Older Than Dirt

'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, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, 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 5. It was, of course, black and white, I was 13 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. We didn't have a car until I was 4. It was an old black Dodge. 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 6AM 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. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them 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. Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? MEMORIES from a friend : My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and 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 do you remember?Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.Ignition switches on the dashboard.Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.Real ice boxes.Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.Older Than Dirt Quiz : Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom. 1 Blackjack chewing gum2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water3. Candy cigarettes4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes6 . Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers7. Party lines8. Newsreels before the movie9. P.F. Flyers10. Butch wax11. 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) 12. Peashooters13. Howdy Doody14. 45 RPM records15. S& H greenstamps16 Hi-fi's17. Metal ice trays with lever18. Mimeograph paper19 Blue flashbulb20. Packards21. Roller skate keys22. Cork popguns23. Drive-ins24. Studebakers25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still youngIf you remembered 6-10 = You are getting olderIf you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Compliments via e-mail from S. Bennett

Have another example to contribute, please do!

This is your neighborhood. This is your town. This is North Beach.

Buy Locally

Bank of America has issued the following alert:

"Store Closings & Gift Cards"

I wanted to give a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankruptcy Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)

Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide

Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January

Cache will close all stores

Talbots closing down specialty stores

J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)

Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)

GAP closing 85 storesFootlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January

Wickes Furniture closing down

Levitz closing down remaining stores

Bombay closing remaining stores

Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January

Whitehall closing all stores

Piercing Pagoda closing all stores

Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.

Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )

Macys to close 9 stores after January

Linens and Things closing all stores

Movie Galley Closing all stores

Pep Boys Closing 33 stores

Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores

JC Penney closing a number of stores after January

Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.

Wilson Leather closing down all stores

Sharper Image closing down all stores

K B Toys closing 356 stores

Loews to close down some stores

Dillard's to close some stores.

So what better reason is there to buy locally ?

It is good for the Town. It is good for the Neighborhood stores. It is good for North Beach