Are you happy your childhood took place before technology?

I think so. We engaged in creative play. And most of that time we were playing outdoors. We skated, some rode their bikes, we raced our turtles up the street, played with hula hoops and jumped double dutch, or even regular jumprope.
 

I think a lot of the wonderful childhood memories are more nostalgia rather than fact. There's an idea that technology somehow corrupts us. But, even back in the 1950s, we did have the wheel. None of us lived in caves, wore animal skin clothes, fed off berries and hunted mammoths. In the 50s, we drove cars and watched TV, etc. We were quite happy to partake of what technology offered.
 
You can bet your booths! When I was a little guy I used to hunt with my single shot 22 and no one ever dreamed of reporting to the police. I used to trap and skin those little creatures. We played with BB guns and made slingshots and played "cowboys and Indians." Now, you use the word "Indians" and society wants to kill you. What happened to freedom? You tell me!

I used to drive a Ford tractor when I was 12 years old and really enjoyed it. No, I didn't have to go and take "Driver's Education" courses and I sure didn't have to get an official driver's license.

We would go to the garden, fill our pockets with carrots, peas and cucumbers and spend the evening walk around a section of farmland. For you city slickers, that was 4 miles or almost 7 km. We laughed, we joked and told stories and no one called it "child abuse."

Sure we got technology but the heat is increasing, the flames are rising and there's gonna be changes; whether anyone wants it or not!
 

I loved the days I grew up in. Having real friends and not people you communicated with on line. Fathers worked and Mothers raised their kids. Living in the City with many friends living on the same block. Those truly were the good old days
 
Somewhat. Glad to understand what is necessary and what is not. Have a real appreciation of AC. Glad I can drive a stick shift if I should ever need to. Like my ingrained work ethic.
 
Forwarding this gem: (the orange lines to the left should be deleted)
Darn, I'm older than dirt!!
Someone asked the other day,,,,,,,,,,,,,
'What was your favorite 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 'at home,' I explained!
'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work,we sat down together at the dining room table, & 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 guy 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.

Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood, if I figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled 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 11:00 p.m., after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6:00 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people ...

I never had a telephone in my room.
Our only phone was on a party line.
Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.


Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was & so was bread.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers -- my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5 AM every morning .

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies! There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most 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. Don't blame me if they bust their gut laughing.


Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola 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
:
Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
Ignition switches on the dashboard
.
Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards
.
Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner
.
Using hand signals for cars without turn signals
.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember, NOT the ones you were told about !

Ratings at the bottom.


1. Candy cigarettes

2. Coffee shops with table side juke boxes
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles

4. Party lines on the telephones
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. (Only 3 channels! If you had a TV!)
7. Pea-shooters

8. Howdy Doody
9. 45 RPM records
10. 78 rpm records

11. Hi-fi records 33 1/3 rpm
12. Metal ice trays with lever

13. Blue flashbulb
14. Cork popguns
15. Studebakers
16. 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 11-16
= You're older than dirt! THAT'S ME!
I might be older than dirt, 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
 
We had very little with regards to toys. We did have a badminton net and 4 racquets so all the family could join in. When the little boy next door went out with his family, he always left his tricycle in the yard, and I used to get to ride it up and down our footpath then took it back, so he never knew I had ridden it.
 
I didn't. I bought my first computer in 1979. Cost a fortune. But I knew where my future led.

But as far as Social Media goes - hell yes. I don't know how I would have navigated it, or coped.
 


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