For Old Guys Only

[Buzzard]

Let's see how old you really are.... I can remember taking my girl out and dancing at the big ball room called the Playmore and do the foxtrot to the big bands of Lionel Hampton, Artie Shaw, Lawrence Welk and Guy Lombardo never really turned me on. Elvis and disco were something way in the future.
buzzard

 

[2door]

Larry,
ya gotta couple of years on me but not by much. I remember big band music on the radio, all day, and my Dad in his Army uniform right after the he came home from Italy. My granddad 'singing along with Mitch', the Ed Sullivan Show, Saturday morning cartoons with Sky King, Captain Midnight, and Howdy Doody. Sunday mornings there was "Indusrty on Parade' and evenings was 'The 20th Century' with Walter Kronkite'.
But I also remember when there was no TV in our house. My aunt had the first one in our family; we were stuck with a huge Philco cabinet style radio, almost as big as our refrigerator, one with the condenser coil on the top, and my grandmother holding the door open for the 'ice man' to haul in several blocks of ice for her 'ice box'. The coal truck delivering coal and dumping it down a wooden shoot attached to the side of the house where it slid down into the 'coal bin' in the basement and my granddad shoveling it into a thing that looked like a giant iron octopus that lived down there. That furnace scared the be-gibbers out of me when he'd 'shake down the clinkers' with a lever that poked out the side of it.

Burning fall leaves in the gutter, watermelon on the back porch in the summer, Christmas when the only Santa in town was at Sears & Robuck. Halloween when we'd stay out and fill several bags with candy that my Mom never worried about going through looking for poison, drugs or razor blades.

I could go on but let's see what some of our old compatriots have to say.

Tom

 

[Buzzard]

You got it all right Tom. That furnace was always something to be ware of especially because you couldn't see the thing making the noise. Shake it down, clean out the burnt coal in buckets carry it up the stairs and dump it in the driveway then go back down and shovel more coal and push it to the back of the fire box, this was called banking.
And no TV ... how the heck did we survive?
buzzard

 

[Greg58]

Buzzard that makes me feel better about turning 54 Monday, here in Ga. All we had for heaters were the propane space heaters in every room that we lit with a match. No vent, didn't need one the house was so drafty plenty of fresh air came in everywhere!

 

[Ilikeabikea]

Ya'll are sure jarring some old memories. The only reason we had a tv was because my Dad was real handy and could fix tv's that rich people didn't want.

We had one natural gas heater in living room. We would get up for school in the mornings and all take our clothes and run to the the stove to get dressed. The kitchen table real close to the oven and when Mom would open the oven door to get the biscuits out the heat felt wonderful.

In the summer I would get up early and me and my friends would get on our bicycles (without helmets) and ride all over the country. Mom and Dad had no idea where we were. We always had to be home for lunch and supper.

My grandparents always had a huge garden. I remember sitting out on the front porch with my family shelling peas and shucking corn. My Grandad was a master story teller. He kept us all entertained while we worked.

I remember "Singing Along with Mitch" and we never missed Lawrence Welk. I thought those Linen Sisters were pretty hot.

 

[Greg58]

I had a friend up the street that's dad smoked prince albert, kept in the bib pocket. I was always amazed that he could hold the paper with two fingers and his thumb pour in the tabaco and then roll it up without using the other hand, then lick it. It looked just like a regular cigarette. I never mastered that before I quit.

 

[Ilikeabikea]

Ha, that reminded my of Grandad's friend Roy. He could roll a cigarette with one hand to but it looked like a joint. That makes me laugh just thinking about it. If he were to smoking one like that nowadays he would probably get arrested........

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

Wow, I'm not even sure I qualify for this thread any more, I just turned 50 last November!

 

[Greg58]

AARP say's you do Joe.

 

[2door]

AARP say's you do Joe.

If you've started getting those AARP letters in the mail, you're old enough

Just wait for all the corrospondance you'll get from Social Security, and the VA if you're a veteran.

Tom

 

[Allen_Wrench]

You got it all right Tom. That furnace was always something to be ware of especially because you couldn't see the thing making the noise. Shake it down, clean out the burnt coal in buckets carry it up the stairs and dump it in the driveway then go back down and shovel more coal and push it to the back of the fire box, this was called banking.
And no TV ... how the heck did we survive?
buzzard

I always thought we were pretty lucky: we had a TV! (Little teeny B&W job with big honkin' knobs that went *CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK* when you turned 'em.

We didn't have a coal furnace though. We had a wood stove. I remember being outside on a brisk fall day; I was about 13 or 14. I learned I was tall enough to climb onto the roof without a ladder by using the back porch roof and a nearby tree. I was bored that day and happened to possess an unsettling amount of bottle rockets. So I began dropping them lit, top-upwards, down the chimney and watching them shoot back out. I had some big ones and some small ones. One of the big ones didn't come back out, it just went *whumpf* somewhere down inside.
Suddenly - I swear this is true - I began to hear my father's heavy, fast-paced steps on the basement stairs from OUTSIDE ON THE ROOF. I had no idea he'd been stoking the stove. I quickly crab-walked to the other side of the roof to go down the tree as I was hearing the back door slam. (He was out!) I caught a quick glance of him from the side before I ran for the hills. His front was covered in soot. Oops.

I was kinda a dumb kid sometimes.

 

[2door]

Now that made my night.


Okay, I designed and built an electric mouse trap. It was a box with a tunnel made from a toilet paper roll mounted on a plywood base. It had two copper strips that the mouse had to step on going through the tunnel to get to the cheese bait in the box. I used an old lamp cord, soldered the wires to the brass strips and plugged it into a wall socket.

Yes, it worked, but, the mouse caught on fire, so did the box and the curtains that were hanging over the trap. It blew the fuse (this was before circuit breakers) and my dad went to see what the problem was and found the fire and put it out before it burned the house down...I was grounded and banned from making anymore 'electrical devices' .

Tom

 

[fasteddy]

Horse chestnuts and a sling shot in the fall. More than one young man went home with a nice red knot on his face as it gently swelled up.

Steve

 

[fasteddy]

Allen Wrench,

That was pure genius or really bad timing. Did you and your Dad have a disussion about fireworks afterward.

Steve.

 

[zatdattyo]

Hardy Har I remember them too! Im gonna make me some too! just cut 1/2 inch strips and measure enough leather to go around the axle hub, then add about 2" more. Mine had 3 holes in it for adjustment room. Then find a blue reflector, Or you can order some of thoes Glass blue dots for hot rod tail lights and have real glass ones. Take a washer, bevel it. Add a flat head screw and nut thru it and clamp or attach your Blue dot to it then add your leather strap and install. Oh **** yea Im glad you brought this up! They used to make the spoke sound too.....when it was real metal and glass.
By crackies lets get on it! But dont break a hip!

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

If you've started getting those AARP letters in the mail, you're old enough

Just wait for all the corrospondance you'll get from Social Security, and the VA if you're a veteran.

Tom

I take all that stuff they send me, put it back in the pre-paid envelope, including the membership cards and send it all right back to them.

 

[Buzzard]

Gosh guys you're making my day.
I can remember the big victory garden we had during the war years.
We planted just about everything you could think of, I remember spending hours with the hoe cleaning out the weeds. Everything was rationed, my Mom and Grandmother worked night and day canning on the old cook stove, putting up the produce cause the bought kind was hard to get.
Dad came home on a furlow one time and I had a birthday coming up, I wanted a bicycle, but there was none to be found everything was gone to the war effort, but he found one he had a friend that ran a Coast to Coast store and he had some hid in the basement. I think they were called black market bikes and he got me one. Boy everybody was jealous cause I was the only kid in town with a new bike.
buzzard

 

[fasteddy]

Tom,
My Uncle used to call that folded B.S.

Steve.

 

[fasteddy]

Buzzard,
I was born in 1943 so the war years are a little fuzzy but I do remember the years right after the war. All the toys were still made of wood and a new one was pretty special since they were in short supply. The first tin one I got was a wind up police car and they always said that they looked at it for a few weeks before they bought it since it was made in Japan.

Like your bike that your Dad bought, my Dad got a brand new car right after the war because he knew someone. Ford Motors in Detroit and Windsor Ont. After Dad was injured in the war he came home to join the family lumber business and they sold pallets and wood for crates to Ford so as a trusted vendor he was in the front of the line.

The 1946 Ford came with one window crank and one inside door handle since there wasn't enough chrome available to supply each car with any more than that. I think it was something like 8 months later that the rest of the handles were available.

Steve.

 

[zatdattyo]

Here we are again fellas, saying goodbuy to one of ours.

Rest in , Robin Gibbs. The Bee Gees and their sound will always be a part of me. Some very very fond memories of those songs that played a part, way back when..

Tom

Yep another one of the pieces gone..... Man it really is here....W'**** live like a man w/ everything to gain. Navigate the moment for tomorrow we'll sail another sea.