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Smitty37

Passed Away Mar 29, 2018
In Memoriam
Joined
Nov 23, 2009
Messages
12,823
Location
Milford, Delaware 19963
If:

  1. You ever hitched a ride on the running board of a car
  2. You ever road in the rumble seat of a car.
  3. You remember the whistle of steam locomotives.
  4. You remeber foot starters on cars.
  5. You had milk delivered to your house - and it was not homogenized
  6. You had bread delivered to your house by the bakery van
  7. You remember the floor in the bed of pickup trucks being wood
  8. You actually skinny dipped (or even swam) in the old swimming hole.
  9. Your mother wore house dresses and had aprons made from feed sacks.
  10. Bicycles were one speed, balloon tires and you got off and walked up steep hills.
  11. You know how to play 'mumble d' peg"
  12. You had a pair of 'high cuts' with a pocket knife sheath on the side of the right boot.
  13. You went ice skating on frozen ponds not skating rinks.
  14. You knew a Watkins Liniment man.
  15. Your insurance man came once a month to collect the premium.
  16. When you had a dead battery you pushed the car and "popped the clutch" to start it.
  17. Your mother washed clothes on Monday and ironed on Tuesday.
  18. When 1 good shirt was considered enough for anybody - you only wore it to church.
  19. Nearly every little town had it's own sandlot baseball team
  20. One to four room elementary schools for 1st to 8th grade dotted the landscape.
  21. School teachers were among the most respected citizens in any small town.
  22. Franklin Roosevelt was president.
  23. The local postmaster was a political apointee.
  24. You know who Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot and Puff are.
  25. You know who Sargeant Preston and Yukon King were.
  26. You remember Fibber McGee and Molly
  27. You know who LeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy was.
  28. Your first airplane flight was in a piper cub at the local grass strip air field.
  29. When the commercials on TV shows were blended into the show.
  30. You remember the Eddie Fisher show while he was still in the Army
  31. There were 15 minute TV shows with just one commercial
 
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I should have mentioned one more....

If your dad's 125th birthday was 1/1/2013.....My dad was born 1/1/1888 and my mom was 9/15/1893 so later this year will be her 120th. Of course neither are here to celebrate with me.
 
Thanks for the reminders Smitty. For those in areas that had snow in the winter one has to remember hanging on to the rear bumper of a car and sliding on the ice covered street. I think some of us are really dating ourselves.
 
Guess I'm not as old as I feel either... To me the one that rings the most true for me is #16. The funny thing is I still drive a manual, but with the advent of injection replacing carburetors something tells me that won't work anymore.
 
glen r said:
Thanks for the reminders Smitty. For those in areas that had snow in the winter one has to remember hanging on to the rear bumper of a car and sliding on the ice covered street. I think some of us are really dating ourselves.
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Good one....we would hook our sled to the car with a rope and get pulled....And some years they would drive a car on the frozen pond and pull a line of skaters behind it.
 
alphageek said:
Guess I'm not as old as I feel either... To me the one that rings the most true for me is #16. The funny thing is I still drive a manual, but with the advent of injection replacing carburetors something tells me that won't work anymore.
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I'm not sure Dean, into the early sixties if you pushed the clutch in going down hill the car would be free wheeling. I think they did something to the transmissions where that is no longer true. I had 3, 4 and 5 speeds from 1977 thru 1999 and I don't remember them freewheeling at all. Earlier automatics could be started by pushing them but you had to get them going about 35 miles an hour before they'd start - I don't think current automatics can be started that way - I think you'd ruin the transmission first.
 
Smitty37 said:
I should have mentioned one more....

If your dad's 125th birthday was 1/1/2013.....My dad was born 1/1/1888 and my mom was 9/15/1893 so later this year will be her 120th. Of course neither are here to celebrate with me.
Click to expand...

My dad will be 93 in May and is very much still here, lives on his own, and drives as well or better than I do!

And I remember Harry Truman, but not FDR.

See Spot run! Run, Spot, run! Yep, definitely older than dirt.
 
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Hey Smitty

Correct me if I am wrong but lately you have been posting questions and comments that are nostalgic or look backs to your past life. Is there some hidden reason for this??? There have been quite afew lately. Seems abit errie:smile:
 
jttheclockman said:
Hey Smitty

Correct me if I am wrong but lately you have been posting questions and comments that are nostalgic or look backs to your past life. Is there some hidden reason for this??? There have been quite afew lately. Seems abit errie:smile:
Click to expand...
Nope. Just my long term memory is a lot better than my short term.
 
Smitty37 said:
alphageek said:
Earlier automatics could be started by pushing them but you had to get them going about 35 miles an hour before they'd start - I don't think current automatics can be started that way - I think you'd ruin the transmission first.
Click to expand...

My first car had that feature, a 1959 Ford. The automatic back then had a rear pump as well as a front pump so pushing it pressurised the hydraulics and allowed the tranny to work with the power going from the wheels to the engine instead of the other way around. Not long after the engineers figured out they didn't need the rear pump and dropped it out of the design. I think with Ford it was thier C4 transmission that made the change.
Click to expand...
 
My family owned a dairy,I delivered milk house to house till 1967,I worked the cottage cheese vat (won't eat cottage cheese to this day).
Seems that one member or another in my family always parked on a hill,cheaper than a new battery and it got you thru till pay day.
Stop action commercial breaks,Yup!
Rebuilding starters,Yup.
Heating oil cans for the stove,Yup.
Tissue paper in the toes of shoes,Yup
Car tires with tubes in them,Yup,
Every educational possession you had was in a cigar box,and none of it plugged in,Yup
Vegetable man thru the neighborhood,Yup
I'm not that old but I sure wish that the biggest problem in my world was still wether or
not the cute girl in the class liked me.
Mark
 
Smitty37 said:
jttheclockman said:
Hey Smitty

Correct me if I am wrong but lately you have been posting questions and comments that are nostalgic or look backs to your past life. Is there some hidden reason for this??? There have been quite afew lately. Seems abit errie:smile:
Click to expand...
Nope. Just my long term memory is a lot better than my short term.
Click to expand...
Well, that's not completely true...I have been thinking about the past lately for some personal reasons. On another thread I mentioned I just lost a sister-in-law who was married to my brother for 62 years when he died - I don't remember either of them when they weren't married. I also have another sister-in-law who is now in a non-treatable stage of cancer - when she and my brother married, I was in their wedding party and we have always been very close - even closer since my brother passed. So I've done a lot of thinking about the "good times" we had together and they bring up a lot of old memories.
 
I had a truck with a wood bed, pull started many a tractor, skated on frozen rivers which is a lot more fun than a rink. I still can still quote large sections from the Dick and Jane readers we used in first grade. If you did something stupid in school the principal would call your parents to see if they would come in and spank you or if he should. And you hoped your parents would come in because that way you only got spanked once. I was right on the tail end of that. Also who can forget the party line. You had to know what your ring was so you knew when to answer the phone. One long, one short.
 
Displaced Canadian said:
I had a truck with a wood bed, pull started many a tractor, skated on frozen rivers which is a lot more fun than a rink. I still can still quote large sections from the Dick and Jane readers we used in first grade. If you did something stupid in school the principal would call your parents to see if they would come in and spank you or if he should. And you hoped your parents would come in because that way you only got spanked once. I was right on the tail end of that. Also who can forget the party line. You had to know what your ring was so you knew when to answer the phone. One long, one short.
Click to expand...
Ours was three shorts. We were on an 8 party line but only heard our own and three other rings. To call someone on the same line we had to dial a 3 digit code, hang up, listen to their phone ring and pick our phone back up after they answered. If there was no answer we had to pick up and hang up or it would ring all day long.
 
Smitty37 said:
Displaced Canadian said:
I had a truck with a wood bed, pull started many a tractor, skated on frozen rivers which is a lot more fun than a rink. I still can still quote large sections from the Dick and Jane readers we used in first grade. If you did something stupid in school the principal would call your parents to see if they would come in and spank you or if he should. And you hoped your parents would come in because that way you only got spanked once. I was right on the tail end of that. Also who can forget the party line. You had to know what your ring was so you knew when to answer the phone. One long, one short.
Click to expand...
Ours was three shorts. We were on an 8 party line but only heard our own and three other rings. To call someone on the same line we had to dial a 3 digit code, hang up, listen to their phone ring and pick our phone back up after they answered. If there was no answer we had to pick up and hang up or it would ring all day long.
Click to expand...
If memory serves me correctly our number was two longs, and three shorts. I don't remember the three digit code! :( Maybe we didn't have that in IL! :) OORRRRRRRRRRRRR, maybe I just don't remember :(
 
Smitty37 said:
If:

  1. You ever hitched a ride on the running board of a car
  2. You ever road in the rumble seat of a car.
  3. You remember the whistle of steam locomotives.
  4. You remeber foot starters on cars.
  5. You had milk delivered to your house - and it was not homogenized
  6. You had bread delivered to your house by the bakery van
  7. You remember the floor in the bed of pickup trucks being wood
  8. You actually skinny dipped (or even swam) in the old swimming hole.
  9. Your mother wore house dresses and had aprons made from feed sacks.
  10. Bicycles were one speed, balloon tires and you got off and walked up steep hills.
  11. You know how to play 'mumble d' peg"
  12. You had a pair of 'high cuts' with a pocket knife sheath on the side of the right boot.
  13. You went ice skating on frozen ponds not skating rinks.
  14. You knew a Watkins Liniment man.
  15. Your insurance man came once a month to collect the premium.
  16. When you had a dead battery you pushed the car and "popped the clutch" to start it.
  17. Your mother washed clothes on Monday and ironed on Tuesday.
  18. When 1 good shirt was considered enough for anybody - you only wore it to church.
  19. Nearly every little town had it's own sandlot baseball team
  20. One to four room elementary schools for 1st to 8th grade dotted the landscape.
  21. School teachers were among the most respected citizens in any small town.
  22. Franklin Roosevelt was president.
  23. The local postmaster was a political apointee.
  24. You know who Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot and Puff are.
  25. You know who Sargeant Preston and Yukon King were.
  26. You remember Fibber McGee and Molly
  27. You know who LeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy was.
  28. Your first airplane flight was in a piper cub at the local grass strip air field.
  29. When the commercials on TV shows were blended into the show.
  30. You remember the Eddie Fisher show while he was still in the Army
  31. There were 15 minute TV shows with just one commercial
Click to expand...

I'm almost your age Smitty...
But #5 - we just went to the barn and milked the cow...
#6 - Mom baked the bread - don't think we had a bakery in town.
#8 - I did the skinny dipping the the local "tank" - farm pond dug for the cows... never learned to swim though... went into the Navy as a non-swim.
#9 - Mom wore feed sack dresses, aprons and made a few shirts from feed sacks for me to wear as well.... before I started school, my underwear was made from flower sacks... and my overalls from the good parts of my dad's worn out overalls.
#12 & 13... no high cuts... carried a folding knife in my back pocket... never ice skate... no frozen ponds in Texas.
#17 - Mom washed clothes on Mondays - she use an iron pot with a fire under it to heat water, a paddle to stir the clothes in the was port and to dip them out into the rinse tub, then hung them on a line to dry.
#28 - First flight was a jet plane ride home from Guam when I was in the Navy.
#29-31 - I was 14 when we got our first TV... in the 5th grade first time I ever saw TV.
 
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Smitty37 said:
If:

  1. You ever hitched a ride on the running board of a car--Yes
  2. You ever road in the rumble seat of a car.--Yes
  3. You remember the whistle of steam locomotives.--Yes
  4. You remeber foot starters on cars.--Yes
  5. You had milk delivered to your house - and it was not homogenized--Yes
  6. You had bread delivered to your house by the bakery van--Yes
  7. You remember the floor in the bed of pickup trucks being wood--Yes and happen to own a 1951 chevy with a wood bed now
  8. You actually skinny dipped (or even swam) in the old swimming hole.Yes
  9. Your mother wore house dresses and had aprons made from feed sacks.--No
  10. Bicycles were one speed, balloon tires and you got off and walked up steep hills.--Yes
  11. You know how to play 'mumble d' peg"--Yes
  12. You had a pair of 'high cuts' with a pocket knife sheath on the side of the right boot. No
  13. You went ice skating on frozen ponds not skating rinks. --No
  14. You knew a Watkins Liniment man.--Yes
  15. Your insurance man came once a month to collect the premium.--Yes
  16. When you had a dead battery you pushed the car and "popped the clutch" to start it.--Yes
  17. Your mother washed clothes on Monday and ironed on Tuesday.--No, she washed on Thursdays and Ironed on Fridays
  18. When 1 good shirt was considered enough for anybody Yes - you only wore it to church.
  19. Nearly every little town had it's own sandlot baseball team--Yes , didn't live in a small town but played "Stick ball in the streets against teams from other sections of town"
  20. One to four room elementary schools for 1st to 8th grade dotted the landscape. Lived in NYC and went to school there until 1952, finished school in Tampa Fa., much of my schooling in NYC was in large schools and in Tampa Medium sized but Dee went to school in Pinkeyville Il. in a one room cabin 1-8 grades
  21. School teachers were among the most respected citizens in any small town.Yes
  22. Franklin Roosevelt was president.Yes
  23. The local postmaster was a political apointee.Yes
  24. You know who Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot and Puff are.Yes
  25. You know who Sargeant Preston and Yukon King were.Yes listened on the radio
  26. You remember Fibber McGee and Molly Yes also on radio
  27. You know who LeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeRoy was.Yes
  28. Your first airplane flight was in a piper cub at the local grass strip air field. my first plane ride was in a commercial Eastern Air lines turbo prop.​
  29. When the commercials on TV shows were blended into the show. Yes
  30. You remember the Eddie Fisher show while he was still in the Army Yes
  31. There were 15 minute TV shows with just one commercial Yes
Click to expand...
I remember most of these things from the past but can remember what I did an hour ago
 
We got out first TV when I was in 8th grade - I was 13. Prior to that I had seen TV a few times at other peoples houses.

My mother baked bread also, but the bakery (Freihofers) did deliver.

I grew up in a rural non-farming community but we were on a railroad line (DL&W) later the Erie-Lackawanna. Cutting lumber for Railroad ties and coal mine "props" was one of our major industries.

I can understand that some very rural parts of the country lagged a lot of things by years. Even in my area, getting electricity to some folks was expensive enough that a few places still don't have it. They'd need to run a half mile of wire to get to one house...
 
LeRoy:
3 comments.
I "sorta" remember FDR...HE DIED 10 years before I was born. BUT, I do a show near Warm Springs, Ga and FDR LIVES FOREVER in GEORGIA in the form of a "wax creature" that still sits in his "unbulletproof" car...Kinda creepy.

Second, I DO remember LeeeeeeeeeRoy....From the first TV episode of the Great Gildersleeve. Damn! That 11 year old boy appeared to be 35 years old with a 5 o'clock shadow!

And third, DOWN HERE, the primer read "Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot AND THAT DAMNED CAT!

Thanks for the memories! And by the way, DOWN HERE, the ironing was ALWAYS DONE on Tuesday (Wednesday was prayer meeting and Thursday wasLadies Bridge Club..IT WAS NEVER SPOKEN and ONLY the invited knew the time and place AND YOU WERE ONLY LATE, ONCE). AND, back in THOSE days, ONLY a REPUBLICAN would put the "sprinkler head" in a PEPSI bottle....MANY dinner conversations over the IMPROPER USE of a Coca-Cola bottle:)
 
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PenMan1 said:
LeRoy:
3 comments.
I "sorta" remember FDR...HE DIED 10 years before I was born. BUT, I do a show near Warm Springs, Ga and FDR LIVES FOREVER in GEORGIA in the form of a "wax creature" that still sits in his "unbulletproof" car...Kinda creepy.

Second, I DO remember LeeeeeeeeeRoy....From the first TV episode of the Great Gildersleeve. Damn! That 11 year old boy appeared to be 35 years old with a 5 o'clock shadow!

And third, DOWN HERE, the primer read "Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot AND THAT DAMNED CAT!

Thanks for the memories! And by the way, DOWN HERE, the ironing was ALWAYS DONE on Tuesday (Wednesday was prayer meeting and Thursday wasLadies Bridge Club..IT WAS NEVER SPOKEN and ONLY the invited knew the time and place AND YOU WERE ONLY LATE, ONCE). AND, back in THOSE days, ONLY a REPUBLICAN would put the "sprinkler head" in a PEPSI bottle....MANY dinner conversations over the IMPROPER USE of a Coca-Cola bottle:)
Click to expand...
I didn't think there were any Republicans in Georgia in those days - during my Navy years I never met a kid from the South who would admit that his parents had ever voted for a Republican for anything. I was a from a Democratic family myself.
 
Smitty37 said:
PenMan1 said:
LeRoy:
3 comments.
I "sorta" remember FDR...HE DIED 10 years before I was born. BUT, I do a show near Warm Springs, Ga and FDR LIVES FOREVER in GEORGIA in the form of a "wax creature" that still sits in his "unbulletproof" car...Kinda creepy.

Second, I DO remember LeeeeeeeeeRoy....From the first TV episode of the Great Gildersleeve. Damn! That 11 year old boy appeared to be 35 years old with a 5 o'clock shadow!

And third, DOWN HERE, the primer read "Dick, Jane, Baby Sally, Spot AND THAT DAMNED CAT!

Thanks for the memories! And by the way, DOWN HERE, the ironing was ALWAYS DONE on Tuesday (Wednesday was prayer meeting and Thursday wasLadies Bridge Club..IT WAS NEVER SPOKEN and ONLY the invited knew the time and place AND YOU WERE ONLY LATE, ONCE). AND, back in THOSE days, ONLY a REPUBLICAN would put the "sprinkler head" in a PEPSI bottle....MANY dinner conversations over the IMPROPER USE of a Coca-Cola bottle:)
Click to expand...
I didn't think there were any Republicans in Georgia in those days - during my Navy years I never met a kid from the South who would admit that his parents had ever voted for a Republican for anything. I was a from a Democratic family myself.
Click to expand...


A little trivia here, BACK in THOSE days, Georgia was home of the "Yeller Dog Democrats". This meant that Georgians would vote for a "yeller" (not yellow, as many think) dog (meaning "Old Yeller', a dead dog) BEFORE voting Republician.

TODAY, someone in Georgia who chooses to vote Democrat "must be from Atlanta, or some OTHER GOD FORSAKEN PLACE:)"
 
Interestingly enough, Martin Luther King, Jr, who spent most of his adult life near my birthplace, was a REPUBLICAN!

In the 1960s, in the South (or at least Georgia, anyway) Repubicans were the "progressive" party. Also, interestingly enough (not a political post, in ANY WAY) the Southern Republican Party did more for the advancement of black rights than any group since the Republican President, Abraham Lincoln.

This is JUST AN OBSERVATION of the metamorphasis of political parties.
 
OMG, I don't remember any of those. Closest I can get is the milk man, but he came to pick up milk, not drop it off, and I still have a hard time drinking homogenized milk.
 
I remember the milk and bread delivery trucks AND the potato chip and pretzel deliveries as well (Charlie Chips in 5 gal cans!). First TV was a Crosly 5" ROUND screen in a huge console. I think I was 5 or 6 when my (gadget-loving) Dad brought it home. First flight was when I was in the Navy reserves in high-school and was a crew member on a C-54 (DC-5?).

As Bob Hope used to sing "Thanks for the memories".:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
 
walshjp17 said:
I remember the milk and bread delivery trucks AND the potato chip and pretzel deliveries as well (Charlie Chips in 5 gal cans!). First TV was a Crosly 5" ROUND screen in a huge console. I think I was 5 or 6 when my (gadget-loving) Dad brought it home. First flight was when I was in the Navy reserves in high-school and was a crew member on a C-54 (DC-5?).

As Bob Hope used to sing "Thanks for the memories".:biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
Click to expand...
Douglas DC-4 WW II vintage as the C-54 4 engine transport. The DC-3 which was a mid 30's design was the first commercial plane I flew on. It was the USA's mainstay transport plane in WW II as the C-47 around 11,000 were produced. A number of cargo airlines started after WW II using surplus C-47s and C-54s.
 
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I worked as a load master for an airline in the Yukon for a few years that handled mostly freight. The DC-3 is the little airplane that could. Land on anything, load it to the gills and blow an engine and it would still get you home. One of ours was a parachute plane in WW2 used by the RAF. Dropped paratroopers on D day then was used to transport wounded back to England. When our company bought it, it was still set up as a jump plane and it was used as a jump plane for the smoke jumpers.
 
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