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Friday, March 3, 2017

It Was My Life . . .

I can identify totally with this piece . . .
Found this gem in "my files" this morning . . .
This was a piece someone emailed to me, not my personal writing . . .
Sorry I cannot give proper credit to the author.

I experienced most of the mentions . . . I was 21 when I had my first pizza.
My children remember having to be asked to be excused from the table, after eating.
Glass bottles of milk being delivered to the house is a vivid memory.

Thought you would enjoy . . .

First a bit of color and green which will be happening before we know it . . .
My March self is looking forward . . .

Happy weekend my friends . . .
Love ~
Lynne





Remember Slow Food?

Someone 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."

"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"

"It was a place called 'at Home,' I explained!"

"Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and 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.

But 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, never wore Levis, never set foot on a golf course, never traveled out of the country or had a credit card.

In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.

My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer.

I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow)

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 11.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at midnight, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.

I was 19 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had.

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was 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 our home. But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers--my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6 AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day.

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 blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

13 comments:

Vicki @ lifeinmyemptynest said...

Pretty flowers! Pizza used to be such a treat. I remember going with my family on Friday nights and it was a big deal. And, you are right - I still remember how good it was.

eileeninmd said...

Hello, pretty flowers and colors. I enjoyed this post. I remember having milk and eggs delivered. Hubby and I prefer our home cooked meals and when we do eat out it is not at a fast food place. Enjoy your day! Happy weekend to you!

This N That said...

What a wonderful piece..Would love to "share" it...More like STEAL...It says it all..Your flowers are pretty..won't be long now..Have a happy weekend....xxoo

Sarah Huizenga said...

I do rememberer when we got our first McDonald's in town. We had a Burger King already though.

Ivy, Phyllis and Me! said...

Good Evening Lynne,
Do you know, it isn't until we start thinking about our childhood that we realise just how much life has changed.
We never ever had fast food, like you, all food was eaten at home. I remember when I was 9 years old, my father returned from a visit to Canada (part of his job) and he returned home with the ingredients for the most amazing sandwich.... you'll never believe what we children got excited about.... a chicken, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise sandwich. We had never had so much filling in a sandwich and we loved it, but it was only for special occasions because the ingredients would have been too expensive for daily consumption.
I too, had to ask permission to leave the table and also like you, I had to eat what was on my plate. There was no choice. I remember once I was given celery as part of a salad and I hated the flavour.... did I eat it, oh yes, but it took hours.
Until quite recently, my mother had a pint of milk delivered to her door, she would also have eggs delivered. We always knew when the milkman would be delivering his milk as we heard his cart trundling down the road, with the sound of the milk bottles clinking in the back of the cart.
I'm sure your friends have lots of other stories to share. For myself, I loved reading about your memories as it sparked some of my own.
Have a lovely weekend.
Best Wishes as always.
Daphne

Bonnie said...

Lynne, Your email sent me to the laptop to find the post you sent me and the way my brain functions I thought to browse postings. I am so glad I did. I loved reading this. I was in the 7th grade when I tasted my first pizza. And yes it was amazing. Though there was a restaurant in town that served pizza on Friday night, there was not a "pizza place" until many years after I left the small town I called home. Your post brought back wonderful memories of a time past. Thanks! Hugs....

Kim said...

I love it...I remember a lot of those things. We had milk delivered and also potato chips and pretzels! I did eat pizza from a very young age though. It was a staple! ;)

A Joyful Cottage said...

Oh, yes. I can totally relate to this. :)

Tanna said...

Oh, my goodness! YES. At some point, I do remember getting Charlie's potato chips delivered as well as the milk. They were SUCH a treat!! My favorite part of these memories was the reminder of the National Anthem playing before the TV stations went off the air... and the snow that followed. I had forgotten about that! The first time I remember eating "out" was at Burger King. Oh, my goodness! That burger was so good! Ha! There were five of us kids and we always raised and put up our vegetables... had chickens, pigs, cows, and rabbits for our meat. It was VERY slow food if you count that process. Ha! Thank you for this fun walk down memory lane. blessings and hugs ~ tanna

Optimistic Existentialist said...

Such lovely photos...spring shall be here soon. 21 when you had your first pizza?? Wow...I start to have withdrawals when going a week without one ;)

I wish you a wonderful weekend :)

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

I really enjoyed reading this post! I can relate to some of it. We did not eat "fast food" very often at all. There was a McDonalds in the closest town but those were very rare treats to eat there. We also had a party line, so our phone had a different ring when it was for us, as opposed to the neighbours'. -Jenn

Melanie said...

I loved this post! I could relate to a lot of it. We thought it was a big deal to go to McDonalds once in awhile. Or, going to 31 Flavors for an ice cream cone was a huge deal. I remember my dad freaking out because the price of a single cone had gone up to 32 cents. ;-) I wanted to comment on your first post about the bookstore, but there was nowhere to comment on that post. I was wondering if you had read the book, Footnotes from the World's Great Bookstores? If not, you must get it! :-)

Jeanie said...

I don't know which I love most -- the wonderful story (yes, that's my life, too) or the fabulous photos that so remind me of spring! Thanks, Lynne!