of the tag). My uncle gave it to him and was a stick shift. I never drove an automatic until I was 20 and bought my own car with my own money. I paid $1500 for a ྀ Rambler Classic, 4 door (my first 4 door, too) in turquoise blue. My dad was mad because I didn't pick the Navy blue and white stick shift Rambler because it was cheaper.

My allowance was $1.50 a week and to make money, I chauffered all my friends around plus to school and back for $.25 a week.

And, I just turned another year older on Monday. Ugh! Thank heavens, no one in my family wished me HB. I quit counting 20 years ago.

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways.. yadda, yadda, yadda.

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in he*ll I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a dam n Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the dam n library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the dam n record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!

We didn't have fancy c rap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Play Station video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked a$$! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just SC rewed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
You were sc rewed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your a$$ and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! W e had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-s!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up. We had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupi*d JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idio*t.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd

I remember all those commercials. Ipana toothpaste. And which toothpaste had Gardol that would bounce baseballs off its force field? LOL And the whiny voice of the little girl in the Shake & Bake commercial - "And Ah heyulped!"   That one drove me crazy!

Remember the Clairol commercials with the beautiful hair? And all the people gathered on the hillside singing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke...." And Herbal Essence shampoo commercials? And what was that shampoo that was in a bottle like a green stem and had a top like a yellow flower? I don't think it was Herbal Essence.

See? You're not the only one!

'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. ! 'Mom 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. 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 & 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 5. It was, of course, black and white,
 

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 4. It was an old black Dodge.

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 my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at

6AM

every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.


Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in 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?


MEMORIES from a friend :


My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.


How many do you remember?

Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.
Real ice boxes.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz :


Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about


Ratings at the bottom.

1 Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles
5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. 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)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H greenstamps
16 Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with lever
18. Mimeograph paper
19 Blue flashbulb
20. Packards
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are thebest part of my life.
 

I can also remember: 

1.  Licking and sticking S&H Green Stamps into a saver book and taking them to the redemption center with my mother.  That's how I got my first luggage set. 

2.  Raleigh coupons that came in the cigarettes that Dad smoked.  These were also good for redemption for merchandise, but mom had to package them up in bundles of 100 with rubber bands, pack them in a box, wrap the box with a brown paper grocery sack cut to fit and tie it with string.  We then mailed it and waited the customary 6 - 8 weeks for our merchandise to arrive.  I believe she got a set of dishes with this once and who knows what else.  It, like the Green Stamps, was so common place in our home that we didn't really pay attention to what was purchased with them. 

3.  Going to the soda fountain at the drug store downtown and ordering a Coke float. 

4.  We lived on a farm and sometimes processed our own meat.  I can remember helping to package and label package after package of beef or pork. 

5.  Related to the above, I can remember my mother straining milk that our milk cow produced twice a day.  For each gallon of milk, about a third of it was pure yellow cream.  My dad would drink the cream off the top of the milk with supper at night.  That kid doctor in the original post probably would have had a stroke over that.  Surprisingly though, Dad never did and lived to be the ripe old age of 83.  Mother also made and sold fresh-churned butter and buttermilk.  That buttermilk made the BEST cornbread to go with the peas that Dad grew in the garden and Mom canned for us to eat through the winter.  Sometimes peas and cornbread WAS supper. 

6.  I can remember getting a special dress twice a year....once on Easter and once on Christmas.....and wearing it to church with my family.  Of course, these dresses were designed and crafted and sewn by my mother.  All of my clothes were, in fact, and I always got so many compliments on my clothes and from people with money at that! 

7.  I can remember going into town with Daddy on Saturday mornings and getting 25 cents worth of candy.  It was enough to last a whole week but it seldom did.  We didn't get candy or soft drinks every day and they were a special treat. 

8.  I didn't eat a "store bought" cookie until I was at least 13 years old. 

9.  I didn't have a "store bought" dress until I was at least 9 years old and only then because I was attending a wedding and mother did have time to make me a new dress (which she thought I had to have a new dress for any "occasion").  I think it cost $12 and my daddy had to work for about 6 hours to pay for that dress! 

10.  I can remember segregation and the first year our little school integrated. 

11.  I can remember watching the evening news and seeing the casualty lists from the Vietnam War being scrolled across the screen. 

12.  I can remember JFK's assasination and funeral and my mother crying as she watched the news coverage on our black and white TV while ironing.  She was using one of those bottles described in the original post. 

13.  I remember our class being taken to the auditorium and watching the first man walk on the moon. 

14.  I remember daily assemblies that included Scripture reading and prayer at school and these were lead by a teacher. 

15.  I didn't see a color TV until I was about 12 or 13 and that was at a friend's house.  I didn't know they even existed until then. 

16.  I remember the first attempt at movies on disks.  They were huge plastic things in huge plastic boxes and the picture quality was abysmal.  Of course, we thought it was great. 

17.  I remember Hi-FI stereos with automatic record changers that played 33s and 45s and what an improvement it was to be able to stack records and not have to change them after each one was finished.  At least I'm not quite old enough to remember using a Victrola! 

When I think about all the innovations and inventions I have seen in my lifetime, it amazes me.  There are microwaves, color tv, personal computers, cell phones, MP3 players, CDs, VCRs, DVDs, and the list goes on.  Boy, do I feel old now! 

I met my husband in 1974 when I was 21 and he was 48.  We worked in the same building and I walked by his office everyday.  After about 4 years of talking on a regular basis, we finally went out in June 1978.  We casually dated for a few years, then I was spending weekends at this place, and we moved in together in 1984.  In 1987 he retired and wanted to move to CA (we were from MN) so that he could play golf for the rest of his life.  He moved and I commuted back and forth for visits until 1989 when I decided enough was enough and moved to CA. 

We lived there until 2001 when we finally decided to get married.  There were no children together, although he had 2 daughers older than me, that he never saw.  In 2003 he was diagnosed with cancer of unknown origin with spread to the liver which only compounded the fact that he had congestive heart failure and emphysema from smoking for 50 years.  At that point he said we were moving back to my home town so that I would be close to my family after he passed away, as he was getting progressively worse with his heart problems and lung problems since 2000 with ambulance calls every couple months, and breathing treatments, etc, open heart surgery, the whole 9 yards. 

We flew to MN on April 22, 2003 which was the only way he could travel across country as he was so oxygen dependent, etc he could not go by car.  He sent my SIL and I out house shopping and furniture shopping.  I found a house in a few days, put on offer on it and it was ours. He went to the hospital on April 25 with a bad attack.  After telling him about the house and having to explain what it looked like about 450 times, he told me on May 1, 2003 that I was in good hands and so was he, and his work was done and he passed away in his sleep later that day. 

Have to also say that my parents were against him for MANY years (not so much his age, although they really did not know it until they saw it in the obituary), but the fact he was African-American.  20 years it took for them to meet and then it was only few short years after that he died.  they actually ended up loving it each other greatly.  Too bad we waited so long. 

He passed away when I was 50, living in a home that should have been for the 2 of us (3 actually, our dog) but that never happened.  The only thing is that I was a widow at 50 and still alone at 55, and that is sad.  Of course I guess one could be a widow at any time, but it is more likely with having an older husband like that, it will happen sooner. 

Would I do it again if I had to start over at 21 with someone 27 years older.  I really do not think so.  People did try to tell me about the age difference and what the consequnces might be with him passing away much earlier than me, but that did not make any difference.  But it is really difficult for me to be alone, and in my home town of 2500 people there really is not a possibility of a husband here; and I will probably not leave now as I have all my family here.  But really that is not enough. 

Sorry this was so long, but for the young ones with an older spouse, just think about the future.  I do have a friend that is married to an older man also (about 20 years) and I know that she is not truly happy with him either as he is at the age where he does not want to be doing things like he used to and she is in her early 50s and still quite active, as am I.  that is another thing to consider also.