i'm so old i...

[spotted and speckled]

...I was standing in a RECORD store, and a little girl with her mom were standing next to me, and the little girl excitedly shouted out, "Look mom! Paul McCartney was in a band before he was in Wings!!"

That was the moment I knew I was old. I was 17.

[Dreck]

We had an Odyssey videogame system. There were about half a dozen games which all depended upon using static electricity to stick the 'gameboard' on the TV screen.

[abritdownunder]

... was taught computing at school on a Pet and played with my Dragon at home.

[mtnbiker62]

...remember fast forwarding the 8-track tape to hear the song again!

[pengeezer]

......remember when Mr. Goodbar was 10 cents for the same size bar today and
V3 Cola was sold alongside Pepsi,Coke and Royal Crown Cola.

I also remember bubble lights one could put on a christmas tree.


John

[MechanicalAnalogy]

... I played Pong.

Me too! And I had a mullet...until everyone else had one

[85AKbN]

...remember fast forwarding the 8-track tape to hear the song again!

...remember looking forward to the new album on 8-track and a good song gets segmented between tracks. The Horror.

[VertOlive]

I paid $11.00 per credit hour in undergrad tuition.

[Jon Szanto]

... I remember looking in the sofa cushions for loose change, because a gallon of gas was only $0.23.

[Dreck]

When I was a teenager, for $1 I could get a pack of cigarettes AND a pack of gum

[pengeezer]

... I remember looking in the sofa cushions for loose change, because a gallon of gas was only $0.23.

+1...........I can remember as a 10-yr. old seeing a gas sign here in town(during "gas wars" here) when
gas was only $.25/gal.

For some of our younger members,"gas wars" actually referred to a time when gas prices went DOWN
because there was such a glut of gasoline available.


John

[Jon Szanto]

For some of our younger members,"gas wars" actually referred to a time when gas prices went DOWN
because there was such a glut of gasoline available.[/SIZE][/FONT]

Indeed - I can remember driving around to find the gas that was 2 cents less a gallon, as that was a big savings!

I am also so old that it was seeing Ringo on the Ed Sullivan Show that caused me to take up playing drums. The rest is history.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Ch.

I used a TYPEWRITER! First a manual, then electric.

I worked with punch cards. No one had ever heard of roller blades. Arcade games involved you, a gun, and moving targets.

[jar]

I remember coal delivers and ice delivers for ice boxes

And the Lamp Lighter that came around twice a day to light or extinguish the street lamps.

Baltimore in the late 40s and 50s was a great place to grow up. In that time before airconditioning, doors and windows were almost always open during the hot summer months. As the temperatures rose, activities moved into the shade during the day but outside as evening came on.

Except on Saturdays.

Saturday was the day that the steps got washed.



Saturday was a time for iced tea from a sweating pitcher in tall glasses but never until the steps were washed.

The street lamps were gas and there was a lamp lighter who actually came around to tend them. He had a small ladder that was narrow at the top and hooked over the arms of the lamp. He'd climb up and wash the glass and trim the mantle and then light the lamp. We'd follow along for a few blocks and hand him the bucket of water, or run inside and refill it when it was low.

One wonderful thing during those pre-airconditioning days were the screen paintings. People would paint landscapes and cityscapes and seascapes on the screens. During the day they were visible and acted as a privacy feature as well as reflecting light back outside, and when you looked at a house the windows might show flowers or forest or cows in a field, things that were seldom seen in town.



Life moved with the temperatures, in winter coffee helped hold off the bitter cold that was most of the house except when standing on the grate in the floor that let the warmer air rise from downstairs, and in summer iced tea was available all day long.

My grandparents still had a real icebox. When the ice man came around we'd gather around his truck and he'd give us chips of ice, long spears we could suck on forever.

He'd pull a long block of ice to the back of the van then with rapid punches score a line across the block about a foot from the end. One smack and the section broke free. He'd grab it with a pair of tongs and walk up the few steps to the door where Gmom would be waiting. Down the narrow hall he'd go and lift that block of ice into the wooden box that sat atop the 'ice box'.

We had an electric refrigerator with the aluminum trays. It wasn't as neat as what Gmom had.

[velo]

Ye olden days

I'm so old...I remember when kids played outside and being social meant dumping your school stuff, grabbing a snack and then getting outside to meet your friends as soon as possible. Bike riding, playing sports, swimming, building stuff and getting up to all manner of mischief was a daily occurrence. You didn't stay home. Your parents didn't care as long as you were home by dinner time.

[southpaw52]

I'm so old I drove rear wheel big block V-8s

[jar]

When I was growing up I was sent off to a boarding school that sat at the top of the hill in an area that back then was pretty empty. Brooklandville did have a post office but it was unlikely more than two folk were ever in it at the same time. The various homes that sat on the ridge line were mostly older, big, mansions, the kind with driveways that go a half mile or so... way uphill, and the next neighbor was what anyone would concede was "a fair piece away."

Of course we had a big dinner but like all kids, by a couple hours later we were hungry again. Unfortunately we were also not allowed off the campus.

About a mile or so down hill, across the old cattle pasture was Windy Valley Farms.

For a buck you could get a big greasy burger made from real not mystery meat, with real onions, pickles, mayo, ketchup and mustard, a bag of fries made from real hand cut taters and a chocolate milk shake made with real ice cream and milk.

This was horse country, the home of the Hunt Cup and My Lady's Manor and Windy Valley Farms was a hang out for lots of the trainers, jockeys and horse owners as well as the touts that made their livings sharing their wisdom with the masses. The walls were covered with photos of horses, from the harness winners to the thoroughbreds that ran down at Pimlico to the true stars, the steeplechase high jumpers.

Windy Valley Farms was also TOTALLY off limits.

The call of fries and burgers and milk shakes though was more than any mere human made law could restrict or any dormie could resist.

About once a week, not long after the sun went down, one of the boarders would come around and make a little list and take up a collection. Then several of us would start off down the hill, usually one 9th or 10th grader and two or three younger kids (seniors and juniors were lofty and august figures and never ran errands).

It was dark, cold, the wind was always blowing and we all knew that if we got caught we'd be in BIG trouble.

But oh that stuff would taste so good. The buns were wiped in the grease off the grill and the burgers themselves were big and thick and had chopped onions in them, the fries were the best I've ever found anywhere other than the annual carnival and the milkshakes, ... the milkshakes were thick and had lumps of ice cream in them and would fill up even a teenager. The climb back up the hill seemed to take forever and the smell held a promise of what was waiting once you got to the dorm.

Windy Valley Farms is long gone, last time I was by it was now a big shopping and business center, but to this day I can still smell and taste those treats.

[Jon Szanto]

Jar, you are really waxing poetic today, and I find it very enjoyable. Thanks.

[jar]

Jar, you are really waxing poetic today, and I find it very enjoyable. Thanks.

Glad you are enjoying them.

I grew up in the only Christian family in a Jewish neighborhood. I guess I was in middle school before I found out that the lions didn't eat all the other Christians.

A few blocks north of our row house was the "Deli".

Now it was not like what passes throughout most of the country for a deli, this was a true Jewish Deli.

There was the great oak barrel of pickles and you stuck your hand down in the brine squeezing them to pick out the biggest, firmest pickle you could find. On the counter was the aluminum tray of Coddies (cod fish cakes) and saltines and folk helped themselves and snacked on them while browsing the store. I always suspected they were delivered on Mondays and Wednesdays and on Tuesdays and Thursdays they simply turned the uneaten ones over.

The rolls of fly paper hung from the ceiling as the big ceiling fans turned slowly giving the illusion of a breeze but mostly simply mixing the smells and the hot, humid air.

At the farmost rear corner of the Deli was an old wooden table littered with newspapers in Hebrew where older men gathered, some clean shaved, others bearded, all speaking at the same time in a mixture of English and Yiddish. Often in the mornings they would have a plate with a half eaten Bureka sitting in front of them and as their hands slapped the table the small white cups of coffee would dance in the saucers.

The Deli roasted their own beans and you could tell when coffee was being roasted from a block away. The whole neighborhood took on the air of expectancy when the coffee was roasting and people walking on the street raised their heads and sniffed the air, their destination forgotten as their paths converged for that cup of just roasted coffee.

As a kid, I was not allowed coffee, it would stunt my growth, but Mr. Blumberg would always give me a small glass filled with milk with just a touch of coffee added, and would tell me "don't let your parents see that" in a voice that everyone in the deli heard. But as a child, I knew it was "our secret" and I would take my glass to the back and sit at the end of the table trying to be as near invisible as a goy can be at a table filled with adults in a Talmudic Dispute.

Eventually mom and dad would call me and everyone at the table would stop talking and look at me. As I'd gulp down the last of my "coffee" and run to catch up I'd always hear someone at the table say "Such a good boy."

Little did they know.

[Crazyorange]

Wow. More please Jar. Give us a story of your mischief.