In the Good Old Days....
Created | Updated Dec 15, 2009
| So Long, And Thanks For Laughing |
In My Day
Very reminiscent of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, I feel....
In my day, we couldn't afford shoes, so we went barefoot. In the winter we had to wrap our feet with barbed wire for traction.
In my day, we didn't have no rocks. We had to go down to the creek and wash our clothes by beating them with our
heads.
In my day, we didn't have dogs or cats. All I had was Silver Beauty, my beloved paper clip.
In my day, attitudes were different. For example, women didn't like sex. At least that is what they told me.
When I was your age, we didn't have fake doggie-do. We only had real doggie- do, and no one thought it was a damn bit funny.
In my day, we didn't have days. There was only time for work, time for prayer and time for sleep. The sheriff would go around and tell everyone when to change.
In my day, we didn't have fancy health-food restaurants. Every day we ate lots of easily recognizable animal parts, along with potatoes drenched in melted fat from those animals. And we're all as strong as AAGGKK-GAAK... Urrgh. Thud.
In my day, we didn't have hand-held calculators. We had to do addition on our fingers. To subtract, we had to have some fingers amputated.
In my day, we didn't get that disembodied, slightly ticked-off voice saying 'Doors closing.' We got on the train, the doors closed, and if your hand was sticking out it scraped along the tunnel all the way to the Silver Spring station and it was a bloody stump at the end. But the base fare was only a dollar.
We didn't have water. We had to smash together our own hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
Kids today think the world revolves around them. In my day, the sun revolved around the world, and the world was perched on the back of a giant tortoise
Back in my day, '60 Minutes' wasn't just a bunch of gray-haired liberal 80-year-old guys. It was a bunch of
gray-haired liberal 60-year-old guys.
In my day, we didn't have virtual reality. If a one-eyed razorback barbarian warrior was chasing you with an ax, you just had to hope you could outrun him.
We were soooooo poor.....
- My parents use to take us to all of the local weddings,
Man, we got better at picking up the rice than the birds did. - We thought that running water was when you ran back to the house with a bucket of water from the neighbors house.
- My parents had to move a lot when I was a kid. One time it
took me and my little brother 2 weeks to find them. - My dad was walking down the street kicking a can, someone asked "What are you doing?" and he said "Moving."
- A friend came to my house in the winter and stepped on a lit cigarette butt, and mom yelled "who turned off the heat!"
- My parents thought a quarterback was a tax return.
I want to be a kid again
I want to go back to the time when:- ... Decisions were made by "eeny-meeny-miney-mo; catch a tiger by the toe"
- ... Mistakes were corrected by simply exclaiming, "do over!"
- ... "Race issue" meant arguing about who ran the fastest.
- ... Money issues were handled by whoever was the banker in "Monopoly."
- ... Catching the fireflies could happily occupy an entire evening.
- ... It wasn't odd to have two or three "best" friends.
- ... Being old referred to anyone over 20. (OUCH!)
- ... The net on a tennis court was the perfect height to play volleyball and rules didn't matter.
- ... It was magic when dad would "remove" his thumb.
- ... Having a weapon in school meant being caught with a slingshot.
- ... Scrapes and bruises were kissed and made better.
- ... It was a big deal to finally be tall enough to ride the "big people" rides at the amusement park.
- ... Getting a foot of snow was a dream come true.
- ... Abilities were discovered because of a "double-dog-dare."
- ... Saturday morning cartoons weren't 30-minute ads for action figures.
- ... No shopping trip was complete unless a new toy was brought home.
- ... "Oly-oly-oxen-free" made perfect sense.
- ... Spinning around, getting dizzy and falling down was cause for giggles.
- ... The worst embarrassment was being picked last for a team.
- ... War was a card game.
- ... Water balloons were the ultimate weapon.
- ... Baseball cards in the spokes transformed any bike into a motorcycle.
- ... Taking drugs meant orange-flavored chewable aspirin.
- ... Ice cream was considered a basic food group.
1950s quotes
Ah, the good old days. Here are some quotes from people in the US during the 1950s."I'll tell you one thing, if things keep going the way they are it's going to be impossible to buy a weeks groceries for $20."
"Have you seen the new cars coming out next year? It won't be long when $5,000 will only buy a used one."
"If cigarettes keep going up in price, I'm going to quit. A quarter a pack is ridiculous."
"Did you hear the post office is thinking about charging dime just to mail a letter?"
"The Government wants to get its hands on everything. Pretty soon it's going to be impossible to run a family business or farm."
"If they raise the minimum wage to $1, nobody will be able to hire outside help at the store."
"When I first started driving, who would have thought gas would someday cost 50 cents a gallon. Guess we'd be better off leaving the car in the garage."
"Kids today are impossible. Those duck tail hair cuts make impossible to stay groomed. Next thing you know, boys will be wearing their hair as long as the girls."
"Also, their music drives me wild. This 'Rock Around The Clock' thing is nothing but racket."
"I'm afraid to send my kids to the movies any more. Ever since they let Clark Gable get by with saying 'damn' in 'Gone With The Wind,' it seems every movie has a 'hell' or "damn" in it."
"Also, it won't be long until couples are sleeping in the same bed in the movies. What is this world coming to?"
"Marilyn Monroe is now showing her bra and panties, so apparently there are no standards anymore."
"Pretty soon you won't be able to buy a good 10 cent cigar."
"I read the other day where some scientist thinks it's possible to put a man on the moon by the end of the of the century. They even have some fellows they call astronauts preparing for it down in Texas."
"Did you see where some baseball player just signed a contract for $75,000 a year just to play ball? It wouldn't surprise me if someday they'll be making more than the president."
"Do you suppose television will ever reach our part of the country?"
"I never thought I'd see the day all our kitchen appliances would be electric. They are even making electric typewriters now."
"It's too bad things are so tough nowadays. I see where a few married women are having to work to make ends meet."
"It won't be long before young couples are going to have to hire someone to watch their kids so they can both work."
"Marriage doesn't mean a thing anymore, those Hollywood stars seem to be getting divorced at the drop of a hat."
"I'll tell you one thing. If my kid ever talks back to me, they won't be able to sit down for a week."
"Did you know the new church in town is allowing women to wear slacks to their service?"
"Next thing you know is, the government will start paying us not to grow crops."
"I'm just afraid the Volkswagen car is going to open the door to a whole lot of foreign business."
"Thank goodness I won't live to see the day when the Government takes half our income in taxes. I sometimes wonder if we are electing the best people to congress."
"Why in the world would you want to send your daughter to college? Isn't she going to get married? It would be different if she could be a doctor or a lawyer."
"I just hate to see the young people smoking. As I tell my kids, "Don't take a cigarette from ANYONE. You never know what might be in it."
The drive-in restaurant is convenient in nice weather, but I seriously doubt they will ever catch on."
"There is no sense going to Lincoln or Omaha anymore for a weekend. It costs nearly $15 a night to stay in a hotel."
"No one can afford to be sick, $35 a day in the hospital is too rich for my blood."
"If a few idiots want to risk their necks flying across the country that's fine, but nothing will ever replace trains."
"I don't know about you but if they raise the price of coffee to 15 cents, I'll just have to drink mine at home."
"If they think I'll pay 50 cents for a hair cut, forget it. I'll have my wife learn to cut hair."
"We won't be going out much anymore. Our baby sitter informed us she wants 50 cents an hour. Kids think money grows on trees."
| So Long, And Thanks For Laughing |
