A young kid asked the other day – ‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up,’ I informed him, ‘All the food was slow.’
‘Come on, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was at a place called ‘home, ‘I explained! ‘Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, & if I didn’t like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.’
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.
Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
My parents never drove me to school. I either walked or rode my one-speed bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds.
We didn’t have a television in our house when I was little, we listened to a big radio in the living room. On Sundays, some guy would read the funnies from the newspaper to us as we followed along using our copy of the Sunday paper.
When we finally got a TV, it was, of course, black and white, and the stations went off the air at 11 PM, after playing the national anthem and some poem about God. The stations came back on the air at about 6 AM and there were usually a locally produced news and talk shows on, featuring local personalities.
Most telephones were on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.
Pizzas were not delivered to your home… But milk was & so was bread.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers — I delivered newspapers, six days a week. It was no fun when it rained, but it gave me spending money.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies! There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don’t surprised if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?
