# How Old Are You?



## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.

I didn't write this. Found it on the web.

Ratings at the bottom.

1 Blackjack chewing gum

2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water

3. Candy cigarettes

4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles

5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes

6 . Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers

7. Party lines

8. Newsreels before the movie

9. P.F. Flyers

10. Butch wax

11. 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 3 channels) 
12. Peashooters

13. Howdy Doody

14. 45 RPM records

15. S& H greenstamps

16 Hi-fi's

17. Metal ice trays with lever

18. Mimeograph paper

19 Blue flashbulb

20. Packards

21. Roller skate keys

22 .Cork popguns

23. Drive-ins

24. Studebakers - I learned how to drive on one with "stick shift" in WV hills! SKL

25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still young
If you remembered 6-10 = You are getting older 
If you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,
If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt! 
I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.


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## Sawdust2 (Mar 18, 2007)

Been there. Done that Every one of them.

Lee


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## scarpenter002 (Sep 16, 2007)

11.

Oh for the simpler times. I miss them.


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## Bob42 (Jan 9, 2008)

Sadly, I remember them all. But, a lot of it was very good times.


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

THOSE were the days….. I scored 21…....
-JJ


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Nothing to be sad about Bob42…... Consider yourself privileged (and lucky to be able to remember all of them)!
-JJ


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

I remember all those and a bunch you missed.

outdoor toilets
crank phones with an operator and call rings like a long and a short
milk trucks that picked up milk cans from farmers
hand pumps and water buckets
milking cows by hand
harnessing teams of horses in the morning(I still do this)
wash stands with a bucket of water and a wash pan. Community towel included
Baseball hotels; a pitcher on the stand and a catcher under the bed.


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## BigTim (Jan 17, 2008)

JJ must be using an alias. Junior would not remember 21, same as me & I'm *OLD*


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Thos., you've got me beat on all of those….
Tim, My handle has nothing to do with my age…. but I wish it did.
-JJ


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## trifern (Feb 1, 2008)

I remember the day dirt was born.


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## RAH (Oct 14, 2007)

I remember 23 of them.

Do you remember the time before computers and calculators or where they called adding machines back then?


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## Russel (Aug 13, 2007)

I miss the days when I was the young kid. I remember 22, but it's a nice memory.


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## EEngineer (Jul 4, 2008)

I remember most of 'em - missed on newsreels, tub wringers and Studebakers… must be old.

But it beats the hell out of the alternative - dying young!


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## GaryK (Jun 25, 2007)

When I was born there were only 48 states.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

there's a restaurant in London, Ontario that still has the table juke boxes
I grew up in the country so our milk didn't come in glass bottles… 
I still use the metal ice cube tray with the handle. 
We go to Woodstock, Ontario to their Drive-In. Can't beat it!! 
And my kids remember using the wringer washer.

By the way I'm "older than dirt".


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## bhack (Mar 19, 2008)

I remember all 25 plus Thos. 8. Farmed with mules and cut lumber with cross-cut saw.


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## odie (Nov 20, 2007)

All 25 … I'm older than DIRT! They were all very much in style in my youth.


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

I remember when I was a kid I would play "in" our wringer washer. Used to make believe it was a space ship. Can you imagine what Child Services would have to say about that now days?
-JJ


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## woodsmithshop (Sep 10, 2008)

I remember all 25, and a couple of them before they were invented.
although, I am only 21 years, and some months old.


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## dustygirl (Mar 11, 2008)

I guess I must be really really old.(lol) 
I too remember them all and the ones posted by Thos.Angle.


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## Kindlingmaker (Sep 29, 2008)

Remember when we used to balance our check books with a pencil and the math in our heads? ...oh remember cash?


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## MickeyD (Sep 29, 2008)

Old Yeller was my first movie that I went to see at the drive-in and I can still taste the green stamps and my roller skates with their key was my favorite toy.


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## Steelmum (Jul 21, 2007)

BeechPilotBarry, Butcher's Wax is not Butch Wax. Butch Wax is what my brothers got from the Barber shop when they got their very stylish Flat Top. My grandma still had an outhouse, water pump at the kitchen sink, and you had to heat water for a bath, that you put in a galvanized 'tub' brought into the kitchen.
And my age?, Dirt.


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## Bob42 (Jan 9, 2008)

*They were the good old days!!!*

I would love to be back there again and know what I know now… ;-)

and to JJ, today someone would be in jail.


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## mart (Jun 23, 2008)

Oh yeah, older than dirt for me, I got 21. I grew up on one of the farms that had a milk man pick up the milk cans every day and we cut every stick of firewood with a two man crosscut. In fact one time my brother was sick but we needed to buck up some firewood. Being the inventive sort I tied an inner tube to his end and sawed by myself for a while. That worked so well that I tied one on my end end, started it going and stood back and watched it saw. Great labor saver. 

Mart


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## lazyfiremaninTN (Jul 30, 2007)

Ummmmm, I only got 4.


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## JohnGray (Oct 6, 2007)

24 - We didn't have ,not available, bottled milk at our place


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## Tangle (Jul 21, 2007)

By golly, Mart, ya shoulda patented that one!!!


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## lew (Feb 13, 2008)

All of those and then some!

"watching" the radio- NOT TV for these-
The Shadow
Gun Smoke
The Green Hornet
Hop Along Cassidy
Sargent Preston of the Yukon
The Lone Ranger
Bicycle coaster brakes
Frost on the seat when someone forgot to shut the out house door!
Walking to school, in the snow, up hill, both ways (OK maybe not this one)


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## rtb (Mar 26, 2008)

Some of those things were in my teen years. all 25 + many more not mentioned. telephones without dials, (those round things we used before buttons), phone numbers that started with names abd only had three numbers, 5cent sodas and candy bars, church keys, and many other things that we took for granted as being the most modern.


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## HokieMojo (Mar 11, 2008)

6 - Couldn't a zero mean you are really old instead of really young?


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## Padre (Nov 5, 2008)

"Older than dirt!"


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## trucker12349 (Nov 9, 2008)

Guess I'm older then dirt. What would people say if you went back 100 years and told them that in the future they would have to buy water, dirt, air, chopped up trees (mulch), rocks, any many other things? They would probably have you committed


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## Chipncut (Aug 18, 2006)

I used to have to beg my Dad for a dime to go to a movie.

He let me put two dimes out for two quarts of milk, & he let me keep the change the milkman left, *two pennies*.


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## bbqking (Mar 16, 2008)

Older than dirt and not sad about it.


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

The lowest price I remember for the movies was a quarter (but Wednesday night was bargain night - 15 cents. The refreshments were highway robbery…..... 10 cents for a Coke or pop corn. I think most of the candy bars were a dime too.


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## Greg3G (Mar 20, 2007)

Only a few I don't remember. so I guess I don't have to tell my age. I saw a lot of them up at my grandfather's house. We still go to the Drive-in…have one about 30 miles away. Great fun.


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## Karson (May 9, 2006)

All 25 and some of Thomas's, never went to a hotel nor had to harness horses or milk a cow. But, my uncle in town used to plow peoples gardens every spring with his team or horses. And the mushrooms grew on the manure pile outside. We had the first TV in town and the closest station was over 80 miles away in Toronto, Detroit and Buffalo. And one of the first indoor flushing toilets. But I remember the can in the house so you didn't have to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night. A cistern in the basement and a coal furnace. We have a drive-in about 15 miles and they show movies (Double features) of first run shows about 1 week after they hit the theaters.


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## dhg (Mar 27, 2008)

Older than dirt. i new of all of them but used 21. i would have had 23 as we had an outhouse and a pitchure pump at our cottage and had to use oil and colman lanturns in '71. didn't get power until '85. Maybe 3 channels on the b/w tv until cable arrived. Had the post mounted antenna outside. Shoot, the city even plowed the sidewalks in the winter with a little jeep in Escanaba MI. ahh, memories!!!


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## Newton (Jun 29, 2008)

How about getting coal delivered to the house and milk boxes on the porch?


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Hey Don…... Is that stoker…. or lump coal….....?
-JJ


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## Dusty56 (Apr 20, 2008)

If it weren't for flashbacks , I'd have no memory at all !


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## MedicKen (Dec 2, 2008)

Good lord, I didnt think I was THAT OLD. I can remember 21 of the above and I am ONLY 45. But the way I look at it age is only a number and you are only as old as you feel. Today it happens to 90!!


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## jim1953 (Nov 18, 2007)

Me an Jack Benney are same age 39


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## Bureaucrat (May 26, 2008)

Berta:
thanks for explaining the Butch wax. I kind of thought that's what it was. I probably didn't know about it first hand cause my mum cut my hair and it naturally stood up (It has since walked out on me.) Remembered all the rest.


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## GaryK (Jun 25, 2007)

One question missing:

26. Turning on your bright lights with a button on the floor to the left of the pedals in your car.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

I remember the knob missing on the tv meant you changed channels with a pair of pliers.


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## Bureaucrat (May 26, 2008)

Does any one remember potato guns also call spud guns You stuck the muzzle into a potato and it captured a small "pellet" of spud. When you slid the trigger back the air pressure shot the "pellet". I remember having a great deal of fun with this and I remember my mom putting it away for me. It was never seen again.


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## GuyK (Mar 26, 2007)

Happy to say , I remember them all. Karson you brought back fond memories with the mention of TV. My family was the the first in the neighborhood to have TV. Remember every Friday night the men coming to our house to watch the Gillette Friday Night Fights. Also remember Mom cooking on a coal stove in the kitchen. That was the warmest room in the house during the winter.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

the dimmer switch… my kids look at me like I'm crazy when I mention that. 
ah yes… turning channels with pliers. Yup.. done that too.

I remember the coal in the basement and I remember the "last trip to the outhouses" when the indoor bathroom was installed. 
Our phone ring was 1 long and 2 shorts.

And I remember walking across 3 fields and hopping a fence to get to school.


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## Chipncut (Aug 18, 2006)

27. The Choke lever on the dash. No automatic chokes them days.

28. Gas rationing during WWII. The speed limit was 45MPH.


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## fredf (Mar 29, 2008)

My grandfathers phone number was 48-11 (line 48, ring 11) and my best friend's was 48-4. I grew up in Maine, and the Monmouth -Mt Vernon phone company was the next to last to give up the old magneto phones. That was in very late 60's or early 70's the Last system was in Andover, Maine,. home to one of the Telstar stations. Telstar was pre geosynchronous so they had to TRACK the satellite with a giant horn antenna. My mother took me to see the antenna one time. was in a big dome. impressive

The blackjack chewing gum was the only one that I am sure I don't remember, we didn't do movies very often but think I can recall the newsreels. And Thomas, I can remember cranking the cream separator, and my grandfather and his hired hand putting up hay with the hay trolley


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Hey Dick, didn't we have #28 back in the 70's too. But the speed limit was 55 then. Even on the interstate.
-JJ


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## AndyCas (Nov 27, 2008)

14 of them.

Very good years they were..


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Going back to #28 and the gas thing….. wasn't that when you could only buy gas on even numbered days if the last number on your tag was even…... and get gas on odd numbered days if your last number on your tag was an odd number….. Be nice…... the 70's were a kinda blur to me…... 
-JJ


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

#29…... Kick the Can….. anyone remember that?
-JJ


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## teenagewoodworker (Jan 31, 2008)

3 but not 1 and 2


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## rtb (Mar 26, 2008)

how about Kiser'J's, and Nash metros. Best of all was the Hudson Hornet, when it felt like 55 you probably were driving very near 100


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## kolwdwrkr (Jul 27, 2008)




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## unknownwoodworker (Apr 5, 2008)

I don't know why I want be below you when you're not trusting things, but here I am. I got 15 and some are still quite stylish where I live.


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## MsDebbieP (Jan 4, 2007)

what was the game with the rim of a bike tire…. hoop and something and you had to keep it rolling… that was fun


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## CedarFreakCarl (Apr 21, 2007)

Don't forget three speed on the column! And I had a friend once that had an old Mercedes with a four speed on the column.


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

I remember that Carl. I had to hold my dad's coffee until he got it into third….. but I finally got to drive the car too.
-JJ


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## rtb (Mar 26, 2008)

how about ma & pa kettle movies, and newsreels at the movies


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## LeeinEdmonton (Aug 5, 2008)

Yup…. I'm older than dirt as well. Heck during WW11 kids could go to the movies at a theatre in Edmonton. You saw 2 movies with cartoons in between plus an kids amateur hour. First place where I saw the hook used to remove a horrible performance.
As a kid, I loved those glass milk bottles with cardboard cap in the winter. The milk on the steps would start to freeze & would push the cap up about 2 or 3 inches & of course that was all cream. Would trot down the block biting off the cream from the tops of the bottles. Yum, yum.


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

Thanks for sharing Lee.
-JJ


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## Zepe (Dec 17, 2007)

I remember all of the above, plus:
The Katzenjammer Kids
The Dead End Kids
China's Little Devils
Buzz Saws
Girls throwing pieces of paper out the window of the car when they saw a GI hitch hiking with their address on it
Our first telephone number (368). We lived in town when phones came out so we didn't have a crank phone like the country folks did.
Power House Pepper
Our team of horses, Dick and Nellie
Squirting milk at the cat when milking
The watson and Jewel T men.
The mail man delivering mail on a bicycle with a big basket on the fromt
50-50 creamcycle bars
The Tucker ( "You have just been passed by a Tucker at the speed of XX miles per hour")
Burma Shave signs "The bearded devil - Is forced to dwell - In the only place - Where they don't sell - Burma Shave" 
Neighbors getting together to butcher hogs in the fall and also to put up hay (via a team of horses and wagon)
A horse powered derek (sp)
Hay stacks
Horse drawn plows, ditchers and other implements
I also invented an electric toothbrush several years before the hit the market, but thought who would want to pay money to buy a machine to brush their teeth with.
And others….., but then I have the patent on water.
Zepe


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## DannyBoy (Oct 26, 2007)

I got 14 as how many I actually experienced, but I was at least familiar with all of those. I get kidded all the time by ol' timers at church that I shouldn't know the things I know. I've just spent way too much time at antique stores and flea markets. My wife even has to ask me what some old rusted thing is when we go antiquing.

~DB


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## tsmith (Dec 9, 2008)

WOW,
Never thought I would get to that distinction. All 25. Thought I missed one with the newsreels but further reading reminded me.
I guess no one remembers Pomac soda pop, or Old Soldier chocolate milk in a glass bottle, taking a bath in the sink, potato ricer. And I bet meny others from others that are even OLDER THAN DIRT.

Like I tell them. I worked hard to get these gray hairs and years. I better like it.


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## Gofor (Jan 12, 2008)

All 25. However, the first "records" I listened to were 78 rpm and we used a cactus needle in the turntable so as not to wear them out. "45"s came out when I was in grade school. Most cars had running boards (Not the new ones, but most of them on the road). The furnace burned lump coal, and we got indoor plumbing when I was about 6, and one of them new-fangled refrigerators when I was 8. My dad turned the old Ice Box into a storage cupboard.

Hard to believe that during the era of those "25" items, a new 1957 Chevy Bel-Air with all the bells and whistles cost about $3000 and when the first VWs hit town, they were under $1000. But, $3 an hour was also considered a good wage, and most farmers paid about 50 cents an hour for us school kids to help bring in the crops. Some of my favorite books were "Doc Savage. the Man of Bronze", and "The Shadow", "Johnny Dollar", and "The Red Foley Show" were on the radio.

I also remember most of yours Zepe. You have me by a few years but not many!!

Go


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## DocK16 (Mar 18, 2007)

Other things that seem to have disappeared: kids chores, respect, answers including yes sir and yes mam (Lord help me I'm sounding like my grandpa). Black and White TV only, Mel Blanc and cartoons before political correctness: Speedy Gonzales, Boris and Natasha, and of course The Three Stooges

OLD GUYS RULE!


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

I hear you DocK….... I remember when the "Wizard of Oz" was on TV, we'd go to the neighbors house to watch it cause they had a color tv. I'll never forget the first time I watched it and it changed from b&w to color.
-JJ


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## juniorjock (Feb 3, 2008)

We've got the grandsons this weekend, and I just happen to ask them if they'd ever watched "The Three Stooges".......? They said no. And for some reason, I'm glad these boys haven't…....
-JJ


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## DocK16 (Mar 18, 2007)

I can still remember the first color TV I saw. The NBC peacock and the Disney fairy splashing color on the screen with her wand still stick in my mind almost 50 years later.


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## Bedroomchipper (Nov 2, 2008)

I can remember Jimmy Durante on TV, or how about "Cecil The Sea Sick Sea Serpent." The Baker would drive up to our house in an old woody panel truck, raise the side doors to display glass cases full of goodies. Mom taught me about cookies, and Dad taught me about girls on the Jimmy Durante show.


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## oldandtired (Oct 25, 2008)

Well by God I finally qualify for *something.* I can remember all 25 and more! I just finished what will probably be my last workbench and one of my FRIENDS told me to be sure and seal it up on all four sides so I could use it as a coffin when I was finished. Of course that young pup is only 60 yrs. old. What does she know? 
Sure do enjoy this site. Not so pretentious and just chock full of good ideas. Sure would have to agree with 
kolwdwrkr and those rules to live by.


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## toyguy (Nov 23, 2007)

Looks like I'm older than dirt as well.

The color TV post reminds me of the first time I saw color… my Dad bought a colour converter for our TV. What a scam, a piece of glass green on the bottom and blue on top over the picture tube, but they sold a lot of them…...... LOL.


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## miles125 (Jun 8, 2007)

I recall the little painted turtles from Woolworths. Oh…and the different colored little baby chickens we got for Easter. Guess both of those would be considered animal cruelty nowadays..Lol


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## Broda (Oct 7, 2008)

umm… 3
lol


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## doubleg (Nov 16, 2008)

wow i got 14 lol. A little more current, I miss Orange Crush soda, and being able to go to a concert and see three or four bands play for $15 now the same ones are charging $85 per seat. Glad I saw them when I was young, cant afford it now.


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## odie (Nov 20, 2007)




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## woodyoda (Dec 7, 2008)

Guess I'm older than dirt too, I got them all. I remember our first indoors toilet, the ringer washer on the back porch and buying 2 fors candy….that's 2 for a penny ( I got one and I always gave my dog one too). And yep, if I missed the bus, I had to walk 2 miles in the snow to get to school. yoda


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## Zepe (Dec 17, 2007)

Speaking of riding the bus, I remember when my oldest was starting school up in Fairbanks the kids could not ride the bus unless they lived farther than two miles from school or if the temperature was colder than -40 degrees. We have been having a bit of a cold snap here recently where the temperatures are in the teens and the schools are starting two hours late (wimps). I also think they get to ride the bus so long as they live farther than the parking lot.
Zepe


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