How many do you remember?

[Glenn and Lorraine]

I am sharing this with you today because it ended with a "double dog dare" to pass it on. If you remember what a "double dog dare" is, read on. And remember that the perfect age is somewhere between old enough to know better and young enough not to care. How many do you remember?

My Dad was cleaning out my grandmother's house 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.

How many do you remember?

Head light 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.
Cars without air condioning.
Produce vendors with horse drawn wagons.
Chocho Cups


Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you actually 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. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (OLive-6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob.."Say Kids, What Time Is It?"
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
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 and can smile at the wonderful memories in your life.


Classic TV..

Hopalong Cassidy
Laurel and Hardy
Howdy Doody, Buffalo Bob and Clarabell
The Lone Ranger and Tonto
Only The Shadow Knows
Nellie Belle
Roy, Dale and Trigger and Buttermilk
Kit Carson
Stoney Burke
Have Gun Will Travel
Jim Bowie
Rocky & Bullwinkle
Red Skelton
Buck Rogers in 25th Century
Flash Gordon


... And how about the sound of a "reel" mower on Saturday morning, and summers filled with bike rides, baseball games, bowling, visits to the pool ... and eating Kool-Aid powder with sugar from the palm of your hand. There, didn't that feel good? Just to lean back and say: "Yeah...I remember......."

[Mac]

Didn't think I was older than dirt but apparently I am. I remember telling my daughters about the sprinkler bottle and how mom would sprinkle all the clothes and then roll them up and put them into a plastic bag until the next night when she ironed them. My daughter looked at me like I was from another planet.

mac

[richfaa]

After reading all this stuff and realizing I was there for about 90% of that stuff..I have got to go lay down for awhile..

[prariepoodle]

WOW!! I remember all of these and then some.

[Dave e Victoria]

I must be truely archaic. I remember everything on that list plus a bunch more.
How about
1) starter buttons (or pedals) on the floor of the car
2) home butter churns
3) all eight primary grades in one room
4) crank telephone on the kitchen wall
5) round tube TV (these came after the little square screen in the big wooden counsel)
6) going to the local drug store to test vacuum tubes for radio or tv
7) gasolene engine powered washing machine
8) cranks in the car trunk in case the electric start failed
9) Wood spokes in the wheels of cars
and my personal favorite
10) rumble seats.

I suspect there are a lot more but now I am tires and I just got up
Dave

[DHenry]

I did not think I was older than dirt, but guess what? I must be as I remember everything on that list.

[Charlie]

I though being perfect was a 10, but in this case it is 25.

Not only do I remember but I have a soldering iron that is mentioned that belonged to my Dad.

Another item that I have is the rope wheel that hung over the water well that was used to bring water up in a bucket. Ahhhhhhhhhh, the golden memories, although the conveniences of life style today are much better to day, I remember things as being a lot simpler back then.

[Parrothead]

Gee I was feeling pretty young this morning but guess I'm as old as dirt also. I remember them all even the add ons. One of my favorites was pouring the cream off the top of the milk to eat on your cereal. And wood burning cook stoves, the salt dish where you could use just a pinch, pumps at the kitchen ink to pump water from the well, margarine in a bag with an orange pill inside that you squeezed to make the margarine yellow. Ovaltine was good for you. No diets, didn't know what a calorie was. Each year there is a professor that does a list of what the incoming college freshman has known or not known during his life. Really makes you think and realize that todays generation missed a lot. Old now, have to go take a pepper upper.
Happy trails....................

[richfaa]

Well I said I was there for 90% of that stuff and I am older than most of you who said your remembered all of them so I guess that as it happens with old folks my memory is going....

[OntMont]

I can remeber all the car-related items, some of the products, TV shows, etc. are just too "American" for this Anglo/Canadian to know about. The main thing to remember is that just being able to remember is a great thing.

[Lstierw]

I think i remembered around 14 or 15. Does that qualify for young dirt...........Les

[SAndreasen]

I guess I'm also and "old fa#$% too". Parrothead, you mentioned wood burning cook stoves. We have a lady here in town that just bought a "NEW" wood burning cook stove! She had to go all the way to Penn. to get it. Her kitchen is a contrast of technology. She cooks with wook and not ten feet away is her computer with Wi-Fi etc. She still chops her own wood and rides her horse to ge the mail. By the way she is 88 years old! I guess I'm really not old yet!

[sreigle]

I still would prefer the dimmer switch back on the floor.

[Mac]

Steve,

Back in the late 80's I was unemployed for a whole year, prior to getting my job I was a part time driver for our local mass transit company, RTD. Those big buses you see all over have the turn signals by your left foot on the floor, just like the old dimmer switch only there are two of them. That was a little hard to get used to but once I did I kept stomping the floor board in my car to turn on the signals.

mac

[adelmoll]

Of course I remember them all but before we sprinkled the clothes we dipped them in a mixture or Arco Starch and water. After that dried we sprinkled them and rolled them up and put is the ICE BOX to get real cold. Our clothes were so stiff we could hardly bend our elbows.

[gkbutler]

Oh my aren't we all telling on each other How about that Saturday morning must show "Sky King" and the Songbird. It was on right after Roy Rogers.

I can remember getting up on Saturday morning and watching the TV test pattern until the stations came on the air. They both played the national anthem when they came on the air and when the went off the air at night.

[Dave e Victoria]

Gosh, I remember Sky King on in the afternoon when I came in from school. I think it alternated with a series about a dog in the Canadian Royal Mounted Police called Youkon King. In the early episodes, Sky King flew a "bamboo bomber". In the later episodes he graduated to a Cessna twin. The heroine was a little girl named Penny. My Mom was pretty good about letting us watch before evening chores started.
Dave

[Parrothead]

Speaking of sprinkling clothes. Remember what happened if you didn't iron the next day?? They mildewed and you had to wash them again and HANG THEM ON THE LINE TO DRY. I had three little girls in the 60's with the puffed sleeves and full skirts and there was no permanent press.

[Bob Pasternak]

Geeeze; a bunch of kids on here. I was about 8 or nine before I found out you could buy bread in a store. I was 10 when we got electricity. When I was 8 (1939) my dad put me out in an alfalfa field behind the wheel of a 1931 Studebaker and I learned to drive. (I later worked at Studebaker) We had the wood burning cookstove and the flat irons were heated on it to iron clothes. The radio programs were: "Tom Mix" "Jack Armstrong" "Captain Midnight" "Fibber Magee(sic) and Molly" to name a few. When I worked at a friends service (and it was service)station a while, I had to check the "wet clutch" on a couple Hudson automobiles. Who remembers those?

[RnR]

Watch it there Buster !
Still using Butch Wax (or a similar product.)
Garry (RnR)