'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, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never 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 19.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
I was 21 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.
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. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
3 comments:
OMG, really remember all of this and I, too, had to asked to be excused from the table after each meal.
Ah, yes...my favorite subject as a senior...the good ol' days---when children obeyed their parents and had curfews at nite. When young people had respect for law enforcers, teachers and older people. When the family unit was strong and divorce was only heard about infrequently. When children married for all the RIGHT reasons and raised their kids in a loving home and not in an abusive environment. When drugs were for sick people and the word "gay" meant "happy". Golly...as a child, I drank unfiltered tap water, ate real butter and whole milk with cream floating on the top. I ate foods fried in Crisco and lard, wore hand-me-down clothes (and was grateful for them), I drove a car that I could repair( w/o today's costly repairs) and an engine compartment that I could actually get into to replace my own spark plugs! I used a payphone if I needed to away from home (no expensive cellphones to pay for.) Look how far we've progressed!!!! Yeah, right.
As a senior I remember my childhood vividly. I was raised to respect authority, teachers, and elderly folks. I was also raised in a nuclear family and taught to obey my parents and elders. I was very content with our black/white TV, my small hi-fi in my bedroom and a 10-speed English bike I got for Christmas one year. I had to obey nitely curfews, tell my parents where I was going. Growing up, I ate Mom's meals made with butter or lard...drank unfiltered tap water, all sorts of fatty foods, etc...and I'M STILL ALIVE!!! I had no expensive cellphone bills...no internet, no smart cars with costly price tags or repairs, no expensive digital devices...and I SURVIVED! I tell these things and more to my grandkids..and they're amazed. "How did you live like that?" they asked. I just chuckle and say, "I'm here, aren't I?"
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