Then and now...

[frustratedearthmother]

My dad was adamant that after working in the heat all day he was going to be cool when he got home. But, on the other hand he never bought a color TV until around 1980. His reasoning - this one still works. He only finally gave in when my younger sister said she was embarrassed to have friends/boyfriends over because our family was the ONLY people she knew that still had a black and white. My brother and I had both moved out years before that - we were kinda ticked off that after all the years we had begged for one - they waited until we left to get one for her! That's the benefit of her being the "baby" of the family I guess.

 

[MoonShadows]

Hahahaha....@frustratedearthmother.....I know that phrase very well...."this one still works".

We had TV remote control years before anyone else did.....it was "Jimmy, put on channel 7"...."Jimmy put on channel 4"...."Jimmy, put on....".

Our first color TV was when I was in the 8th grade....I guess about 1969.

Remember the black and white ping-pong game...we thought that was high tech!

 

[Mini Horses]

Do you notice that, regardless of the work & hardship, we are all in some way returning to our "roots"? My best memories are of the farming ways, self-sufficient processes. Dolls were not my request for gifts but, a farm set was....I bought a REAL one as soon as I could buy & find one. It is work. It can be so very rewarding. While there are times I feel I have taken one more than I need, just don't want to be without my farm. I cut back but never "stop".

At my house a lot of stuff "still works".

 

[frustratedearthmother]

good point @Mini Horses

My iPhone 4 still works too, lol. And, the only reason I have that is because I dropped my flip-phone in a can of shellac....

My dryer is 17 years old and my DH was shocked when he was actually able to change out the heating element when it tried to die .

 

[MoonShadows]

Do you notice that, regardless of the work & hardship, we are all in some way returning to our "roots"? My best memories are of the farming ways, self-sufficient processes. Dolls were not my request for gifts but, a farm set was....I bought a REAL one as soon as I could buy & find one. It is work. It can be so very rewarding. While there are times I feel I have taken one more than I need, just don't want to be without my farm. I cut back but never "stop".

At my house a lot of stuff "still works".

A part of me always wanted to stay behind on my grandparents farm down in Virginia when we visited each summer. My father was born there. My mother was born just outside NYC in New Rochelle. My father was stationed on Fort Slocum off of New Rochelle near the end of the war (He was a waist gunner on a B17 during WWII and flew 50 missions over Africa.). He met my mother at Glen Island Casino. It was where they used to have USO get togethers with the Big Bands at the time (Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, etc.). They married. My father wanted to move back to the farm. My mother wanted to stay in New Rochelle. Since jobs were more readily available near NYC, they decided to stay up north...and, the rest, as they say, is history.

(Can't help it; love posting the pics in this thread.)

Dad in his flight jacket

2nd from right, bottom row

Mom

Fort Slocum

Glenn Miller's 1939 opening at the Glen Island Casino!
(Great video!)

 

[MoonShadows]

good point @Mini Horses

My iPhone 4 still works too, lol. And, the only reason I have that is because I dropped my flip-phone in a can of shellac....

My dryer is 17 years old and my DH was shocked when he was actually able to change out the heating element when it tried to die .

LOL...I still use a flip phone...and, I replaced the belt that turns the dryer drum a couple of years ago...."it still works". I am always amazed at our "throw away" society.

Hey...do ya remember replacing tubes in the back of the TV?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Love the pics! Your dad was a handsome fella - and mom was quite pretty!

 

[tortoise]

My parents were city kids who moved from Chicago suburbs and started a dairy farm in WI! The farm didn't do well, and they moved "into town" when I was 2. I don't remember it at all, although my older siblings do. My siblings and I are very much do-it-yourselfers!

At a family reunion over my grandmother's memorial service, I commented to my aunt, "My mom can make *anything* out of cardboard!". My aunt replies, "No, my DAD could make anything out of cardboard!" Apples don't far fall from the tree.

 

[baymule]

We didn't have air conditioning. We had an attic fan and I remember sleeping cool at night. It would gather up dust bunnies and spin them around on the floor in the hallway. We ran out of the house in the mornings, came back for lunch, ran back outside and came back for supper.

We slept with windows open and didn't ever think about some one crawling through them while we slept. We also left the house to go to town, leaving the windows open, only worry was that it might rain while we were gone.

We had black and white TV until I was in high school. When I was a kid, the neighbor had a color TV and I thought that peacock NBC logo was the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

TV didn't stay on all night. it cut off sometime after midnight and played the national anthem. TV came back on at 6 AM.

We had atomic bomb drills at school. We filed out to the hallway and sat down with our little backs against the wall while the teachers looked serious and worried. Very somber. We put our head between our knees and clasped our hands over our heads. I guess we were kissing our A$$ goodbye.

Brick streets downtown. Which, by the way, are still there.

We said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school and had a prayer.

toothpaste came in lead tubes. If you squeezed the tube in the middle, the lead cracked and toothpaste gooshed out. The proper way was to squeeze the end of the tube and roll it up as you used the toothpaste. Lead tubes. That's why I'm brain damaged......

 

[sumi]

@MoonShadows I love the old photos! I don't have many myself, but I'll do some digging and see what I can find and post.

We didn't get a colour TV until around 1990 I think. But then TV only made it to S.A. around 1980. Electricity in homes was something my parents had to do without, I'm not sure when it became readily available down there, but it was some time after the more advanced countries.

We had a longish school holiday (about 4 weeks) over December, in our summer and went to stay in my grandparents' house down by the coast, clean across the country from where we lived up North, near the Botswana border. The drive was taken overnight and took about 15 hours or so. My parents back then had a pale green Ford Cortina "station wagon" that I loved and we slept in the back, with the seats down, during the drive. Usually waking around Beaufort West in time to watch the sunrise over the Karoo…

There is a smell in that house that still lingers, even though they converted most of it into a shop some years later. Not an unpleasant smell, but it takes me right back. There was a gas water heater in the bathroom that scared me so when I was a child. No electric heaters then. Saw my first firefly in that house, on a window sill, I still remember it. Playing outside, my mom telling us to stay away from the all-sorts invested pond, going to the beach, catching crabs, my dad somehow managing to get a huge octopus all over his back! I was so scared of those creatures afterwards…