I'm so old I remember... (letter, penny, testing, tank)

[wp169]

I'm so old I remember mailing a Christmas gift from NY to NJ by USPS didn't cost more than the gift inside the package!

[Seagrape Grove]

Originally Posted by wp169

I'm so old I remember mailing a Christmas gift from NY to NJ by USPS didn't cost more than the gift inside the package!

Oh, yes, those were the days, weren't they? I could mail a box full of gifts to my sister for less than $2.00.

[Seagrape Grove]

Originally Posted by wp169

I'm old enough to remember the silver tinsel on a Christmas tree.

I loved that final touch of silver icicles all over the tree. No one does that anymore. I don't know if icicles are even sold today.

[Seagrape Grove]

Originally Posted by pathrunner

You guys are lucky! My 100 yr old father tells some great stories about his childhood. They had an outhouse, they ate from the garden (lived on a farm), they had a milk cow, my grandfather was a "Tevye" milkman with an ox and cart, and there was a sluice box (how many people nowadays know what a "sluice box" is?!) that came all the way from the spring to my grandmother's kitchen window and into the sink. It was the 1920's.

When I traveled to the Middle East in the late 1980's I got to experience some of what you both wrote, Steve and Seagrape. A "man" for every different little thing who came right to your door. Ice blocks in the fridge. Cooking dishes and leaving them out overnight (full of spices) without refrigeration. Real gypsies with their horse-drawn carriages on the same boulevard as Mercedes Benzes. Very interesting.

AFIK Steve and I are the oldest ones here on CD. I was born in 1935; Steve is a few years older than me.


Oh my, the stories your grandfather can tell. Someone should write the all down to pass down to the younger generations in your family.

[pathrunner]

Yes, we're planning to do that soon. It's my father! I met my grandfather a few times but he was from Mass/Conn so I didn't grow up knowing him. Those people endured so much we have no idea. They would be astounded at today's conveniences.

What generation are you two considered? Not really "Greatest Generation" and not Boomer, so....?

[ditchoc]

I remember the first TV at home. The first I saw was Auther Godfrey playing a ukulele.

A rotary dial phone had its own table in the hallway foyer.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.

Bugs Bunny and The Flintstones were prime time show's.

Wringer washing machines.

Cars didn't have seat belts.

After school Western's on TV like Cheyenne, Sugar Foot, Maverick, Broken Arrow, Bat Masterson, Bronco Lane.

When McDonalds signs were advertising less than a million sold.

When as a child you could roam the local neighborhoods and woods all day playing without worrying about being abducted.

[wp169]

Originally Posted by Seagrape Grove

I loved that final touch of silver icicles all over the tree. No one does that anymore. I don't know if icicles are even sold today.

I still have unused tinsel in my attic from years ago, my mom used to stay up late after the family went to bed and put each strand of tinsel on the tree one by one.

[Gerania]

Originally Posted by wp169

I'm old enough to remember the silver tinsel on a Christmas tree.

The good kind that would cause sparks when you dragged it across the model railroad tracks. Woo hoo! We also got to burn ourselves on bubble lights.

[SFX]

I remember when all the top astronomers all knew the sun was made mostly of iron

[Dave_n_Tenn]

I'm so old, that in college they were teaching global cooling.