I was talking with a friend yesterday and she asked me if I felt a year older now. No, not a whole year older. However, I just came across a file while scrolling through my DropBox and as I reread it, I realized that I, too, am “older than dirt.”
Renee Boomer shared these thoughts about eight years ago. They’re surely worth posting again. I hope they give you youngsters under fifty a smile today, too.
My husband always tells the grandchildren that he is ‘older than dirt’. They find that quite funny. When I was approaching my sixtieth birthday they looked at me and said, “Gamma, now you will be ‘older than dirt’ just like Papa.”
Ha-ha. They will have their turn.
Old-Time Memories
When my Dad was cleaning out my grandmother’s house 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 of these 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.
— Ice boxes and home delivery of ice.
— Galvanized steel bath tubs.
Here’s an official Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about.
Then see your rating at the bottom. 🙂
Candy cigarettes
Coffee shops with table-side juke boxes
Home milk delivery in glass bottles
Telephone party lines
Newsreels before the movie
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 — if you were fortunate!
Peashooters
Howdy Doody
45 RPM records
Hi-fi’s
Metal ice trays with lever
Blue flashbulb
Cork popguns
Studebakers
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 11-15 = You’re older than dirt!
I might be “older than dirt” but those memories are some of the best parts of my life!
Christine's Collection 
I’m bordering on “Don’t tell my age”!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hang in there! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Haha! I’m good. Fear not
LikeLiked by 1 person
I go back to the days when one cereal company introduced “Pink Elephants” cereal (a forerunner of Lucky Charms) and Kraft introduced jars with peanut butter + jelly swirls. That didn’t go over, either.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember 13 so I guess I’m older than dirt. I’m fine with that. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks for your comment. I remember them all — except that we didn’t have Howdy Doody here — so I’m ancient. 🙂
Bob’s Mom often talked about Fiibber Magee’s closet, from the radio series “Fibber Magee & Molly;1935-1959). I wonder how many of my readers will remember that?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember my dad talking about Fibber Magee & Molly. I don’t think I ever saw Howdy Doody but we used a ringer washing machine until I was in my teens. I think I might actually prefer having one today. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wringer washers were okay for socks and sheets, and may not do that much harm to polyesters, but by the time cotton shirts and dresses went through that wringer, they had to be ironed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just know that we didn’t have to repair or replace it every few years.
LikeLike
Definitely older than dirts. The candy cigarettes made me think of wax lips, teeth, and mustaches, Dots—little dots of candy stuck to a long piece of white paper; Lik ‘M-Ade–sugary substance in a small packet. Double Bubble Gum. Jawbreakers. Licorice. I know a lot of that is still available, but how much of it can you get for a penny? And do you get to make your choices from a glassed-in case that was covered with little-kid fingerprints where you told the guy behind the counter what you wanted? And you could get a popsicle for a nickle! Or a fudgesicle, which my husband persists in calling a fudgickal. Or a dreamsical. Yummy 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
And licorice cigars. I remember those jars full of candy you got to pick from.
Can you remember Jim Reeves song, “Penny Candy”?
Penelope Candace is her name and she likes it fine and dandy
but if you want to see her dimples show, just call her Penny Candy..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Vaguely. I’ll have to look it up 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I guess in the age department it helps to be a Brit, for some of these things were known in UK.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sure you have your own list of things. I dimly remember in my childhood a few British TV shows that came over, like Man of the World and The Saint.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How about changing the words to *Catch a Falling Star* to *Catch a Falling Sputnik*. That one sticks with me. Catch a falling sputnick, put it in a matchbox, send it to the USR.
By the time we had a tv, we were watching Boots & Saddles, Wagon Train, Rawhide… and made in Uk, Robin Hood (with Richard Greene) and Ivanhoe with Roger Moore, the man who shortly play The Saint
LikeLiked by 1 person