Friday, May 5, 2006

A Friday Night's Amusement

I am too tired to think clearly enough to write something thoughtful or inspiring.  But I am itching to do something.  So I am challenging you to check the <AGE BAROMETER>.  It's easy, just add up the number of things from the list below that you remember.  (Not that you heard of, that you remember.)  I'll supply the key to the barometer at the end, and even reveal to you my own measure.

1. Blackjack chewing gum
2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water
3. Candy cigarettes
4. Soda pop machines that dispensed bottles
5. Coffee shops with table side jukeboxes
6. Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers
7. Party lines
8. Newsreels before the movie
9. P.F. Flyers
10. Butch wax
11. Telephone numbers with a word prefix (Olive - 6933)
12. Peashooters
13. Howdy Doody
14. 45 RPM records
15. S&H Green Stamps
16. Hi-fi's
17. Metal ice trays with levers
18. Mimeograph paper
19. Blue flashbulbs
20. Beanie and Cecil
21. Roller skate keys
22. Cork popguns
23. Drive-ins
24. Studebakers
25. Wash tub wringers

 

Got your total items remembered?  Okay, here's the key:

If you remembered 0-5 You're still young.

If you remembered 6-10 You are getting older.

If you remembered 11-15 Don't tell your age.

If you remembered 16-25 You're older than dirt!

Me?  Well, I shouldn't tell my age.  I had plastic soda candies and pretend cigarette candy when I was a child.  Bought Cokes in glass bottles out of machines.  Drank 'em and took the bottles to the grocery store to turn in for a refund.  (Even put bags of salted peanuts down in many of those cokes.  Yum!)  Don't know why they don't still give you the little table top juke boxes.  I  loved flipping the pages and selecting songs.  Waiting for "mine" to come over the speakers next.  I had a party line until they did away with party lines entirely in my area.  Our rate stayed locked in at that party line rate, too.  Bell Telephone thought that it wasn't our fault they weren't providing that service any more.  So we were the only ones on a three party line for years, until we moved about 8 years ago.  P.F. Flyers where good wearing, washing, playing, jumping shoes.  But you could run faster than the wind itself when they were on your feet!  The first telephone number I can recall memorizing started with the prefix, Evergreen.  Remember 45's, heck, I still have almost 300 of them!  Still in their original paper covers. Some of the very best of the 70's for the most part....but some go back much farther.  Only one with a scratch that hangs up is Yo-Yo by the Osmonds.  Now if I could only get them all on cassette or CD?  S&H green stamps, oh yeah.  And Piggly Wiggly.   There was another, too.  I licked a many of them.  My Aunt Billie would save hers up for me to lick for her and reward me with a Hershey bar and a Coke in a bottle.  My first and only hi-fi, me and Mama went to the drug store and bought two albums for when I first got it.  One was Elvis' Flaming Star.  The other we thought was Glen Cambell's greatest hits, but turned out to be only an instrumental, orchestrated version.  Shows how green we were!  I still have a full set of fully functioning metal ice trays with handles.  They are Frigidaire brand.  I thought I was so grownyfied and special when I got to help the church secretary run off papers on the mimeograph machine as a pre teen.  I still remember the wonderful way the pages smelt when you got them.  And sometimes they'd still be slightly damp.  We had the four blue bulbs in a square that would rotate on top of our camera.  They looked real neat once they popped.  I went to drive in theatre as late as my Senior year in High School.  Show Time in Beaumont, TX operated lot longer than most of them did.  Now I think that field is a shooting range.  And that is the fourteen things that I clearly remember from the list.  And that's why I'm not telling anyone I am 45.  ;o) 

Have a wonderful weekend, ya'll!

Barbara

16 comments:

  1. your still young because I remember all of them and I think I'm still kinda young, LOL
    Sandra

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  2. Haha, yep, I've met someone at least as crazy as I am, I love this stuff.  I only have to say one thing in my defense, I already knew I am older than dirt.  haha
    Those were the good ole days. Days when people actually cared about their conduct and didn't look for ways to justify their poor behavior and choices.  Man kind cared about what God thought of them and women were cherished.  What a wonderful trip back in memory lane.  Thank you for the sunshine.
    God bless.  ging

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  3. I remember some but not all because you have different things in the States. Happy Weekend.

    http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeanno43/JeannettesJottings/

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  4. I remember all but three of them so that tells you how old I am. What did they say about dirt?? LOL. Helen

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  5. I remembered 11, so I'm on the "cusp", right?  (You're getting older & don't tell your age.)  

    I LOVED the wax Coke bottles, hated Blackjack but loved Teaberry (remember it?).  I remember getting my fingers stuck to the ice cold metal of the cube trays - does anyone remember the metal drinking glasses?  They'd be soooo cold.

    "I've got a brand new pair of roller skates, you've got a brand new key.  I think we should get together and try them out to see!"

    And what the heck is Butch Wax?

    Big Saturday hugs,
    Gwynn

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  6. WOW! I really am young ... I only remembered 1! Yea, can ya tell I'm only 21?

    Theresa

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  7. MY COMMENT TO BARBARA'S  'AGE BAROMETER' WAS TOO LONG. SO IT IS IN A JOURNAL ENTRY.          SAM

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  8. Yep I remember. Glad I lived in those days. Think one drive-in movie still is in business on week-ends in San Antonio. I remember those telephone numbers because I worked with them in the 50's. I still have some 45's too. Wish I still had the first two Elvis Presley made by Sun records. Got my head scarf caught in a washer wringer one time. Scary! Paula

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  9. I'm older than dirt and don't mind at all. lol
    These 25 things brought back more than a mere 25 awesome memories, memories I'll have for a lifetime.
    Have a great weekend.
    Barb- http://journals.aol.com/barbpinion/HOPEFORTODAY
            http://journals.aol.com/barbpinion/HEYLETSTALK

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  10. I totalled 12, so I can't tell my age either!!  I remember Wax coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water (and loved them!  I mean, who wouldn't?  You could eat the little bottles!), candy cigarettes, bottle dispensing pop machines, party lines (we had one until I was about seven or eight), 45 records (still have a bunch), S & H Green Stamps (still have a comforter that I got with my mom's green stamps when I was 14!!!), hi-fi sets, metal ice trays with levers (I have one I bought at a yard sales --  brought back old memories; and I don't even use ice trays, my frig makes and dispenses ice!), mimeograph paper (I, too, used to love helping the teachers, and I can remember in secretarial classes even having to learn how to use one!), blue flashbulbs, drive-ins (we had a drive-in that was still in operation in the 80s), and wash tub wringers (mom had one and used it until I was about nine or ten, then she got an automatic --  whoo, we'd come up in the world!).  This was really fun!  Thanks!
    Lori

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  11. I remember everyone of those but I'm not older than dirt I'm 54. lol

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  12. Those brought back some memories.     I could not afford a Beatle's album when they first became popular, so I bought an album sung by the Kingston Trio of Beatle's hits.    I can remember what I felt like in those days if I try, and then I am right back to the present.   I enjoyed the sentimental way you wrote about your experiences.    Hope you have a restful weekend.    mark

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  13. I remembered 10 of them, oh no, guess I am getting older!!

    Now get some rest Missy!!!! lol

    Terra

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  14. You are only 45! No wonder I remember them all .....  except the NewsReals, I'm 56!  I thought the PF Flyer was the little red wagon though.  Was it just a Flyer? I refuse to be older than dirt!  Unless of course I can stay the way I feel at 56!!!!  :)

    Good Entry Barbara!!  That was fun!  Hugs!
    Darlene

    http://journals.aol.com/djohn52/AgeingGracefullyWithAllTheHelpIC/

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  15. Congrats on being Guest Ed's Pick!  I just came to visit your journal.  Oh, this entry was fun.  I also, shouldn't tell my age, LOL.  I also had coke bottle candies and candy cigrarettes.  I drank my cokes from the glass bottles and took them to the store for the nickle refund.  We also had a party line when we were a kid.  It was horrible, LOL.  I love those 45s!  And we collected those Green stamps!  Everybody had a hi-fi.  I like those metal ice trays, they work better than the ones, now, LOL.  My first movie was seen on a drive in, it was Jungle Book.  Let's see, what else do I remember from the list.  Milk boxes!  The milkman delivered the milk in the silver milkbox in the backyard by the back porch, LOL!  I remember the rollerskate keys also.  We had these horrible roller skates.  Metal ones.  One size fits all, only you had to adjust them to your size with the key.  They would fall off when you went down hill, LOLOLOL.  And I remember the washtub wringers.  That puts me in the group where I shouldn't tell my age, so I won't tell you that I am 43, LOLOLOL.

    Krissy
    http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink                  

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  16. O.k....I don't even DO this kind of stuff.  Adding comments?  Not me.  But you continue to touch me as I keep reading on in your journal.  Yes, P.F. Flyers!  I still remember what they used to say about them -- "Run faster. Jump higher with P.F. Flyers!"
    I wanted them badly enough that my Father got me a pair, too. When the "baby" is 8 years younger than her closest sibling, she gets lots of new stuff!

    Peace,
    Scout

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So glad you stopped by! Come 'round any time. ~ Barbara

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