Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite '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 'home,'' I explained. ! 'Mum 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 lad 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'd figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school... 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 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...
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, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6 every morning.
Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost 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 my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old lemonade 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? Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car. Ignition switches on the dashboard. Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner. Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.
Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom
1. Sweet cigarettes 2. Coffee shops with juke boxes 3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles 4. Party lines on the telephone 5. Newsreels before the movie 6. 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 2 channels [if you were fortunate]) 7. Peashooters 8. 33 rpm records 9. 45 RPM records 10. Hi-fis 11. Metal ice trays with levers 12. Blue flashbulb 13. Cork popguns 14. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient!
I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Don't forget to pass this along! Especially to all your really OLD friends....I just did!
(PS. I used a large type face so you could read it easily)
WollyandPete said
06:19 AM Oct 12, 2013
Yep, ancient I am, remember all that, delivered milk in bottles and in bulk, 5am start for 1 hour, paid $1! Delivered newspapers after school, ended up being the printer of our local newspaper and what I have seen change in the past 40 years in the print trade really does confirm I am ancient. Glad to have those memories! Glad to still have my memory!
Pete
ST391GQ said
06:30 AM Oct 12, 2013
I,m not gunna quote your post...but geez ...how could I forget any of those things on the last list...like gettin a black eye from the cork gun....n lots of others too.
But here is one that I will add....kerosene refrigerators!!!.
The one about the ice tray with the lever brought that one back ....n how it was my job every monday night ...regardless of what was on or happening....to remove tank ...extinguish the flame ...refill the tank ...light it again ...and put the tank back in ...and adjust flame so it was burning cleanly with not a trace of smoke. OOHH ...that memory will never leave me ....I absolutely bloody hated it!!!!!....and there were TWO fridges.........!!!!!!
So I must be "ancient" too.......I was 61 last birthday...is that "ancient" ......??
Geez,I remember everyone of those too, and I thought that I was still young!
I remember when I lived near the city, the man with the horse and cart selling 'rabbits' cleaned and ready to go.
the same with the ice cream cart, they shook a hand held bell, today's mob drive multi coloured vans and play 'Greensleeves' or the like.
We had a bread box and you actually cut your bread to your own liking, came in only 4 varieties.
Suburban movie theatres occupied pride of place in every suburb and if you didn't book for friday and Saturday night, you sat at home and listened to the wireless, Saturday afternoon was a kids fest where every kid worth their salt was there in force, no alcohol, just softies, ice cream and the mandatory Box of 'Jaffas' to roll down the aisles. ...today those same sites are occupied by a 'Woollies, Coles, Macca's, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc.,etc.
Soft drinks were in glass bottles and you got a penny to threepence for returning them.
Lawmowers were push jobs and suburban blocks less than 1/4 acre were rare (my job to mow the bloody thing every Saturday morning to earn my right to the afternoon flicks.
I actually drove a car, what the hell is automatic???
and on it goes.....
-- Edited by Wizardofoz on Saturday 12th of October 2013 07:42:17 AM
johnq said
08:36 AM Oct 12, 2013
Milk bottles with the flanged top to seat the cardboard seal. When the foil seals were introduced, parents approached the dairies for the discarded punched out foil rolls, blue, green, red & gold depending on processing days, to use as Xmas decorations.
cultana said
10:20 AM Oct 12, 2013
seems you are still young if you only remember those 14.
Allow me to add:
15. Bread delivered by horse and cart.
16. green grocer with his truck doing home deliveries as the lady of house came out to make her purchases.
17. Milk delivered via milkman direct from urn into your milk billy.
18. the Watkins man doing his door to door sales
Some may even remember the old ice chest. Had that one at the farm when we stayed there.
And I don't call myself ancient yet, heck I am just 28!
Cupie said
11:32 AM Oct 12, 2013
Yep ... I must be ancient (only 72) I can remember them all.
Can't help myself .. so here's a list of things that I scribbled down as I read the previous posts .. A few repeats.
- Walton's man .. sort of hire purchase/lay by would come to the house with the latest catelogue and our paper based payment record. I brought my first air rifle from him.
- Clothes Prop man with horse & cart (I used to undercut him with props that I cut in the bush & transported home on my trusty push bike)
- Horse & carts plodding unattended along the road delivering .. Bread, Milk, Ice, Clothes line Props. Sometimes fish/seafood covered with ice & wet corn bags. The bread & milk carts were a piece of art but the others were usually just large wheeled spring carts tied together with wire.
.........
I worked with the Ice man. Only the boss had tongs. We used squares of hessian to protect the hands.
Also helped the baker bake & deliver the bread from large cane baskets. Once again we used the hessian squares to protect the hands from the hot bread tins as they came out of the oven. XMAS was great when the more affluent people would bring in hams to be wrapped in bread dough & baked in the wood fired oven. I can still smell them.
Also did a milk run, delivering bulk milk (no bottles) into the people's milk jugs. I balanced a two gallon can and 1/2 & 1 pint measures on the trusty bike handlebars. The milko would leave a 5 gallon can at strategic spots under a tree or such & I would leave the payment pennies under the can as I finished the area. Never got stolen.
Then there was my daily paper selling & Saturday delivery run. Along with 7 other paper boys used to sell around 100 papers in about 5 minutes as 3,000 workers charged out of the railway workshops gate at knock off time. Right hand fully extended in front to gather the 4 pennies (I think) for each paper & a bundle of 50 or 60 papers on the left hip that were pulled out by the workers as they ran past. It was a rare thing to be 'short' when counting up the cash.Then delivered around 80 papers loaded onto the push bike on Saturday afternoons. A wheat bag carrier was fitted into handle bars and another straddled the top bar. (The bar that you used when giving 'doublers' to a mate or the shelias if you were lucky).
No pocket money in our house. We had to get jobs to earn it.
.........
The local street shop (Kempthorns?) where we would buy things like butter, in pats cut from a large slab. All things like flour, tea & sugar were dispensed from bulk containers. Recall getting into trouble from eating the soft bread out of the middle of the 'double' loaf & then closing it up, as I walked the 100yds home. Would have loved a lolly out of the huge jars on the counter.
Our whole yard was converted into garden beds full of such things as silver beet, wombok, corn, squash, and pumpkins much of which Mum would boil the bejesus out of before serving up with roast mutton or corned beef. There was room of course for a large chook run. We rarely got to eat chooks as they were all layers. A few desexed ****erals were fattened & sold to neighbours. Great job killing & dressing them. Not.
There was also a saw horse for cutting up old telephone poles with a cross cut saw. I still have the saw. Another job was to cut wood into chips, second wood & big wood for the kitchen stove. Got lots of scars on my hands as proof of poor axemanship. Hard for a 7 year old to chop with tears in the eyes!
We smoked pith cane pinched from the basket weaving classes. Or sometimes we used dried corn tassels.
No push mower for us. What little grass there was (mostly paspalum) was cut with a reaping hook (still have that too) or a sythe for the older kids.
I used the pump action flyspray to spray paint push bikes that I 'did up' & sold to mates.
Remember the fly paper hanging from the kitchen ceiling? Usually replaced the fly paper when we put up the home made paper XMAS decorations across the room.
Won't bore you any more ... could go on for ever.
ps. Our bath time out of a tub in the kitchen (before we had a bath room extension with chip heater .. luxury!) was .. Girls first, then children, youngest first. I can recall always getting into trouble for the dirt ingrained in the skin between the thumb & first digit. Had to use a hard nail brush to scrub them vigorously with Solvol or Sunlight bar soap.
-- Edited by Cupie on Saturday 12th of October 2013 11:40:46 AM
Bud said
12:29 PM Oct 12, 2013
Dunny man in the 24 door saloon
Dougwe said
12:32 PM Oct 12, 2013
Yep, I must be ancient too, well my daughter reckons I am an old fart.
Here's one, the dunny man walking out with the full dunny can on his head, mmmmm, one day just came to mind, I'll leave the rest to you :))
What about the lady walking down the street selling duck eggs, the milko walking beside the horse and cart rushes off with the bottles while the old clydesdale keeps clip clopping ahead VERY SLOWLY, cracker night, the only take away food I can remember was fish and chips, wait for it.........wrapped in news paper oh and what about those little bottles of warm milk at school, yuk, I can even smell and taste it now, bugga.
Playing cowboys and indians in the back yard, cricket and kick to kick footy in the street, the best thing I reckon was as a kid you could actually walk 10 km to school every day, SAFELY.
"Blue Flash Bulbs" WOW , memories hey, sometimes I can't even remember yesterday so to remember all that ain't too bad I reckon.
Oh, that would have to be first time I ever got a perfect score :))
To quote a great comedian " Thanks for the memories" Garry.
Rip and Rosie said
01:09 PM Oct 12, 2013
Oh yes, going to the corner shop with a couple of pennies or a thripence and looking through the glass case at the lollies in their boxes, all lined up. Making that decision of what to pick and get the best deal for your money. Out we'd come clutching that little while paper bag that Mrs Thomspon had closed by holding the top corners and swinging it around! For your pennies you could get your choice of cobbers, bulletts, musk sticks, chocolate buttons................
.. but not bananas.. I hated them.
-- Edited by Rip and Rosie on Saturday 12th of October 2013 01:10:17 PM
Cloak said
01:21 PM Oct 12, 2013
I remember the dunny man, the ice man and the milko who had a friendly horse. The better half came from a different town and she remembers a horse and wagon with a bloke selling odds and ends and personal items like a mobile $2 shop.
I also recall the men of our suburb having a meeting about these new Italian immigrants, I guess they wanted to establish if they were a threat.
We've come a long way.
tezza said
02:28 PM Oct 12, 2013
Drive ins
johnq said
03:39 PM Oct 12, 2013
- Wooden 5 gallon keg of beer with tap. Wooden box with Spanish cork to keep it cold.
- Meat cut up on blocks which were sawn sections of large trees.
- Smoke cured hemp rope.
- Girls covered in coconut oil browning on the beach (God bless Paula Stafford, she is a Saint).
- Hissing old geese aghast and shocked at Jean Shrimpton's legs, "Oh, I never..."
- The above reminded me that I must be ancient to know the Oxford Dictionary meanings of words pre-PC. As in the Flintstones had a gay old time.
- Rivetted De Havilland 'Car Topper' tinny ('car topper' was a misnomer for the 12' beast).
Rip and Rosie said
03:44 PM Oct 12, 2013
We ate inside and went outside to the toiltet. These days you eat outside and go in for the toilet.
ROWDYRABBIT1 said
03:45 PM Oct 12, 2013
Yep I fall into the ancient category but I can still get myself out of trouble (when something goes wrong with the tug or van) and get my self to a place to fix it properly without sitting down and throwing a tanty ROD
Cloak said
03:52 PM Oct 12, 2013
I remember fly spray was a pump thing, seemed to work better than these pressure pack ones. I wonder if you can still get them?
Gerty Dancer said
04:12 PM Oct 12, 2013
Cloak wrote:
I remember fly spray was a pump thing, seemed to work better than these pressure pack ones. I wonder if you can still get them?
Yeah I remember that too Cloak... but it was DDT! you can get spray bottles nowadays but please don't put DDT in it!!!! I've often wondered if the use of DDT has left any lasting effects on our generation's health as it accumulates in our bodies and stays there. And whether its implicated in the rise of Altzheimers. ????
I tried to have a similar conversation with a 20-something year old recently and they just don't have any idea, its not really as interesting as the latest pop-star scandal.
I must be really really ancient!
pambaz said
04:49 PM Oct 12, 2013
Remember most of those things and what a wonderful life it was. Very uncomplicated, well mannered people, close families and time for friends who would just "pop in".
We had a family reunion just the other night and my cousins and I were reminiscing of all the "ghastly" things we did compared to what the children of today are allowed to do. It hit us with great clarity after a few reds that we are now "the oldies" and what we used to think of our parents and GParents (they were absolute dinosaurs). Of course us baby boomers are so much younger ( in our eyes). Had many laughs and didn't get home until 1.30am.
Sadly I don't think our Grandchildren will have those beautiful memories, though I will say, our sons always say they had the BEST childhood.
Pam
jules47 said
04:53 PM Oct 12, 2013
Crikey - well I must be even more ancient than I thought - I remember all of these things - as well as wash day, mum boiling up the copper and using the pot stick to swish the clothes around in it - HEY - I did my washing yesterday - what did I use - a 20lt bucket of water, eucalyptus wool wash, and my trusty paint stirrer to swish the clothes around!!!!!!!!
johnq said
04:59 PM Oct 12, 2013
Gerty Dancer wrote:
Cloak wrote:
I remember fly spray was a pump thing, seemed to work better than these pressure pack ones. I wonder if you can still get them?
Yeah I remember that too Cloak... but it was DDT! you can get spray bottles nowadays but please don't put DDT in it!!!! I've often wondered if the use of DDT has left any lasting effects on our generation's health as it accumulates in our bodies and stays there. And whether its implicated in the rise of Altzheimers. ????
I tried to have a similar conversation with a 20-something year old recently and they just don't have any idea, its not really as interesting as the latest pop-star scandal.
I must be really really ancient!
I think you will find that the list of active ingredients for the old Mortein Plus in the screw top can for filling the pump sprays was: Pyrethrins and Piperonyl Butoxide.
BTW, there are still nasties off the shelf. Baygon, or anything with the carbamate Propoxur in it sends my blood pressure through the roof. My wife once mistakenly bought and used a small amount as as a residual spray when I was away with work. She was quite surprised by the sudden reaction I had on my return: BP up, sweats, confused, anxious and couldn't breathe. She said she only treated along the sliding door to the bedroom. I am not an asthmatic and have no other allergies to my knowledge. Talking with my mother, she had experienced similar effects with nose bleeds as well and we traced it to the same chemical.
hako said
05:23 PM Oct 12, 2013
We had the 'rabbito' selling skinned rabbits and the clothes prop man with long saplings for holding the clothes line up. Also door to door salesmen aplenty. Shanghais, Daisy airguns that also shot potato slugs and bunger guns that could put a marble through a paling fence. Blowing up letter boxes was good fun too. The Police sargeant had size 12 boots....I well remember that.
Nelly said
05:27 PM Oct 12, 2013
I am ancient too!! I remember going to the corner shop and buying biscuits and having them weighed out and then put into a paper bag. Also the fly catchers that hung from the roof with that sticky stuff on it. I bought some at the Rocks earlier this year - hubby turned his nose up at them needless to say they are still in the box. happy camping
Bud said
05:29 PM Oct 12, 2013
Dragster pushbikes, scooters, ball bearing billy carts.
Hako you are right . The only thing worse was if the coppers took you home you knew your Dad was gunna give a bigger kick up the bum.
2foot6 said
05:44 PM Oct 12, 2013
I remember the 24 door saloon being involved in an accident not far from my school ,soon after the driver had to do a stock take and then clean up. If that happened today you would have the Fire brigade,ambulance,EPA,State rivers and Water supply,Police and Forensics,Polution Control Authority the City Council attending. BOY,WOULD YOU BE IN DEEP SH!T.
GaryKelly said
05:49 PM Oct 12, 2013
Yep, I remember all those things everyone has mentioned so far. But no one has mentioned the clothes prop man with his horse and cart. Remember clothes props? They were used to prop up the clothes line that stretched from one side of the yard to the other. I also remember the ice chest as well as the ice man with his tongs who brought the big block of ice all the way into the house. Ink wells in school desks? Bungers and tom thumbs? Writing pads with a sheet of blotting paper? Sherbet with a licorice straw? Pink musk sticks? Astor and Stromberg Carlson radios. 78rpm records. Kraft cheddar wrapped in foil. Butler's DC3s. And so it goes on...
jules47 said
06:26 PM Oct 12, 2013
Gosh this brings back memories - the local grocer used to deliver - and he happened to be my cousin - he would take it into the kitchen, even if no one was home, either make himself a cuppa or have a glass of water. One day, he turned the kitchen tap on, got a bit of an electric shock (brass tap) - that day our house caught fire!!!!!!!
My brother was an apprentice baker - used to bring us fresh bread from the left over dough - shaped into elephants etc., brown and white mixed together - bread has never tasted as good!!!!
The wood fired copper in the laundry. First the clothes, then a bath for the older sister, then the older brother, then poor little Johnny. Wonder i did't end up with girl germs.
I MUST BE 'POSITIVELY ANCIENT"......
Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite '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 'home,'' I explained. !
'Mum 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 lad 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'd figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school... 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 10.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...
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, seven days a week.
He had to get up at 6 every morning.
Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost 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 my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old lemonade 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?
Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.
Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom
1. Sweet cigarettes
2. Coffee shops with juke boxes
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4. Party lines on the telephone
5. Newsreels before the movie
6. 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 2 channels [if you were fortunate])
7. Peashooters
8. 33 rpm records
9. 45 RPM records
10. Hi-fis
11. Metal ice trays with levers
12. Blue flashbulb
13. Cork popguns
14. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient!
I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Don't forget to pass this along!
Especially to all your really OLD friends....I just did!
(PS. I used a large type face so you could read it easily)
Pete
I,m not gunna quote your post...but geez ...how could I forget any of those things on the last list...like gettin a black eye from the cork gun....n lots of others too.
But here is one that I will add....kerosene refrigerators!!!.
The one about the ice tray with the lever brought that one back ....n how it was my job every monday night ...regardless of what was on or happening....to remove tank ...extinguish the flame ...refill the tank ...light it again ...and put the tank back in ...and adjust flame so it was burning cleanly with not a trace of smoke. OOHH ...that memory will never leave me ....I absolutely bloody hated it!!!!!....and there were TWO fridges.........!!!!!!
So I must be "ancient" too.......I was 61 last birthday...is that "ancient" ......??
Cheers Keith
Welcome WollyandPete and ST391GQ
Have fun in our playground.
Geez,I remember everyone of those too, and I thought that I was still young!
I remember when I lived near the city, the man with the horse and cart selling 'rabbits' cleaned and ready to go.
the same with the ice cream cart, they shook a hand held bell, today's mob drive multi coloured vans and play 'Greensleeves' or the like.
We had a bread box and you actually cut your bread to your own liking, came in only 4 varieties.
Suburban movie theatres occupied pride of place in every suburb and if you didn't book for friday and Saturday night, you sat at home and listened to the wireless, Saturday afternoon was a kids fest where every kid worth their salt was there in force, no alcohol, just softies, ice cream and the mandatory Box of 'Jaffas' to roll down the aisles.
...today those same sites are occupied by a 'Woollies, Coles, Macca's, KFC, Pizza Hut, etc.,etc. 
Soft drinks were in glass bottles and you got a penny to threepence for returning them.
Lawmowers were push jobs and suburban blocks less than 1/4 acre were rare (my job to mow the bloody thing every Saturday morning to earn my right to the afternoon flicks.
I actually drove a car, what the hell is automatic???
and on it goes.....
-- Edited by Wizardofoz on Saturday 12th of October 2013 07:42:17 AM
Allow me to add:
15. Bread delivered by horse and cart.
16. green grocer with his truck doing home deliveries as the lady of house came out to make her purchases.
17. Milk delivered via milkman direct from urn into your milk billy.
18. the Watkins man doing his door to door sales
Some may even remember the old ice chest. Had that one at the farm when we stayed there.
And I don't call myself ancient yet, heck I am just 28!
Yep ... I must be ancient (only 72) I can remember them all.
Can't help myself .. so here's a list of things that I scribbled down as I read the previous posts .. A few repeats.
- Walton's man .. sort of hire purchase/lay by would come to the house with the latest catelogue and our paper based payment record. I brought my first air rifle from him.
- Clothes Prop man with horse & cart (I used to undercut him with props that I cut in the bush & transported home on my trusty push bike)
- Horse & carts plodding unattended along the road delivering .. Bread, Milk, Ice, Clothes line Props. Sometimes fish/seafood covered with ice & wet corn bags. The bread & milk carts were a piece of art but the others were usually just large wheeled spring carts tied together with wire.
.........
I worked with the Ice man. Only the boss had tongs. We used squares of hessian to protect the hands.
Also helped the baker bake & deliver the bread from large cane baskets. Once again we used the hessian squares to protect the hands from the hot bread tins as they came out of the oven. XMAS was great when the more affluent people would bring in hams to be wrapped in bread dough & baked in the wood fired oven. I can still smell them.
Also did a milk run, delivering bulk milk (no bottles) into the people's milk jugs. I balanced a two gallon can and 1/2 & 1 pint measures on the trusty bike handlebars. The milko would leave a 5 gallon can at strategic spots under a tree or such & I would leave the payment pennies under the can as I finished the area. Never got stolen.
Then there was my daily paper selling & Saturday delivery run. Along with 7 other paper boys used to sell around 100 papers in about 5 minutes as 3,000 workers charged out of the railway workshops gate at knock off time. Right hand fully extended in front to gather the 4 pennies (I think) for each paper & a bundle of 50 or 60 papers on the left hip that were pulled out by the workers as they ran past. It was a rare thing to be 'short' when counting up the cash.Then delivered around 80 papers loaded onto the push bike on Saturday afternoons. A wheat bag carrier was fitted into handle bars and another straddled the top bar. (The bar that you used when giving 'doublers' to a mate or the shelias if you were lucky).
No pocket money in our house. We had to get jobs to earn it.
.........
The local street shop (Kempthorns?) where we would buy things like butter, in pats cut from a large slab. All things like flour, tea & sugar were dispensed from bulk containers. Recall getting into trouble from eating the soft bread out of the middle of the 'double' loaf & then closing it up, as I walked the 100yds home. Would have loved a lolly out of the huge jars on the counter.
Our whole yard was converted into garden beds full of such things as silver beet, wombok, corn, squash, and pumpkins much of which Mum would boil the bejesus out of before serving up with roast mutton or corned beef. There was room of course for a large chook run. We rarely got to eat chooks as they were all layers. A few desexed ****erals were fattened & sold to neighbours. Great job killing & dressing them. Not.
There was also a saw horse for cutting up old telephone poles with a cross cut saw. I still have the saw. Another job was to cut wood into chips, second wood & big wood for the kitchen stove. Got lots of scars on my hands as proof of poor axemanship. Hard for a 7 year old to chop with tears in the eyes!
We smoked pith cane pinched from the basket weaving classes. Or sometimes we used dried corn tassels.
No push mower for us. What little grass there was (mostly paspalum) was cut with a reaping hook (still have that too) or a sythe for the older kids.
I used the pump action flyspray to spray paint push bikes that I 'did up' & sold to mates.
Remember the fly paper hanging from the kitchen ceiling? Usually replaced the fly paper when we put up the home made paper XMAS decorations across the room.
Won't bore you any more ... could go on for ever.
ps. Our bath time out of a tub in the kitchen (before we had a bath room extension with chip heater .. luxury!) was .. Girls first, then children, youngest first. I can recall always getting into trouble for the dirt ingrained in the skin between the thumb & first digit. Had to use a hard nail brush to scrub them vigorously with Solvol or Sunlight bar soap.
-- Edited by Cupie on Saturday 12th of October 2013 11:40:46 AM
Dunny man in the 24 door saloon
Oh yes, going to the corner shop with a couple of pennies or a thripence and looking through the glass case at the lollies in their boxes, all lined up. Making that decision of what to pick and get the best deal for your money. Out we'd come clutching that little while paper bag that Mrs Thomspon had closed by holding the top corners and swinging it around!
For your pennies you could get your choice of cobbers, bulletts, musk sticks, chocolate buttons................
.. but not bananas.. I hated them.
-- Edited by Rip and Rosie on Saturday 12th of October 2013 01:10:17 PM
I also recall the men of our suburb having a meeting about these new Italian immigrants, I guess they wanted to establish if they were a threat.
We've come a long way.
- Wooden 5 gallon keg of beer with tap. Wooden box with Spanish cork to keep it cold.
- Meat cut up on blocks which were sawn sections of large trees.
- Smoke cured hemp rope.
- Girls covered in coconut oil browning on the beach (God bless Paula Stafford, she is a Saint).
- Hissing old geese aghast and shocked at Jean Shrimpton's legs, "Oh, I never..."
http://tinyurl.com/The-Shrimp
and a video of same for the discriminating gentlemen on GN (back before political correctness, when 'discriminating' implied good taste),
http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3411458.htm
- The above reminded me that I must be ancient to know the Oxford Dictionary meanings of words pre-PC. As in the Flintstones had a gay old time.
- Rivetted De Havilland 'Car Topper' tinny ('car topper' was a misnomer for the 12' beast).
Yep I fall into the ancient category but I can still get myself out of trouble (when something goes wrong with the tug or van) and get my self to a place to fix it properly without sitting down and throwing a tanty ROD
Yeah I remember that too Cloak... but it was DDT! you can get spray bottles nowadays but please don't put DDT in it!!!! I've often wondered if the use of DDT has left any lasting effects on our generation's health as it accumulates in our bodies and stays there. And whether its implicated in the rise of Altzheimers. ????
I tried to have a similar conversation with a 20-something year old recently and they just don't have any idea, its not really as interesting as the latest pop-star scandal.
I must be really really ancient!
We had a family reunion just the other night and my cousins and I were reminiscing of all the "ghastly" things we did compared to what the children of today are allowed to do. It hit us with great clarity after a few reds that we are now "the oldies" and what we used to think of our parents and GParents (they were absolute dinosaurs). Of course us baby boomers are so much younger ( in our eyes). Had many laughs and didn't get home until 1.30am.
Sadly I don't think our Grandchildren will have those beautiful memories, though I will say, our sons always say they had the BEST childhood.
Pam
I think you will find that the list of active ingredients for the old Mortein Plus in the screw top can for filling the pump sprays was: Pyrethrins and Piperonyl Butoxide.
BTW, there are still nasties off the shelf. Baygon, or anything with the carbamate Propoxur in it sends my blood pressure through the roof. My wife once mistakenly bought and used a small amount as as a residual spray when I was away with work. She was quite surprised by the sudden reaction I had on my return: BP up, sweats, confused, anxious and couldn't breathe. She said she only treated along the sliding door to the bedroom. I am not an asthmatic and have no other allergies to my knowledge. Talking with my mother, she had experienced similar effects with nose bleeds as well and we traced it to the same chemical.
Dragster pushbikes, scooters, ball bearing billy carts.
Hako you are right . The only thing worse was if the coppers took you home you knew your Dad was gunna give a bigger kick up the bum.
I remember the 24 door saloon being involved in an accident not far from my school ,soon after the driver had to do a stock take and then clean up. If that happened today you would have the Fire brigade,ambulance,EPA,State rivers and Water supply,Police and Forensics,Polution Control Authority the City Council attending. BOY,WOULD YOU BE IN DEEP SH!T.
My brother was an apprentice baker - used to bring us fresh bread from the left over dough - shaped into elephants etc., brown and white mixed together - bread has never tasted as good!!!!
Julie's washing......
Johnw
Gary,you forgot the COBBERS (mates)