Are you this old?

[Doorman63]

Well, me being high school class of '91, I'm old enough to remember life before cellphones and the internet.

Same graduating class
Same state
Same memories

we thought gas was expensive when it went over $1 per gallon!

 

[Dftodd]

I not only remember all these things, but have had plenty of personal experience will all but coal and home delivery of beer. There was a time when we went to a drive-in movie ALMOST once a week; that is if I'd been able to pick up enough discarded bottles along the highway that week, to pay for it. I never saw a TV at all before I was 11 or 12, and we got our first one when I was 12 or 13. There were 3 stations available, but someone had to go outside and turn the antenna to change stations.

In my area, a beer home delivery buisiness would make a killing. I live in a dry County. Gotta go to the next County over to buy booze. 20 minute drive one way for me. But some areas are closer to an hour drive one way.

Heck, a tractor trailer could set up in an vacant parking lot in town and I bet he would be empty within an hour.

 

[Dftodd]

I grew up on my grand parents farm. Learned at a young age that you never had an ailment when you were staying at her house. Her remedy for anything from a common cold to appendicitis was Black Draught, affectionately known as "liver medicine". I never figured out what it had to do with the liver. Just the fact that you knew it was in the medicine cabinet was enough to cure anything that was wrong with you.

Boy does your statement about ailments bring back memories of staying at my great grandmother as a kid.

She was 5'0" tall. Maybe weighed 100lbs. Full blooded Irish. Mean as the dickens. And raised 5 boys during the depression as a widow.

She was a fan of iodine for cuts and scrapes. And had a tonic she would mix up that would gag a rhino if you had any ailment.

You learned really fast that you didn't let grandma know you were sick.

 

[Dftodd]

Two long and one short ring for us, if I remember right (and I wouldn't bet on that). Funny how we remember certain things from our early days. My mother was on the phone with someone when the guy down the road came on and asked her to hang up because he had an emergency call to make. She hung up, but said she got to wondering if someone was hurt and she might be able to help, so she picked up the phone again. That neighbor was telling a friend about his new calf that was born during the night. Mother said she'd never hang up for him again.

One long ring for gramp and grams place.

2 short for ours.

"what the heck is wrong with the ringer" was our reaction when someone was trying to reach the hunting camp above us

We would always forget about the hunting camp being on our party line. They might get a phone call once every 3 years

Although it worked out for the caller. They would get both parties on the line at once, so they could tell them/ us to not answer the phone. They were gonna call right back to talk to the hunting camp.

 

[AchingBack]

Soda pop was 5 cents. Dispensed from a giant ice chest where the bottles hung in slots. The opener was on the front of the chest.

 

[AchingBack]

One long ring for gramp and grams place.

2 short for ours.

"what the heck is wrong with the ringer" was our reaction when someone was trying to reach the hunting camp above us

We would always forget about the hunting camp being on our party line. They might get a phone call once every 3 years

Although it worked out for the caller. They would get both parties on the line at once, so they could tell them/ us to not answer the phone. They were gonna call right back to talk to the hunting camp.

At my grandparents farm outside of Portland, Indiana, they had an old crank wall phone. To call them, you cranked two longs and one short. Circa 1950.

 

[Dftodd]

Soda pop was 5 cents. Dispensed from a giant ice chest where the bottles hung in slots. The opener was on the front of the chest.

They actually still had one of those machines in the laundromat as of around 10 years ago. Machine was a staple in that buisiness, and the owner would have the machine refurbished on occasion. This was in a small town in Vermont. I remember getting sodas out of it as a kid.

Surprised me when my wife and I stopped in there while up visiting and saw the machine still there in use.

 

[Dftodd]

At my grandparents farm outside of Portland, Indiana, they had an old crank wall phone. To call them, you cranked two longs and one short. Circa 1950.

Grandparents didn't have the crank phone. They had the old rotary phone though.

That thing took some patience to use. It never failed. I used to get halfway through dialing a number, and someone would interrupt me and I would lose track of which number I was on.

 

[spitter]

Church key to open beer and spout for oil can. I still carry a emery board in my emergency roadside kit to clean my points that I haven't had for 40 years.

 

[oosik]

My grandparents ( fathers side ) lived on the farm in NW WA state. I can remember when my grandmother gave up her ice box. Grandpa had gone out and bought her a "new fangled" refrigerator. I was four or five years old.

It was made in America - GE, I think - and it was his way of celebrating the end of WW2. 1946 or 1947. Grandma wasn't too sure of this new thing - at first.