I'm so old I remember... (Illinois, license, house, phone)

[Montana Griz]

Originally Posted by mco65

I don't remember ever NOT having a phone but I do remember when our telephone number was only 5 digits.

When I was a kid, my Dad had "203" as his license plate number......it was also our Address And it was our Phone Number....yea, in the 1930's in the far northern midwest. All you had to do was fill out a Request Form at the County Court House, and the fee.............$1.00!

[Cunucu Beach]

We didn't have a telephone until the early 1940's. It was a party line and our first telephone number (in the city of Fort Worth) was 5 digits. Later it went to 6 digits and finally 7 digits (two letters and five numbers.)

[Lucky Lady123]

Originally Posted by temazepam

I remember movie theaters had ushers.

I also remember when all motel rooms had real keys instead of those newfangled key cards.

I remember movie theaters had ushers too because my dad was one! I remember him coming home from his f/t job and then changing into his white shirt,black bowtie and pants with a white jacket and head out to the theater.

[Cunucu Beach]

I remember locks that were opened with skeleton keys. Last house I lived in--a hundred year old farm house--had a front door that locked with a skeleton key.

[AksarbeN]

Because we lived in the country when I was young there was livestock everywhere which was good, however livestock attracted flies and flies were bad. We could sit outside on the front porch and enjoy the weather but there were always the sticky fly strips hanging down from the porch roof that would catch flies that wanted a place to land. What ugly things they were (sticky fly strips). I haven't seen them in years now.

[Sunnysee]

I'm so old that I remember when the majority of homes still had black and white TVs and most moms didn't work. We actually would make note of the friends we had that had working-moms. We'd say "their mom works."

I remember it not being unusual for a burger joint in Texas to have a screened, front door and Grape Nehi was a popular, bottled soda.

I remember "Rundberg Lane" for the trauma it caused everyone! Oh yeah, there was a dead body found on that lane. It was probably the lead story on the 10'o clock evening news in Austin. It was the talk of the town, and our parents made sure the doors were all locked. Murders and dead bodies were that rare in the early sixties.

[Bayarea4]

I remember being a latchkey kid before there was a word for it and not knowing anyone else whose parents were divorced.

[greatblueheron]

The movie houses were quite elegant....good one, temazapam and CB. Ours had a lovely red velvet curtain!

In NC prior mid-50s though, this was part of the scene:
African-Americans sat in the movie house balcony, white folks below.
Separate water fountains. Very painful part of history.

Originally Posted by Cunucu Beach

Good one, temazepm. I had forgotten about movie theater ushers. Some of those old movie theaters looked like palaces on the inside. I was always awed by the velvet curtains, too.

[greatblueheron]

My grandmother's solutions: she would rub Vicks Vapor Rub on my chest when I had a cold, then cover it with a soft cloth. That was strong, the menthol smell.

When I had a horrible chigger bite, swollen/red/itching, she used an uncooked piece of bacon, salted it heavily, then rubbed it over the bite. Wow, that felt good, it really "scratched" that itch!

Aching back? HEET, a liquid capsaisin and had one of those applicators with a small soft ball on the end.

Campho-phenique? Anyone use this?? Similar to mercurachrome.

[qlty]

My father"s 1938 Dodge had the radio antenna under the running board on the driver's side,it consisted of 2 parallel metal rods approx. 30 inches long,it was war time and there was a black A sticker on the wind shield that indicated the lowest priority for buying gas,yet he had a 90 pound tool box and had no other way to get it to work.