'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  owned their own house. NEVER   wore  Levis ,  set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the  country or had a credit  card.  
 
    In  their later years they may have 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 3.  And that was because my Dad won it  in a drawing!  
 
    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 show on, featuring local  people.  
 
     
 
    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.  
 
    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.  
 
    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 his  mother'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 on  the telephone  
 
    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 [if  you were fortunate])  
 
    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  some of the best parts of my  life..