Interesting facts about 1% of you.

stretch5881 said:
The 1%ers have met people born in the middle 1800s to the ones being born now. That's a lot of people, a lot of years and a lot of stories.
I have a milk box on the front porch that the mail lady puts deliveries into if we are not at home.
Great post kburra.
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My grandfather, on my mother's side, was born in 1865 and lived until 1960. We shared the family home with him so I remember him well all the way back to my early childhood. My grandmother died in 1948 when I was 15.
 
What I thoroughly enjoyed were the storytelling from the people in my family and entourage, speaking of history. To this day, history is a subject I love.

I was at the end of the spectrum. Baby boomer of the 60s. I was the last child of my parents. Knowing full well (twas repeated and nauseatum) that if my brother born in 1959 had lived, I'd never be here. Nice!

Papa was overjoyed to have me, I stayed alive and he took me under his care. Turned me into a tomboy, but we loved each other dearly.

Parents were born 1917 and 1918. They were married in 1939 in one of the last private ceremony. They've lived through the Influenza Pandemic, so did my paternal grandparents and maternal grandparents. My paternal grandmother was the one who outlived most of her children and died a fortnight away from her 100th birthday. Of a broken heart.

She'd been hit by a taxi cab around her 65th birthday. She had a full silver hip and forearm reconstructed. She was tough. My maternal grandparents 1894 and 1893, delayed their wedding by two years due to the Titanic sinking.

The latter were specialist on Monarchy and all the information on the royals from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth II. Fascinating... Polio, only a friend of Mother had it from the people I knew growing up.

Papa and Maternal grandfather were influencers and teachers of cars, tools, carpentry and floorplan designs. I could go on and on. It was a time for me until the 1970s were I've learned so much.

In conclusion, I'd say very respectfully, be nice to your elders, they're a fountain of information, experience and history, young ones these days will never learn in schools.

Hubby (1958) and I lived in a new era, where so much advances took place. Our children, got to know of the new, but we've told them about the past. They cherished the memories.

One couple I'd loved to have the chance to meet were my maternal on my grandfather's side, great-grandparents Thomas and Maggy. They lost children to the Spanish Flu. They were the last couple in my family's Genealogy to farm their own land.

Where you still had deliveries by horse and buggy. Had a pond lake full of catfish (Basa). Orchards full of Apples, cider they made was the best in town. Thomas built more than 200 houses after the 1900 fire. Almost three quarters still stand today.

I owe Grams Maggy my interior decorating skills to her, Thomas built them, she created the interiors, plus they had a dépanneur corner shop, with so much goods, equal to some Co-op shops these days. They were avant-garde...

Congratulations to all the ones here who are in that 1%, you're simply amazing!
 
1944 Edition here: I remember the telephone "party line" , milk delivery, return home when the street lights come on, and my parents' fear of polio. No worries about being kidnapped, accidents, or gangs/drugs. Their worst fear was the chained barking dog in the neighbourhood.
 
BC Flash said:
1944 Edition here: I remember the telephone "party line" , milk delivery, return home when the street lights come on, and my parents' fear of polio. No worries about being kidnapped, accidents, or gangs/drugs. Their worst fear was the chained barking dog in the neighbourhood.
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There was a whole string of kidnappings where I grew up in the 50s which of course meant going straight home after school and no playing outside at all for at least a while, none of this "it was so fun being outside all the time when I was a kid".
 
We lived in the country until I was 12 so no kidnappings, riots, flash mobs, muggings or anything else. Actually, I don't remember any crime of any kind. If there had been it might have been cattle rustling.

Later we lived in a mid-size city and I do remember how much fun it was playing under street lights but our group of neighborhood kids could play until bedtime with no worry. There might have been neighbors tired of hearing us screaming and laughing but if so I don't remember any complaints.
 
officerripley said:
There was a whole string of kidnappings where I grew up in the 50s which of course meant going straight home after school and no playing outside at all for at least a while, none of this "it was so fun being outside all the time when I was a kid".
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yes we were never indoors unless it was raining.. which tbf it did do a lot in Scotland, that's what makes it so green and beautiful.... but on any dry day we were out all day.. as much to escape the violence and be out of their way..as they wanted us out of the house..
 
Born in 1934, I now qualify as a geezer. I was 19 when we got our first B&W TV. The phone was hard wired to a box on the wall. It did not have a dial, you picked it up and told the operator the number that you wanted. My Grandmothers number was 581J. Her next door neighbor
was retired from the Navy. He was a veteran of the Spanish American war. I still have some gas ration stamps that were my father's. I also have the bill of sale for the brand new Chevy that he bought in 1937 for $700. My mother never learned to drive.
 
Manatee said:
Born in 1934, I now qualify as a geezer. I was 19 when we got our first B&W TV. The phone was hard wired to a box on the wall. It did not have a dial, you picked it up and told the operator the number that you wanted. My Grandmothers number was 581J. Her next door neighbor
was retired from the Navy. He was a veteran of the Spanish American war. I still have some gas ration stamps that were my father's. I also have the bill of sale for the brand new Chevy that he bought in 1937 for $700. My mother never learned to drive.
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:) Our phone number in Anchorage was 24.
 
In the 1950s if you were male and could pass a physical, you would be drafted. It was only a matter of when. I was called in 1957, the Korean war had ended. When I got out of the Navy it was in San Diego. I and a shipmate drove east, There were no Interstate highways then. I had a a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage by time Viet Nam came along. We bought our first house in 1961. It was waterfront on a canal that led to the Great South bay and then to the Atlantic. It cost us $14,000.
 
Manatee said:
In the 1950s if you were male and could pass a physical, you would be drafted. It was only a matter of when. I was called in 1957, the Korean war had ended. When I got out of the Navy it was in San Diego. I and a shipmate drove east, There were no Interstate highways then. I had a a wife, 2 kids and a mortgage by time Viet Nam came along. We bought our first house in 1961. It was waterfront on a canal that led to the Great South bay and then to the Atlantic. It cost us $14,000.
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:} Ours cost $13,500, a home on 2 1/2 acres.
 
I am not a one percenter I was born in 1951. I have many fellow Vietnam veterans that I know, and they are continually looking more like crap all the time. They are dyeing all the time, and the VA group therapy group keeps getting smaller all the time also.

I wonder for my age what my percent rate is? Could it be twenty-five percent?
 
I was born in 1933, and I still have our family's ration books from WWII. We got our first TV on the last day of 1945. As a 1%ter, I could relate a host of things that so many of you probably never heard of.

Someone told me recently that a young man asked him what D-Day meant. He nearly fainted at that one.
 
I was born in 1963 and I still get milk delivered, by the online
delivery service.
I remember a lot of the things you speak of kburra because I love history and I chat to older folk, love hearing them recounting tales of the bygone days.
 
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remember having to carry these to the shop for re-charging to keep the radio talking !! - I was never never happy about that job imagined it spilling all over my legs!!
 
We were also the last of the "Mohicans - extended families" - I was thinkin on them yesterday late arvo havin a beer on the front porch. Mother was one of 11 kids and married during end bits of WWII. Bombed sites opposite our house which abutted a pub and everynight the male drinkers would stagger out stand on our step and have a pee. My mother expressed her disgust daily!

Our street was full of cousins and friends - always full of kids from dawn to dusk - way after the street lights came on. I lived in Liverpool Uk and wandered all over the city and outskirts unmolested all my growning years - no never met the Beatles - I'd left before they formed; and three of them lived in the leafy outer suburbs - I was definitely inner city ; not inner inner city but nevertheless inner city. We all knew the boundaries!!

Later some cousins left altogether for the next rural county and a better life ; we followed and others also - that was the last of the extended family. Those left behind wailed and cried and cursed but the die had been caste and the nuclear family was born!!
 
Lewkat said:
I was born in 1933, and I still have our family's ration books from WWII. We got our first TV on the last day of 1945. As a 1%ter, I could relate a host of things that so many of you probably never heard of.

Someone told me recently that a young man asked him what D-Day meant. He nearly fainted at that one.
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:) I think the young man may have meant, What does the 'D' in D Day stand for? I was always told it doesn't stand for anything, it's just D Day, which made no sense to me. But acronyms are much used in the military.
 
Yay, I am one of the 1%ers! As an 8 year old boy in Germany (1944) I remember air raids and the acompanying, terrifying sound of sirens, I remember playing with my siblings in the woods as shrapnel from the local flak hissed through the bushes next to us.

It was also a time when my village made sure all children behaved. It was nothing for a neighbour to give us an "Ohrfeige" (slap in the face) if we did something wrong. And my mother would not protest because that's what neighbours did!

Every home had a rod, after all "spare the rod and spoil the child!" So did every classroom. Teachers had the right and the duty to strike your hand if you misbehaved slightly, or to humiliate you, if your offense was more egregious, by tanning your behind!

To this day there is no resentment on my part, it was "normal" behaviour, approved of by everyone. My daughter is horrified at the thought that anyone would strike a child, and I am glad that times have changed in that regard.

I also remember child labour during Hitler's reign! I was eight when I worked in a factory, using a machine to punch grommets into belts. No idea what they were used for.

I also remember the whole school being conscripted to kill Kartoffelkaefer (Potato Beetles? Colorado Beetles?) in our farmers' fields. Everybody was told that the Allies had dropped them to starve us out!

I have no idea how much schooling we really got during this time! I know it wasn't much because quite often we were also herded into a neighbouring valley because of the air raids on our town!

After the war, most of us boys loved to listen to AFN (American Forces Network) Stuttgart or RIAS Berlin (Rundfunk Im Amerikanischen Sektor). Loved American music and everything American! Former enemies or not, they were our heroes.

I will always remember American trucks rolling through our hometown, destined for the American Zone farther East, throwing candies and chewing gum to us children!

What's not to love, especially after the contemptuous treatment we got from the French occupiers! So to our American members, thank your fathers, posthumously most likely, for being so kind and forgiving to people who had only fought them recently. They were singlehandedly responsible for an admiration that lasted until 2016!
 
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Old Salt said:
Yay, I am one of the 1%ers! As an 8 year old boy in Germany (1944) I remember air raids and the acompanying, terrifying sound of sirens, I remember playing with my siblings in the woods as shrapnel from the local flak hissed through the bushes next to us.

It was also a time when my village made sure all children behaved. It was nothing for a neighbour to give us an "Ohrfeige" (slap in the face) if we did something wrong. And my mother would not protest because that's what neighbours did!

Every home had a rod, after all "spare the rod and spoil the child!" So did every classroom. Teachers had the right and the duty to strike your hand if you misbehaved slightly, or to humiliate you, if your offense was more egregious, by tanning your behind!

To this day there is no resentment on my part, it was "normal" behaviour, approved of by everyone. My daughter is horrified at the thought that anyone would strike a child, and I am glad that times have changed in that regard.

After the war, most of us boys loved to listen to AFN (American Forces Network) Stuttgart. Loved American music and everything American! Former enemies or not, they were our heroes.

I will always remember American trucks rolling through our hometown, destined for the American Zone farther West, throwing candies and chewing gum to us children!

What's not to love, especially after the contemptuous treatment we got from the French occupiers! So to our American members, thank your fathers, posthumously most likely, for being so kind and forgiving to people who had only fought them recently. They were singlehandedly responsible for an admiration that lasted until 2016!
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:) Thank you, Old Salt. My father served. I am very proud of him, and of his service.
 
Another thing just popped into my mind. This time it's a rather pleasant memory. My mother sent me daily for fresh milk from a dairy that was actually just a collection place where farmers dropped off their milk. Nobody had heard of homogenized or pasteurized in those days, so you got raw milk! And on my way home I always drank some of the milk, getting all the cream that had floated to the top! Nothing beats the taste of fresh cream, straight from the farm. This was in the mid-forties!
 
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